Half-way through the meal came the sounds of arrival: the footman's hurrying steps and a man's voice in the hall.
She strained her ears, but silence soon followed the retreating feet and then Jardine came in to ask if she would have coffee on the terrace.
"Too chilly," was her cross verdict, and he agreed that the little drawing-room and a fire would be more comfortable.
Even after she had drunk the coffee and was immersed in the newspaper, she remained aware of the old servant's flitting presence. He appeared to be finding matters to occupy him in the small drawing-room and only after she had twice looked up inquiringly over the printed page did he make reluctantly for the door.
She sat on when the paper, restlessly devoured, had slipped from her knees to the floor. Soft radiance glowed about her through orange silk shades, etherealizing the dignified feminine figure with its close-fitting crown of silvery hair. The features, in repose not unlike Ferlie's, were attractively gentle. She leant back in the dark tapestried chair and thought of the lovers, of the long trail which lay before them, of the spiritual courage supporting their rare decision. Could a man and a woman live under such conditions, loving as these two loved?
And something told her that it was just because they so loved that the improbable became possible.
If they failed that Utopian ideal in the end— She broke off her reflections with a sigh.
"Who is to judge?" she asked aloud of the flames on the open hearth. "Who is to judge These, or Any?"
A man on the terrace, rolling a cigarette with uncertain fingers, heard the quiet question and paused in his occupation. His eyes glittered oddly over the flickering match, just struck, and the face, as he lifted it starwards, was not unlike the face of the deriding faun, aged by the battering years into a very surely alive satyr.
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