at a run across an ancient courtyard whose outlines were nearly invisible
except where the yellow light of one ancient oil lantern on an iron bracket
showed a part of the palace wall and a steep flight of stone steps, worn
down the middle by centuries of sandals. Everything else was in gloom
and shadow, and only one chink of light betrayed the whereabouts of
a curtained window. The Afridi led her up the stone steps, and paused
at the top to hammer on a carved door with his clenched fist; but the
door moved while his fist was in mid-air, and the merry-eyed maid who
opened it mocked him for a lunatic. Dumb, apparently, in the presence
of woman, he slunk down the steps again, leaving Tess wondering
whether it were not good manners to remove her shoes before entering.
Natives of the country always removed their shoes before entering
her house, and she supposed it would be only decent to reciprocate.

However, the maid took her by the hand and pulled her inside without
further ceremony, not letting go of the hand even to close the door, but
patting it and making much of her, smiling the welcome that they had
no words in common to express. The little outer hall in which they stood
was shut off by curtains six yards high, all smothered in a needlework
of peacocks that generations of patient fingers must have toiled at.
Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet
long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes;
for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning
down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European importations;
and that without incongruity.

The lamps, of which there were dozens, were mostly Russian. Some
of the furniture was Buhl, some French. There were hangings that
looked like loot from the Pekin Summer Palace, and tapestry from
Gobelin. In a place of honor on a side wall was an ikon, framed in gold,