"Where is my daughter?" she asked. "I think, as I am rather upset by—by disquieting accounts of a dear friend, I had better go to my room. And I shall be so much obliged if—Mary can be sent to me as soon as she comes in."
Now was Otto's chance. While every one gathered round Lady de Courcy, and smelling-salts were in requisition, he lifted the white portière and peeped through a small antechamber into the music-room. The Emperor and Miss de Courcy were no longer there.
Otto twisted his moustache; he usually twisted it on the right side 162 when pleased; and he twisted it—a great deal more—on the left when he was displeased. He looked reproachfully round the room, and presently observed that one of the large windows leading to the Italian garden stood wide open.
The month of September was dying; but, though winter had begun in the Rhaetian mountains, warmth and sunshine still lingered in the neighbourhood of Salzbrück. A balmy air, laden with sweet scents of the flowers which Baron von Lynar had imported from Italy, floated to Otto's nostrils. The languorous perfume suggested soft dalliance and confessions of love. The Emperor had taken Miss de Courcy into the garden: Otto knew that well enough; and if there had been a plentitude of trees, with broad trunks, behind which a man's figure might modestly conceal itself in the darkness, he would unobtrusively have followed. But he mentally reviewed the shrubbery, plant by plant, as he could recall it, and decided at last that the better part of valour for an officer and a gentleman lay in remaining within doors. He did 163 not, however, return to the drawing-room, despite the concern for Lady de Courcy's health which had taken him in search of her daughter. Heavy curtains of olive-green velvet hung straight down over the windows of the music-room, and by neatly sandwiching oneself in a deep embrasure between drapery and window-frame, one found a convenient niche for observing a limited quarter of the garden. The moon was rising over the lake, and long, pale rays of level light were creeping up the paths, like the fingers of a blind man that touch gropingly the features of a beloved face.
Otto could not see very far, but if the Emperor and his companion returned by the way they had taken, as they were almost sure to do, he would know whether they walked back to the house in the attitude of formal acquaintances or—lovers.
They had not been gone from the piano for many minutes, and they would not be likely to extend this duet which so logically followed the music much longer. One of the two, if not both, would have sense enough left to remember les convenances.
But the moments went on, and Otto, whose patent-leather pumps were 164 rather tight, changed from one position to another, straining his eyes down the whitening alleys in vain.
* * * * * * * * * *
Everything in the garden that was not white was gray as a dove's wing that night. Even the shadows were not black. And the sky was gray, with a changeful glory of stars, like the shimmering light on a spangled fan that moves to and fro in the restless hand of a woman. White moths, forgetful that summer would come no more into their brief lives, fluttered out from the shadows like rose petals tossed by the south wind. On a trellis, a sisterhood of pale nun-roses hung their faces earthward in memento mori.
It was a white night; a night of enchantment; a night for lovers.