She was pleased that the approach did not clash with her fantasies.  She mounted a broad staircase, dark but roomy, and, at the command of the concierge, rang a tinkling bell at one of the doorways that faced her.  Dr Porhoet opened in person..

‘Arthur and Mademoiselle are already here,’ he said, as he led her in.

They went through a prim French dining-room, with much woodwork and heavy scarlet hangings, to the library.  This was a large room, but the bookcases that lined the walls, and a large writing-table heaped up with books, much diminished its size.  There were books everywhere.  They were stacked on the floor and piled on every chair.  There was hardly space to move.  Susie gave a cry of delight.

‘Now you mustn’t talk to me.  I want to look at all your books.’

‘You could not please me more,’ said Dr Porhoet, ’but I am afraid they will disappoint you.  They are of many sorts, but I fear there are few that will interest an English young lady.’

He looked about his writing-table till he found a packet of cigarettes.  He gravely offered one to each of his guests.  Susie was enchanted with the strange musty smell of the old books, and she took a first glance at them in general.  For the most part they were in paper bindings, some of them neat enough, but more with broken backs and dingy edges; they were set along the shelves in serried rows, untidily, without method or plan.  There were many older ones also in bindings of calf and pigskin, treasure from half the bookshops in Europe; and there were huge folios like Prussian grenadiers; and tiny Elzevirs, which had been read by patrician ladies in Venice.  Just as Arthur was a different man in the operating theatre, Dr Porhoet was changed among his books.  Though he preserved the amiable serenity which made him always so attractive, he had there a diverting brusqueness of demeanour which contrasted quaintly with his usual calm.

’I was telling these young people, when you came in, of an ancient Koran which I was given in Alexandria by a learned man whom I operated upon for cataract.’  He showed her a beautifully-written Arabic work, with wonderful capitals and headlines in gold.  ’You know that it is almost impossible for an infidel to acquire the holy book, and this is a particularly rare copy, for it was written by Kait Bey, the greatest of the Mameluke Sultans.’

He handled the delicate pages as a lover of flowers would handle rose-leaves.

‘And have you much literature on the occult sciences?’ asked Susie.

Dr Porhoet smiled.

’I venture to think that no private library contains so complete a collection, but I dare not show it to you in the presence of our friend Arthur.  He is too polite to accuse me of foolishness, but his sarcastic smile would betray him.’

Susie went to the shelves to which he vaguely waved, and looked with a peculiar excitement at the mysterious array.  She ran her eyes along the names.  It seemed to her that she was entering upon an unknown region of romance.  She felt like an adventurous princess who rode on her palfrey into a forest of great bare trees and mystic silences, where wan, unearthly shapes pressed upon her way.