It was near sunset, the light so clear and cool of earliest spring was shining on the terraces and rose walks, and clipped bay hedges of the garden to the south which had been left unaltered from the Valois time. The peacocks were moving up and down on the grass, the first swallows were wheeling above the glowing colour of the azalea thickets, a light breeze was blowing the spray of the fountains this way and that; he watched her as she came through the dewy green foliage and under the white and yellow tea roses; she wore a gown of white velvet, she had a high ivory handled cane, there was a white greyhound before her, and the graceful figure of Béthune at her side. He saw her gather one of the Maréchal Niel roses above her head, and fasten it in the bosom of her dress; Béthune said something to her; she gathered another and let him take it.
Othmar watched them with a pang.
'If I died to-morrow I suppose she would give him her hand as she gives him that rose!' he thought, and the thought was intolerable to him. 'She thinks me faithless to her, and she does not care; she was angered for an instant; only that; then her days pass on the same; she has all her courtiers and friends about her; she does not need me, or miss me amongst them.'
And he watched her with eyes which studied her incomparable grace, her divine languor, her indolent movements, as though he saw them then for the first time; so great a quickener of sleeping love is the sting of a jealous fear.
But his heart was very weary. She had wounded, insulted, injured him, well nigh beyond forgiveness; she had dishonoured him with the secret observation of his actions and the open accusation of his falsehood. She had had him followed and tracked like a criminal, and had refused to believe his word, which all Europe honoured as the surety of unimpeached truth.
Greater insult surely no woman could do to any man.
And yet, if she would only say one word, he felt that he was ready to forget that she had done so; he was ashamed of his own weakness, but he knew that he would forgive everything:—and he reminded himself of his own offences to her without extenuation, willing to find in blame of himself excuse for herself.
He watched her now as she came slowly and smiling under the trellis of the roses: to look at her it seemed that she had no care, no regret, no desire.
'And if I went out and shot myself to-night,' he thought, as he watched the two figures pass on under the trellised roses, 'she would have called Béthune to console her before the year was out?'
He believed it; but, man-like, the belief only gave her a stronger dominion over him.