Nearly all the women and girls who had come that evening to the great ball at the "Kulm" were dressed in white. In the immense hall that—with its richly painted but very low ceiling, the general vastness of which is broken by strange pillars, broad and low to support it—resembles, or is meant to resemble, an Egyptian temple; in this immense and characteristic hall, where the whole of one wall opened out on to a verandah of shining glass, overlooking lake and wood, a crowd of women kept fluctuating, gathering in groups or separating amongst the pillars or thick clusters of green plants, as they sat for a while on the divans and rocking-chairs, or rose to go to the salons or the ballroom. And all this whiteness of cambric and silk, of lace and tulle, of marble and silver united and melted together, contrasted and harmonised, as if in a chorale of whiteness, with livelier and calmer shades or softer blendings of white. In the long corridor which separates or leads to the hall on the right, with drawing-rooms and reading or conversation-rooms, and to the left to the majestic ballroom, on the velvet benches were two rows of girls and women, nearly all dressed in white, who were talking quietly to their neighbours, as they scarcely waved their white gauze and lace fans. Other ladies in white were coming and going along the corridor, from the hall to the ballroom, in couples and groups, chatting in a low voice with whomsoever was accompanying them. Only here and there appeared a pale blue dress, or a pink or yellow, to be overcome at once by twenty or thirty white dresses. Occasionally in the quiet corners of the hall, at the back of the reading, conversation, and smoking rooms, appeared elderly ladies, dressed in black and in rich, heavy stuffs, such as black velvet and brocade. On the grey and white head shone an old diamond ornament, or some old jewel flashed on the covered bosom, where it fastened a rich scrap of old lace. Nothing but English, though of course in different accents, was to be heard. English and American women were fraternising; the English, gentle but reserved, the Americans more expansive and more charming, were gathered together in the hall and rooms, especially in the famous corridor, while outside, from the other hotels of the Dorf and Bad and from the villas, guests began to arrive. The English ladies of the "Kulm" watched the arrivals with discreet or even cold glances, and if they were surprised in the act of watching, they quickly turned their eyes to another part, detachedly, with that perfect power of correct isolation which is one of the greatest spiritual gifts of the English. More happily curious, the American ladies turned and smiled or uttered a rapid word or two in a whisper; but no one caught the comments, so subdued and brief were they. A French woman, the Marquise de Brialmont, with a great mass of light golden hair, on which she had placed a very large hat of black tulle, covered with black feathers, dressed in black lace, arrived, appeared, and passed with a rustling of silken skirts, leaving a strong perfume behind her. Miss Ellis Robinson, amidst a group of English friends, slowly fanned herself while her friends got ready. Lia Norescu, as beautiful as a spring dawn, in a cloudy dress of very pale blue, with imperceptible silver revers waving like a flower in a light breeze, with a silver ribbon that surrounded her shining brown hair, entered, followed by five or six of her suitors, and further behind by her silent mother, in the violet brocade dress of patient and somnolent mothers who wait evening and night for their daughters to finish dancing and flirting. Lia Norescu's beautiful mouth curved in a fleeting sneer of disdain at the crowd of white-clad English women, some of whom were beautiful, some less so, others not at all in their dresses which were too simple and unpretentious, with the fresh flower in the hair. But none of the English girls seemed to be aware of her. Madame Eva Delma, a theatrical celebrity, who earned two hundred francs at each performance, entered—she was an enormously fat Australian who came every year to St. Moritz in the attempt to get even a little thinner—dressed entirely in red, which made her more conspicuous, breathless from the few steps she had climbed, and followed by a pale, thin little husband. Other guests arrived, some loudly, others fashionably dressed, and in spite of the rather too pronounced splendour or refined elegance of the French, Russian, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian ladies, the English girls with their fair hair simply adorned with flowers, and the American girls with their black helmets of dark hair, overwhelmed them by their large numbers; and contrasted with the few red, black, yellow, and blue dresses, all their white dresses formed the harmony and beauty of that immense picture.
