writing letters and arranging or destroying papers. There had been
nothing out of the common in either of them--not even the frown of care
on George's forehead, or the excited light in Diane's eyes--as they
drove away in the evening, to dine at the Spanish Embassy. They had
kissed her tenderly, but it was not till after they had gone that it
seemed to her as if they had been taking a farewell. Then, too, other
little tokens suddenly became ominous; while something within herself
seemed to say, "The hour is at hand!"

The hour is at hand! Standing in the middle of one of the gorgeous
rooms, she repeated the words softly, marking as she did so their
incongruity to herself and her surroundings. The note of fatality jarred
on the harmony of this well-ordered life. It was preposterous, that she,
who had always been hedged round and sheltered by pomp and circumstance,
should now in her middle age be menaced with calamity. She dragged
herself over to one of the long mirrors and gazed at her reflection
pityingly.

The twitter of birds startled her with the knowledge that it was dawn.
From the Embassy George and Diane were to go on to two or three great
houses, but surely they should be home by this time! The reflection
meant the renewal of her fear. Where was her son? Was he really with his
wife, or had the moment come when he must take the law into his own
hands, after their French manner, to avenge himself or her? She knew
nothing about duelling, but she had the Anglo-Saxon mother's dread of
it. She had always hoped that, notwithstanding the social code under
which he lived, George would keep clear of any such brutal
senselessness; but lately she had begun to fear that the conventions of
the world would prove the stronger, and that the time when they would do
so was not far away.