They did not speak of this feeling, yet they could see it in each other's eyes, if they dare to look.
It was with them as with people who wait to hear a clock begin striking an hour which will bring news of some great change in their lives, for good or evil.
The tension increased as the day went on; still, no one had said to another, "What is there so strange about to-day? Do you feel it? Is it only our imagination—a reaction after strain, or is it that a presentiment of something to happen hangs over us?"
Stephen had not yet had any talk with Victoria. They had seen each other alone for scarcely more than a moment since the night at Toudja; but now that Nevill was better, and the surgeons said that if all went well, danger was past, it seemed to Stephen that the hour had come.
After they had lunched in the dim, cool dining-room, and Lady MacGregor had proposed a siesta for all sensible people, Stephen stopped the girl on her way upstairs as she followed her sister.
"May I talk to you for a little while this afternoon?" he asked.
Voice and eyes were wistful, and Victoria wondered why, because she was so happy that she felt as if life had been set to music. She had hoped that he would be happy too, when Nevill's danger was over, and he had time to think of himself—perhaps, too, of her.
"Yes," she said, "let's talk in the garden, when it's cooler. I love being in gardens, don't you? Everything that happens seems more beautiful."
Stephen remembered how lovely he had thought her in the lily garden at Algiers. He was almost glad that they were not to have this talk there; for the memory of it was too perfect to mar with sadness.
"I'm going to put Saidee to sleep," she went on. "You may laugh, but truly I can. When I was a little girl, she used to like me to stroke her hair if her head ached, and she would always fall asleep. And once she's asleep I shan't dare move, or she'll wake up. She has such happy dreams now, and they're sure to come true. Shall I come to you about half-past five?"