Read "The Lighted Way" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It seemed to Arnold that he had passed, indeed, into a different world as he followed Count Sabatini's austere looking butler across the white stone hall into the cool dining-room, where the little party which he had come to join was already at luncheon. Outside, an unexpected heat seemed to have baked the streets and drained the very life from the air. Here the blinds were closely drawn; the great height of the room with its plain, faultless decorations, its piles of sweet-smelling flowers, and the faint breeze that came through the Venetian blinds, made it like a little oasis of coolness and repose. The luncheon-party consisted of four people -- Count Sabatini himself, Lady Blennington, Fenella, and a young man whom Arnold had seen once before, attached to one of the Legations. Fenella held out both her hands.
"I'm afraid I am late," Arnold said.