Chapter 24

I was, in a way, not altogether unprepared for some such discovery. But the thing that startled me, that took my breath away and held me spellbound, was the incredibly vivid and lifelike appearance of that half-reclining figure. My next conscious thought was of the marmoreal smoothness and pallor of the skin, for the figure was quite nude, except for the shrouding tangle of tawny hair that cascaded in wavering gold down one side of the body. This hair was in no way filleted or bound, yet in the medium through which…