“No dress could be so suitable. Safe-guarded against wind or snow, and simple in comparison of those where we are going. Heat or cold, darkness or light cannot touch it. It was sewn in the inner darkness, and shines in the inner light. Come, Rosalie, the time is up. We must away to see the sun rise on the New Year.”
Then he led her through those great empty rooms into the fuller ones, where general hilarity preceded the closing of the dance. But here they never waited. Across the palm-house to the doors of glass with the image of the toad and temple so finely and so clearly worked in them.
At one touch they both flew open, and there, flooded in a tide of light—red—red—and an accompanying silence. It travelled swiftly, yet without sound or violence into the rooms of feasting and of mirth, carrying silence and a vague alarm. And noting where it came from, the guests instinctively crowded out towards that curious garden, on which faced the real front of Marble House.
And there, below the terrace steps, upon the wide carriage drive, stood a chariot of gold, with seats of crimson velvet, and harnessed to it the six black steeds, with tossing heads and eyes of fire, strong, and sleek, and slim.
One youth alone stood at the foremost bridle. And in the midst of all this ruddy glamour shone the pure whiteness of Rosalie’s robe, with all its flimsy showers of lace and jewels. And there beside the carriage step stood Mariana, the frog upon her shoulder, and with her Everard, who had preceded them.
Then Rosalie stepped in lightly and gracefully, and sat down. Mariana bent forward, and with the grace peculiar to her arranged the spreading train about her feet. Then looking up, with mutual feeling each drew an arm round the other’s neck and kissed. Rosalie whispered:
“You will follow, Mariana, and we’ll meet again, in no land of shadows, red or black, but in the sunlight. And you’ll bring Everard. A little company along the road is most desirable. But for the present, good-bye!”
And then the Master, gathering the long reins in his hand as he sat down beside her, wrung Everard’s hand, and seeing Mariana held her hand toward him too, bent over it and kissed it, by that one act undoing all the past in which she suffered through him.
The Master shook the reins. A thousand tingling stars shook from them upon and round about the coal-black steeds. One wild bound forward all in unison, not on a straight road, but up some climbing steep.
Rosalie turned round. And laughing, half in fear and half in happiness, kissed her hand to Brightcoat.