The apartment was superb.  Even De L’Omelette pronounced it bien comme il faut.  It was not its length nor its breadth, —­ but its height —­ ah, that was appalling! —­ There was no ceiling —­ certainly none-but a dense whirling mass of fiery-colored clouds.  His Grace’s brain reeled as he glanced upward.  From above, hung a chain of an unknown blood-red metal —­ its upper end lost, like the city of Boston, parmi les nues.  From its nether extremity swung a large cresset.  The Duc knew it to be a ruby; but from it there poured a light so intense, so still, so terrible, Persia never worshipped such —­ Gheber never imagined such —­ Mussulman never dreamed of such when, drugged with opium, he has tottered to a bed of poppies, his back to the flowers, and his face to the God Apollo.  The Duc muttered a slight oath, decidedly approbatory.

The corners of the room were rounded into niches.  Three of these were filled with statues of gigantic proportions.  Their beauty was Grecian, their deformity Egyptian, their tout ensemble French.  In the fourth niche the statue was veiled; it was not colossal.  But then there was a taper ankle, a sandalled foot.  De L’Omelette pressed his hand upon his heart, closed his eyes, raised them, and caught his Satanic Majesty —­ in a blush.

But the paintings! —­ Kupris!  Astarte!  Astoreth! —­ a thousand and the same!  And Rafaelle has beheld them!  Yes, Rafaelle has been here, for did he not paint the —–? and was he not consequently damned?  The paintings —­ the paintings!  O luxury!  O love! —­ who, gazing on those forbidden beauties, shall have eyes for the dainty devices of the golden frames that besprinkled, like stars, the hyacinth and the porphyry walls?

But the Duc’s heart is fainting within him.  He is not, however, as you suppose, dizzy with magnificence, nor drunk with the ecstatic breath of those innumerable censers.  C’est vrai que de toutes ces choses il a pense beaucoup —­ mais!  The Duc De L’Omelette is terror-stricken; for, through the lurid vista which a single uncurtained window is affording, lo! gleams the most ghastly of all fires!

Le pauvre Duc!  He could not help imagining that the glorious, the voluptuous, the never-dying melodies which pervaded that hall, as they passed filtered and transmuted through the alchemy of the enchanted window-panes, were the wailings and the howlings of the hopeless and the damned!  And there, too! —­ there! —­ upon the ottoman! —­ who could he be? —­ he, the petitmaitre —­ no, the Deity —­ who sat as if carved in marble, et qui sourit, with his pale countenance, si amerement?

Mais il faut agir —­ that is to say, a Frenchman never faints outright.  Besides, his Grace hated a scene —­ De L’Omelette is himself again.  There were some foils upon a table —­ some points also.  The Duc s’echapper.  He measures two points, and, with a grace inimitable, offers his Majesty the choice.  Horreur! his Majesty does not fence!