When Lucio Sabini, after leaving his hat and coat in the cloak-room, entered the "Kulm" hall alone, he at once perceived that the ball had begun. The spacious room, with its appearance of a Pharaoh's temple, was almost deserted; the bright light of the electric lamps illuminated the thick clumps of palms, the rich baskets of flowers which adorned the recesses, and a few old ladies who were staying behind, lost and swallowed up by remote corners. He scarcely hurried his step in the almost deserted corridor, giving a glance to the sitting-rooms on the right, where some old gentlemen and ladies were reading papers or playing bridge in silence, while there reached him, now stridently, now languidly, the burthen of the Boston waltz from the ballroom. Half-way down the corridor he saw a girlish figure in a white dress advancing towards him, and he recognised her at once from afar. He stopped, expecting her to recognise him as she advanced with bowed head at a rapid pace; but she only did so when close to him. A light cry of surprise and emotion issued from Lilian Temple's lips, and a blush covered her face to the roots of her fair hair.
"Ah, here you are!" she stammered, perceiving that by her blushing she was betraying her emotion too much.
"Here I am," murmured Lucio Sabini, taking her ungloved hand, and barely brushing it with his lips.
Alone in that deserted corridor they glanced at each other two or three times. Lilian Temple was dressed in a white stuff, a light silk that resembled a muslin, which assumed simple and pure lines with a very slight rustling. A large white ribbon, knotted behind, formed a belt, and fell in two long streamers. The corsage was modestly opened in a round at the neck and bust; it was trimmed with a fine tulle which gave a cloudy appearance to the stuff and the transparent complexion. Round her neck she wore a black velvet ribbon with three little silver buckles. She had at her waist three magnificent white roses; in the fair hair, of a childish fairness, which she knotted on her pretty head in three coils, she had placed amidst the curls another white rose. Her whole being breathed youth, freshness, and purity. Everything about her was more than ever virginal and alluring—the deep blue eyes, the transparent pearliness of the face and neck and bosom, the sudden changes of colour in the face, and the open and disappearing smile.
"And Miss Ford?" asked Lucio at last.
"She is playing bridge with some friends," replied Lilian slowly.
"Does she like bridge? Brava, Miss Ford!" he said, with a smile of satisfaction.
Again they were silent, looking at each other.
"Thank you for the beautiful flowers," she continued, in a low voice.
He looked at the roses Lilian kept at her waist and the rose that was languishing amidst her hair. They were those he had sent her in the afternoon.
"Thank you, Miss Temple, for honouring my flowers," said Lucio, in his subdued and penetrating voice; "I wear your colours, as you see."
She looked at the white rose he had in his buttonhole, and smiled slightly.
"After the ball, Miss Temple, we will make an exchange. You shall give me the rose that has been in your hair or one from your waist, and I will give you mine, if you like."
Lilian Temple listened with her little blond head inclined, just like a bird's.
"Will you give me one of your roses?" he asked, in a still lower and more penetrating voice, "one of your roses to keep me company after I leave you to-night, when I am alone in my room? Will you give me one?"
As if to speak better, he took the little, long white hand without a glove and pressed it slightly between his own.
She raised her pure eyes, blue as periwinkles, to him and replied in a faint voice:
"Yes."
"And you will keep the rose I have worn beside you to-night, Miss Temple? You will keep it? To remind you of me to-night and to-morrow?"
In his subdued voice there was more than tenderness, there was ardour, an ardour violent and repressed, as he squeezed the little, imprisoned hand.
"I will keep it," she said, with a trembling of her lips that were speaking, and a trembling of her little hand between those of Lucio Sabini.
Someone was coming from the ballroom and from the hall. He let the little hand fall. Regaining her composure she said:
"Won't you come with me to the ballroom?"
"Later on, Miss Temple," replied Lucio, still a little disturbed.
"Oh, no, at once!" exclaimed Miss Temple gracefully. "It is a beautiful ball, and full of such pretty girls, Signor Sabini."
"All English, I imagine. Then they must be very pretty."
"There are many Americans; but they are very beautiful too. Oh, I like all this so much," she said, with ingenuous enthusiasm.
"So you like a ball, Miss Temple?"
"Of course," and she smiled with simple, youthful gaiety.
"And you want to dance?" he murmured, frowning.
"Why, yes!"
"With whom do you wish to dance?" he insisted, a little seriously.
"With you if you like," she answered, understanding at last what he meant.
"All the time with me?" he asked, with a stern face, as if he were imposing a condition.
