panel in one wall, and Arlee stepped beside her within the tiny,
balcony-like enclosure the panel had revealed, one side of which was
a wooden lace-work of fine screening, permitting one to see but not
be seen. Pressing her face against the grill, Arlee found she was
looking down into a long and spacious hall, lined with delicate
columns bearing beautiful, pointed arches, and brilliant with old
gilding and inlay.

This was the colonnade which she had seen forming one side of the
court; it was the hall of banquets, she was told, and connected this
wing of the palace, the _haremlik_, with the _selamlik_, the men's
wing, across the way. Here in old times the lord of the palace gave
his feasts, and this nook had been built for some favorite to view
the revels.

Arlee stared down into the great empty hall with an involuntary
quickening of the breath. How desolate it was, but how beautiful in
its desolation! What strange revels had taken place there to the
notes of wild music, what girls had danced, what voices had shouted,
what moods had been indulged! She thought of the men who had made
merry there ... and then she thought of the women, generations of
women, who had stood where she was standing, pressing their young
faces against the grill, their bright eyes peering, peering down.
She felt their soft little silken ghosts all about her, their
bangles clinking, their perfumes enveloping her sense--lovely little
painted dolls, their mimic passions helpless in their hearts....

Dreaming, she turned and in silence retraced her way after her
hostess, loitering by the window in the anteroom to watch a veiled
girl drawing water at the old well in the center, an old well rich