For she knew there was no asking for respite.

To obtain her brother's possible life she must be ready and resigned, at the altar at St.George's, Hanover Square, on Wednesday the 25th of October, at 2 o'clock, and, once made a wife, she must go with Lord Tancred to the Lord Warren Hotel at Dover, to spend the night.
She rose with a convulsive quiver, and looked with blank, sightless eyes at an Amazon in the frieze hard by.

The Amazon--she saw, when vision came back to her--was hurling a spear at a splendid young Greek.

That is how she felt she would like to behave to her future husband.

Men and their greed of money, and their revolting passions!--and her poor little Mirko ill, perhaps, from his father's carelessness--How could she leave him?
And if she did not his welfare would be at an end and life an abyss.
There was no use scolding Mimo; she knew of old no one was sorrier than he for his mistakes, for which those he loved best always had to suffer.
It had taken the heart out of him, the anxious thought, he said, but, knowing that Cherisette must be so busy arranging to get married, he had not troubled her, since she could do nothing until her return to England, and then he knew she would arrange to go to Mirko at once, in any case.
He, Mimo, had been too depressed to work, and the picture of the London fog was not much further advanced, and he feared it would not be ready for her wedding gift.
"Oh, never mind!" said Zara.