fresh laughter and young farewells mount from the door-steps. But why was Charlotte waiting for her daughter downstairs in the darkness?
{133}
The Parisian clock struck one. Delia came back into the room, raked the fire, picked up a shawl, and, wrapped in it, returned to her vigil. Ah, how old she must have grown, that she should feel the cold at such a moment! It reminded her of what the future held for her: neuralgia, rheumatism, stiffness, accumulating infirmities. And never had she kept a moonlight watch with a lover’s arms to warm her....
The square still lay silent. Yet the ball must surely be ending: the gayest dances did not last long after one in the morning, and the drive from University{134} Place to Gramercy Park was a short one. Delia leaned in the embrasure and listened.
{134}
Hoof-beats, muffled by the snow, sounded in Irving Place, and the Petrus Vandergraves’ family coach drew up before the opposite house. The Vandergrave girls and their brother sprang out and mounted the steps; then the coach stopped again a few doors farther on, and the Parmly Ralstons, brought home by their cousins, descended at their own door. The next carriage that rounded the corner must therefore be the John Juniuses’, bringing Tina.
The gilt clock struck half-past one. Delia wondered, knowing that young Delia, out of regard for John Junius’s business hours, never stayed late at evening parties. Doubtless Tina had delayed her; Mrs. Ralston felt a little annoyed{135} with Tina’s thoughtlessness in keeping her cousin up. But the feeling was swept away by an immediate wave of sympathy. “We must go away somewhere, and lead plain lives among plain people.” If Charlotte carried out her threat—and Delia knew she would hardly have spoken unless her resolve had been taken—it might be that at that very moment poor Tina was dancing her last valse.
{135}
Another quarter of an hour passed; then, just as the cold was finding a way through Delia’s shawl, she saw two people turn into the deserted square from Irving Place. One was a young man in opera hat and ample cloak. To his arm clung a figure so closely wrapped and muffled that, until the corner light fell on it, Delia hesitated. After that, she wondered that she had not at once recognized Tina’s dancing step, and her manner of tilting{136} her head a little sideways to look up at the person she was talking to.
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