Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/62

 velvet, on which still another suggestively reptilious design was worked in beryl green, the emblem in this case being that of a diamond-back rattler engaged in biting its own tail. On the table behind which the woman sat as motionless as an Egyptian idol stood a green jade vase in which smoldered three Japanese punk-sticks. Beside it, on a bronze tripod embossed with snakes, stood a glass globe, iridescent in the shadowy and uncertain light of the curtained room. Facing it was a human skull on a black plush pad embroidered with the signs of the Zodiac, while behind the skull stood a planchette, a pack of green-backed playing-cards, a lacquer tray of what appeared to be "mad-stones," and an astronomical chart of the heavens, framed and under glass.

The newcomer's pensive gaze, however, was directed more toward the woman than toward her significantly arrayed accessories.

As this woman's figure was backed by the dusky curtains of a materializing cabinet, and her heavily massed hair was itself as dark as these curtains, the contrasting pallor of her face, well whitened with rice-powder, produced an impression that approached the uncanny.