Hermia Suydam by Gertrude Atherton — Read

Had Hermia been a bride on her wedding-night she could not have felt more trepidation than when she stood on the threshold of her first interview with her new self. She was to meet a strange, potent being, who would unlock for her those doors against which, with fierce, futile longing, she had been wont to cast herself, since woman's instinct had burst its germ.

She entered her bedroom and locked the door. But she did not go to the mirror at once; she was loath to relinquish pleasurable uncertainty. She sank on a rug before the hearth and locked her hands about her knee in the attitude which had been a habit from childhood. For a few moments she sat enjoying the beauty of the room, the successful embodiment of one of her dearest dreams. The inlaid floor was thick with rugs that had been woven in the looms of the Orient. The walls were hung with cloth of gold, and the ceiling was a splendid picture of Nautch girls dancing in the pleasure palace of an Indian prince. The bed, enameled to represent ivory, stood on a dais over which trailed a wonderful Hindoo shawl. Over the couches and divans were flung rich stuffs, feathered rugs, and odd strips of Indian conceits. The sleeping-room was separated from the boudoir by a row of pillars, and from the unseen apartment came the smell of burning incense.