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And so it happened that, in realising the ceaseless push of event on event, the ceaseless dying of dear to-day in the service of unborn to-morrow, her gentle seriousness touched on regret. How long she remained lost in such pensive reflections Lady Calmady could not have said. Suddenly the terrace door slammed. A moment later a man's footsteps echoed across the flags of the garden-hall.
Fair lady, boy, and dogs disappeared, with sounds of merriment, into the near garden-hall; reappeared upon the terrace, bearing down, but at sobering pace, upon the occupants of the chairs set at the end of it. One man rose to his feet, a tall, narrow, black figure. The other remained seated.
The night was very soft and mild. He would go out and walk the gray flags of the terrace, till this unworthy restlessness gave place to reason and calm. Passing along the narrow passage, he opened the door on to the garden-hall. And there paused. The hall itself, and the inner side of the carven arches of the arcade were in dense shadow.
She paused, at length, just short of the arcade of the further garden-hall. "This great peace of the night puts all violence of feeling to the blush," she said. "One perceives that a thousand years are very really as one day. That calms one with a vengeance." Katherine waited, looking out over the vague landscape, clasping the fur-bordered edges of her cloak with either hand.
Two servants came out, hurriedly, from that same arched side-door. Then Clara, that devoted handmaiden, called from the window of the red drawing-room. "Her ladyship's there, on the troco-ground. Don't you see, Mr. Winter?" The butler hurried along the terrace. Katherine met him on the steps of the garden-hall.
There in the centre is the iron ring through which the lords and dames drove the heavy wooden troco-balls; and if you go into the garden-hall through that arched corridor you will see the actual balls that they used, and the long poles, with a kind of iron cup at their ends, with which the players pushed them forerunners of the modern croquet-box that lies beside them.
She moved slowly along the terrace; paused in the arcaded garden-hall at the end of it the carven stone benches and tables of which showed somewhat ghostly in the dimness to put off her bonnet and push back the lace scarf from her shoulders. An increasing solemnity was upon her. There were things to think of, things deep and strange. She must needs place them, make an effort, anyhow, to do so.
He fawned upon her, abject, yet compelling, and, at last, as though exasperated by her absence of response, turned tail and bounded away through the garden-hall and along the terrace, disappearing through the small, arched side-door into the house. And there, within, stir and movement became momentarily more apparent.
Adjoining the dining-room, connecting this last with the billiard-room, summer-parlour, and garden-hall, this room was convenient to assemble in before, and sit in for a while after, meals. Richard would thereby be saved superfluous journeys up-stairs.
There were passing lights in the range of windows above, suggesting cheerful movement within the great house. At the southern end of the terrace, just below the arcade of the garden-hall which showed pale against the shadow within and brickwork above two men were sitting. Their voices reached the ladies now and then in quiet yet animated talk.
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