Then, at last she opened the window and glanced out on the moon. It was
there above her, over the Park, so she turned out the lights, and,
putting her furs around her, she sat for a while and gazed above the
treetops, while she repeated her prayers.
And Mimo saw her, as he stood in the shadow on the pavement at the other
side of Park Lane. He had come there in his sentimental way, to give her
his blessing, and had been standing looking up for some time. It seemed
to him a good omen for dear Chérisette's happiness, that she should have
opened the window and looked out on the night.
It was quite early--only about half-past ten--and Tristram, after a
banquet with his bachelor friends on the Monday night, had devoted this,
his last evening, to his mother, and had dined quietly with her alone.
He felt extremely moved, and excited, too, when he left. She had talked
to him so tenderly--the proud mother who so seldom unbent. How marriage
was a beautiful but serious thing, and he must love and try to
understand his wife--and then she spoke of her own great love for him,
and her pride in their noble name and descent.
"And I will pray to God that you have strong, beautiful children,
Tristram, so that there may in years to come be no lack of the Tancreds
of Wrayth."
When he got outside in the street the moonlight flooded the road, so he
sent his motor away and decided to walk. He wanted breathing space, he
wanted to think, and he turned down into Curzon Street and from, thence
across Great Stanhope Street and into the Park.
And to-morrow night, at this time, the beautiful Zara would be his! and
they would be dining alone together at Dover, and surely she would not
be so icily cold; surely--surely he could get her to melt.
And then further visions came to him, and he walked very fast; and
presently he found himself opposite his lady's house.
An impulse just to see her window overcame him, and he crossed the road
and went out of the gate. And there on the pavement he saw Mimo, also
with face turned, gazing up.
And in a flash he thought he recognized that this was the man he had
seen that day in Whitehall, when he was in his motor car, going very
fast.
A mad rage of jealousy and suspicion rushed through him. Every devil
whispered, "Here is a plot. You know nothing of the woman whom to-morrow
you are blindly going to make your wife. Who is this man? What is his
connection with her? A lover's--of course. No one but a lover would gaze
up at a window on a moonlight night."
And it was at this moment that Zara opened the window and, for a second,
both men saw her slender, rounded figure standing out sharply against
the ground of the room. Then she turned, and put out the light.
A murderous passion of rage filled Lord Tancred's heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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