The Earl, in his frilled shirt, his long black embroidered waistcoat, his riding-boots, spurs and glittering rings; swordless, with his lace cravat undone and hanging to his knees, with his unnatural pallor and his close hair, looked in keeping with his curious background, as if he too had been called up from some earlier day; to do penance for a crime or brood over a tragedy among these tokens of wealth and splendor.
Now and then he glanced toward the woman on the settle, but with neither pity nor tenderness, coldly, indifferently, as if he cared nothing whether she lived or died.
And up through the somber air rose the thin wreaths of smoke, thin blue from his pipe and the little cat played in and out of the silverware and the drooping lace and cambric of Lord Stair’s sleeve, trailing his scarlet ribbon.
Opposite the table were the two windows, close shuttered, and between them stood a black bureau that bore a casket in bright enamel; above this hung a mirror and Lord Stair could see his own ghastly face reflected there, the dim room behind it like a mockery of himself and his thoughts.
Occasionally Delia’s little moan would break the heavy stillness and then he would look toward her with pitiless blue eyes.
She might be dying; they could do nothing for her; there was not even a better place in which to put her; Lumley did not live over his shop, the rest of the house was empty; Lord Stair’s servant had gone in search of a doctor; it was not likely, with the city in an uproar, that he would find one to come on a dangerous errand; and with every breath she drew her life was ebbing, or so, gazing on her unmoved, he thought.
As the firelight rose and fell over the crystal warrior, the ruby-eyed nymph and the still face of the dying woman, as the candles flickered and burnt nearer to their silver sticks, as the shadows advanced and receded from all dim corners, the Earl of Stair sat motionless with a hard face, and the smoke curled upwards and away round the ceiling.
Time did not exist here, it had died with the stopping of the enamel clock; everything was very old and dead, yet immortal, this room had known many yesterdays; it held no promise of a to-morrow; it owned the peace of dust and ashes, the silence of things ended, done with. Here was a place to meet fate, not to avert it; as the fire dropped to ashes, as the woman swooned into eternity, the placid warrior and the red-eyed nymph smiled up at Lord Stair with the smiles of a hundred years ago, and the emptiness of the hollow armor grinned into the likeness of a skull.
Shadows advancing, receding, and her slow breath as her soul drifted away.
If by putting out his hand he could have stopped her flight, he would not have done it; if by raising a finger he could have recalled her fainting life, he would not have done it.