Of her own accord she had
stepped into the cage!
On the way to Rosek's rooms, she disguised from Fiorsen her headache
and depression. He was in one of his boy-out-of-school moods, elated by
applause, mimicking her old master, the idolatries of his worshippers,
Rosek, the girl dancer's upturned expectant lips. And he slipped his arm
round Gyp in the cab, crushing her against him and sniffing at her cheek
as if she had been a flower.
Rosek had the first floor of an old-time mansion in Russell Square. The
smell of incense or some kindred perfume was at once about one; and, on
the walls of the dark hall, electric light burned, in jars of alabaster
picked up in the East. The whole place was in fact a sanctum of the
collector's spirit. Its owner had a passion for black--the walls,
divans, picture-frames, even some of the tilings were black, with
glimmerings of gold, ivory, and moonlight. On a round black table there
stood a golden bowl filled with moonlight-coloured velvety "palm" and
"honesty"; from a black wall gleamed out the ivory mask of a faun's
face; from a dark niche the little silver figure of a dancing girl. It
was beautiful, but deathly. And Gyp, though excited always by anything
new, keenly alive to every sort of beauty, felt a longing for air and
sunlight. It was a relief to get close to one of the black-curtained
windows, and see the westering sun shower warmth and light on the trees
of the Square gardens.
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