Through the windows he saw de Cyon rise presently and go up the long stairs. He saw Lily (a fascinating woman, he thought, who must have been very beautiful in her youth) talking to his mother who still nibbled at her biscuit. Jean and Rebecca had ceased their music and sat now playing double patience with a fierce, unnatural absorption.
Augustine came in presently with a message. Mrs. Cane Callendar (Sabine) would like to know if there was any news. She went away again with the message Lily gave her: Everything was going well, but there was no news yet.
They were all waiting, waiting, waiting....
Callendar held tight the heavy collar of Hansi, who squirmed and moaned pitifully because he could not follow his mistress.
Rebecca found him there when at last she tired of her game and wandered out into the garden to smoke. She passed him without speaking and as he looked after her, he saw that she had taken to walking round and round the white pavilion as if she had set herself to guard it from him.
Presently he returned to the drawing-room and opening another bottle of champagne, sat silently by the side of Lily, who alone behaved with any kindliness toward him. Old Thérèse watched him, desperately, as the time drew nearer and nearer. She was pale now with terror lest Madame de Thèbes had been wrong. If the child were a girl it would be the end of everything.... She had even stopped nibbling her biscuits. The reticule had fallen to the floor. Her fat body rested on the edge of her chair ... tense and strained in her passionate anxiety.
The whole room, the whole house, the whole garden stood breathless in the heat with the terrible stillness that surrounded the waiting....
Somewhere in the direction of the Trocadéro a clock struck midnight, booming faintly, each stroke hanging on the hot still air to confuse the stroke which followed. The sound swam in the big room. Callendar rose and went again into the garden, into a distant corner well away from Rebecca whose progress round and round the pavilion was marked by the tiny glow at the end of her cigarette.
Thérèse, unable to bear the silence any longer, rose too and went out onto the terrace to watch the light in the pavilion. A breeze came up and the leaves of the plane trees fell to rustling. Lily and Jean talked together quietly in the corner by de Cyon’s desk. From the window on the second floor which opened into Gramp’s room there was a light still burning. Rebecca, looking up at it from her vigil, saw the figure of the old man show black and thin against the glow, as he leaned out and peered over the garden.
An hour passed and the distant clock struck one. A bell sounded faintly in the house and Augustine appeared. It was Mrs. Cane Callendar once more. Was there any news?