CHAPTER XXXV


A pale and most unhappy bride awaited her bridegroom in the boudoir at a
few minutes to eight o'clock. She felt perfectly lifeless, as though she
had hardly enough will left even to act her part. The white satin of her
dress was not whiter than her face. The head gardener had sent up some
splendid gardenias for her to wear and the sight of them pained her, for
were not these the flowers that Tristram had brought her that evening of
her wedding day, not a fortnight ago, and that she had then thrown into
the grate. She pinned some in mechanically, and then let the maid clasp
the diamonds round her throat and a band of them in her hair. They were
so very beautiful, and she had not seen them before; she could not thank
him for them even--all conversation except before people was now at an
end. Then, for her further unhappiness, she remembered he had said:
"When the mockery of the rejoicings is over then we can discuss our
future plans." What did that mean? That he wished to separate from her,
she supposed. How could circumstance be so cruel to her! What had she
done? Then she sat down for a moment while she waited, and clenched her
hands. And all the passionate resentment her deep nature was capable of
surged up against fate, so that she looked more like the black panther
than ever, and her mood had only dwindled into a sullen smoldering
rage--while she still sat in the peculiar, concentrated attitude of an
animal waiting to spring--when Tristram opened the door, and came in.

The sight of her thus, looking so unEnglish, so barbaric, suddenly
filled him with the wild excitement of the lion hunt again. Could