It was falling dusk when Sir Oliver disembarked and gave her his hand. The men-servants, who had bent to hold the canoe steady as she stepped ashore, drew themselves erect and again touched foreheads to their lord and lady.
Still as in a dream, her arm resting within her lover's, she went up the broad stairways from terrace to terrace. Above her the long facade was lit with window after window blazing welcome.
At the head of the perron, under the colonnaded portico, other tall men-servants stood in waiting, mute, deferential. She passed between their lines into a vast entrance hall, and there, almost as her foot crossed its threshold, across the marbled floor little Miss Quiney came running a-flutter, inarticulate, with reaching hands.
Ruth drew back, almost with a cry. But before she could resist, Tatty's arms were about her and Tatty's lips lifted, pressed against either cheek. She suffered the embrace.
"My darling Ruth!—at last!" Then with a laugh, "And in what strange clothes! . . . But come—come and be arrayed!" She caught Ruth's cold hand and led her towards the staircase. "Nay, never look about you so: your eyes will not take in a tenth of all the wonders!"
Later, as an Indian gong sounded below, he came from his dressing-room into the great bride-chamber where she stood, arrayed in satin, before her mirror, hesitating as her fingers touched one after another of the jewels scattered on the dressing-table under the waxen lights. Her maid slipped away discreetly.
"Well?" he asked. He was resplendent in a suit of sapphire velvet, with cravat and ruffles of old Spanish lace. "Is my love content with her home-coming?"
She crossed her arms slowly.
"You are good to me," she said. "You do me too great honour, my lord."
He laughed, and catching up a necklace of diamonds from the dressing-table, looped it across her throat, clasped it, leaned over her shoulder and kissed her softly between the ear and the cheek's delicate round. Their eyes met in the mirror.