Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/39

 some painter with an admiration for Luca Signorelli and every muscle was thrown into high relief. The whole effect was one of a plump and writhing unrest. But the proportions of the room were noble and threw the frescoes into obscurity. Unfortunately, Mrs. Weatherby had added fresh horrors. The furniture was an odd mixture of periods and styles, all of them the frankest imitations. On the chairs she had placed indiscriminately pillows of satin in the most brilliant shades of Veronese green, Tyrian purple and mustard yellow, all trimmed with black and gold lace—pillows such as are born only of the Latin imagination. She explained that it was always the general effect at which she drove rather than the detail, and that therefore the authenticity of furniture was of very little importance to her. "The effect," she murmured, "on entering a room . . . the effect." She allowed the sentence to finish itself in a vague, fluttering gesture, also (thought Mr. Winnery) the result of much practice. A grey parrot squawked on a perch in one corner and two tiny Pomeranians ran out screeching and yapping as the party entered.

But when the shutters were thrown open the room became magnificent, for one discovered that the whole valley lay spread out beneath the windows. The same golden light that filtered through into the deep garden poured in through the great arched openings that made one side of the room. The sun had begun to slip down below the crests of the mountain at the head of the valley and all the African dust suspended in the hot air had caught and reflected its rays in a blaze of extravagant color.