"All the time with you," she accepted, with a smile. He was more than ever intoxicated by that smile; but he knew how to control himself. He gave her his arm and they proceeded to the door of the ballroom. But a crowd, of men in particular, cumbered the threshold and prevented people from entering and leaving; so they waited patiently till they could enter. They waited some time, exchanging a few words sotto voce, she lifting her little blond head to his, where nestled the fragrant white rose he had given her, and fixing his eyes with that glance which bewitched him, so much did it give to him the complete expression of a fresh, young, virginal soul, so much did he perceive gathered there all the moral beauty and loyal tenderness of a fresh, young, virginal heart. He bent over her, dominating her with his black, calm, thoughtful eyes, sometimes crossed by a gleam of passion, with the virile and noble expression of his brown, rather thin face, but where all the characteristics were of energy; dominating her with soft, low words, pronounced in that tone of sincerity that the more simple womanly ear appreciates and understands. However, if the man was deeply charmed and subjugated by her who was beside him, he was an expert in hiding from the world what he was experiencing; hence his face disclosed nothing, while she, as she looked at him and listened to him, appeared in her silence, even in her immobility and perfect composure, to be taken and conquered. At last, carried on by a flow of people that pressed and drove them, they managed to enter the majestic ballroom together.
Round the walls there was a triple row of ladies seated, looking on and criticising. The seats were set very close together and the women were elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder, and among them, behind, were the men very close together, scarcely seated on a corner of their chairs, or standing and occupying the least space possible, hidden behind skirts which spread themselves, showing only their heads between two ladies' shoulders, bending on one side to talk to the lady they were beside, while the ladies raised their heads with a gentle movement, smiling and showing white teeth, occasionally raising their fans to the height of their lips, as if to hide from strangers their smiles, to show them only to him who was beside them. At the back of the room were eight or ten sets of men and women who had found no seats, but who kept close to each other in couples, waiting patiently to find a seat or to dance together. In the middle of the room, in a broad vortex that grazed those who were seated around, that made those who were on foot draw back from its whirl, in a broad vortex that grew longer according as it followed the longer walls of the room or grew denser along the shorter sides, in a vortex, now soft, now rapid, now denser and now thinner, many men and women were dancing, with a revolving of white dresses and black suits, while the triple hedge around alternated with black and white. Blond heads with delicate faces and blue eyes, a little bent as if to follow the music, revolved now softly, now quickly; gentle feminine figures in the whiteness of gauze and the brightness of silken girdle, revolved amidst the clouds of white skirts that wrapped themselves round their slender persons. The faces of the men—some young and others not so young—drew nearer to those of their partners in the musical rhythm, as strong or graceful arms upheld them in a firm embrace: a male hand pressed a little white-gloved hand in support. The heads of the English girls, adorned with flowers, were sedate, and sedate were their rosy faces, while their figures as they danced preserved a chaste appearance, as if the pleasures of the dance were nothing to them. On the, for the most part, clean-shaven faces of their partners a perfect correctness was to be noted. And all those blond heads of the women and clean-shaven faces of the men, the hundred or two hundred couples, of cavalier and lady, of girl with bright eyes, and youth with large mouth and perfect teeth, as they stood or sat down, danced or rested, seemed to have silently sworn never to separate that night, and this with the most perfect naturalness.
In drawing-rooms and sitting-rooms mothers, aunts, and relations were reading papers they had already read, or were playing at bridge, while many of them slumbered with eyes open, blinking from boredom and weariness; but none of them were troubling about their daughters and nieces. The young women and girls, the demoiselles of thirty, and the scraggy old maids touching forty, in white dresses, with hair curled in front and ribbon round the neck, from the moment the ball began were accompanied by lads and youths or older men with whom they were flirting. They did nothing but chat with, smile, or look at their flirt, or dance with him or another flirt, in perfect liberty and composure, each couple to themselves, without troubling about the flirting of their neighbours, nor did their neighbours seem to be aware of theirs. They were amusing themselves with that English tranquillity that is so astonishing, because it resembles boredom—the couples were pleased with each other, but with a gentle seriousness in acts and words and an occasional fleeting smile. Perhaps they were in love with each other, as many people love each other in other countries, that is to say with secret ardour; but so secret was it that nothing escaped thereof, showing instead a serenity that seems genuine, and perhaps is, and though they experience love's tumult in the depths of the soul, they have the strength to control that tumult.
More impulsive and impetuous, the actions of the American girls with their admirers and flirts were livelier, their words deeper and their laughter more frank. A keener life palpitated in their eyes full of gaiety, in their nostrils which seemed desirous of inhaling every perfume and in their parted lips. They shook their heads of dark hair, whose waves were peculiarly lowered over the forehead, and their actions were coquettish as they offered their ball programmes, opened their fans, or took their partner's arm. In their dancing............