The black and still night seemed a battlefield.
Softly she stepped upon the highest terrace and stood for a moment under the great plane tree, where was the wooden seat on which she had waited for Dion to weep away the past and the good woman who had ruined his life. To-night she was invaded by an odd uncertainty. If she went to the pavilion and Dion were not there? If he did not come? Would some part of her, perhaps, be glad, the part that in a mysterious way was one with Jimmy? She stared into the darkness, looking towards the pavilion. Dion Leith had once said she looked punished. Perhaps when he had said that he had shown that he had intuition.
Was he there? It was past eleven now. She had assumed that he would come, and she was inclined to believe that he had come. If so she need not see him even now. There was still time for her to go back to the villa, to shut herself in, to go to bed, as Jimmy had gone to bed. But if she did that she would not sleep. All night long she would lie wide awake, tossing from side to side, the helpless prey of her past life.
She frowned and slipped through the darkness, almost like a fluid, to the pavilion.
CHAPTER VIII
She came so silently that Dion heard nothing till against the background of the night he saw a shadow, her thin body, a faint whiteness, her face, motionless at the opening of the pavilion; from this shadow and this whiteness came a voice which said:
“Did you come under the influence of Defetgamm?”
“It’s impossible that you see me!” he said.
“I see you plainly with some part of me, not my eyes.”