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Zodiac.”
    â€œThat,” she said, “is a most marvelous compliment. If I wasn’t in furs, I’d curtsey. You’ll make me wish myself Nancy’s age—for one evening.”
    â€œI think it’s long,” he said, “since you have wished yourself anything but what you are.”
    She was prevented from answering by Mr. Coningsby, who hurried Nancy out before him on to the steps and shut the door. They all went down to the car, and a policeman on the pavement saluted Mr. Coningsby as he passed.
    â€œGood evening, good evening, constable,” he said. “Here.” Something passed. “A merry Christmas.”
    â€œGracious,” Nancy said in Henry’s ear, “father’s almost jovial.”
    â€œThat,” Henry answered, “is because he doesn’t regard the police as human. He’d never be harsh to a dog or a poor man. It’s those of his own kind that trouble and fret him.”
    â€œWell, darling,” she said, “I’ve never heard you speak of standing a policeman a drink.” She slipped her hand into his. “Oh, I’m so thrilled,” she went on, “what with you and Christmas and … and all. Is that policeman part of it, do you think? Is he in the scepters or the swords? Or is he one of your mysterious Trumps?”
    â€œWhat about the Emperor?” Henry threw at her, as Mr. Coningsby, who had stopped to speak to the constable, probably about the safety of the house, came to the car. Sybil was already in her seat. Nancy slipped into hers, as Mr. Coningsby got in next to Sybil. Henry closed the door, sprang in, and started the car.
    There was silence at first. To each of them the movement of the car meant something different and particular; to the two men it was movement to something, to the two women it was much more like movement in something. Mr. Coningsby felt it as a rush towards an immediate future to which he had been compelled and in which he gloomily expected defeat. Henry’s desire swept on to a future in which he expected trial and victory. But to Nancy and Sybil separately the future could not be imagined except as a blessed variation on what they knew; there was nowhere to go but to that in which they each existed, and the time they took to go was only the measure of delight changing into delight. In that enclosed space a quadruple movement of consciousness existed, and became, through the unnoticeable, infinitesimal movements of their bodies, involved and, to an extent, harmonized. Each set up against each of the others a peculiar strain; each was drawn back and controlled by the rest. Knowledge danced with knowledge, sometimes to trouble, sometimes to appease the corporeal instruments of the days of their flesh.
    A policeman’s hand held them up. Henry gestured towards it. “Behold the Emperor,” he said to Nancy.
    â€œYou’re making fun of me, my dear,” she half protested.
    â€œNever less,” he said seriously. “Look at him.”
    She looked and, whether the hours she had given to brooding over the Tarots during the last few days, partly to certify her courage to herself, had imposed their forms on her memory, or whether something in the policeman’s shape and cloak under the lights of the dark street suggested it, or whether indeed something common to Emperor and Khalif, cadi and magistrate, praetor and alcalde, lictor and constable, shone before her in those lights—whichever was true, it was certainly true that for a moment she saw in that heavy official barring their way the Emperor of the Trumps, helmed, in a white cloak, stretching out one sceptered arm, as if Charlemagne, or one like him, stretched out his controlling sword over the tribes of Europe pouring from the forests and bade them pause or march as he would. The great roads ran below him, to Rome, to Paris, to Aix, to Byzantium, and the nations established themselves in cities upon them.