The girl glanced up at him, as if she regarded the question strangely superfluous.
"You are to come with me!" she persisted, touching his arm.
Tristan's mouth hardened as he considered the message, without relinquishing his station by the pillar.
What was he to Theodora—Theodora to him? She was a woman, evil, despite her ravishing beauty, so he had gathered during the days of his journey. The spell she had cast over him on the previous evening had vanished before the memory of Hellayne. Her sudden appearance, her witch-like beauty had, for the time, unmanned him. The hardships and privations of a long journey had, for the moment, caused his senses to run rampant, and almost hurled him into the arms of perdition. Yet he had not then known. And now he remembered how they all had fallen away from him, as from one bearing on his person the germs of some dread disease. The terrible silence in the Navona seemed visualized once again in the silence which encompassed him here. Yet she was all powerful, so he had heard. She ruled the men and the factions. In some vague way, he thought, she might be of service to him.
Tossed between two conflicting impulses, Tristan slowly followed the girl from the church and, crossing the great, moonlit court that lay without, entered the gardens which seemed to divide the sanctuary from some hidden palace. Mulberry trees towered above the lawns, studded with thick, ripening fruit. Weeping ashes glittered in the moonlight. Cedars and oaks cast their shade over broad beds of mint and thyme.
The girl watched Tristan closely, as she walked beside him, making no effort to conceal her own charms before eyes which she deemed endowed with the power of judgment in matters of this kind. Her mistress had not put her trust in her in vain. She studied Tristan's race in order to determine, whether or not he would waver in his resolve and—she began to speak to him as they crossed the gardens with a simplicity, an interest that was well assumed.
"A good beginning indeed!" she said. "You are in favor, my lord! To have seen her fair face is no small boast, but to be summoned to her presence—I cannot remember her so gracious to any one, since—" she paused suddenly, deliberately.
Tristan regarded her slantwise over his shoulder, without making response. At last, irritated, he knew not why, he asked curtly: "What is your mistress?"
The girl's glance wandered over the great trees and flowers that overshadowed the plaisaunce.
"She bears her mother's name," she replied with a shrug, "and, like her mother, the blood that flows in her veins is mingled with the fire that glitters in the stars in heaven, a fire affording neither light nor heat, but serving to dazzle, to bewilder.—I am but a woman, but—had I your chance of fortune, my lord, I should think twice, ere I bartered it for a vow, an empty dream."