--for her
face had become as colourless, now, as one of those translucent
marbles, vaguely warmed by some buried vein of rose beneath the snowy
surface.

Slowly she was being swept away from him--his gaze following--hers
lost in concentrated abstraction.

He saw her slipping away, disappearing behind the noisy waterfall.
Around him the restaurant continued to fill, slowly at first, then
more rapidly after the orchestra had entered its marble gallery.

The music began with something Russian, plaintive at first, then
beguiling, then noisy, savage in its brutal precision--something
sinister--a trampling melody that was turning into thunder with the
throb of doom all through it. And out of the vicious, Asiatic
clangour, from behind the dash of too obvious waterfalls, glided the
girl he had followed, now on her way toward him again, still seated at
her table, still gazing at nothing out of dark, unseeing eyes.

It seemed to him an hour before her table approached his own again.
Already she had been served by a waiter--was eating.

He became aware, then, that somebody had also served him. But he could
not even pretend to eat, so preoccupied was he by her approach.

Scarcely seeming to move at all, the revolving floor was steadily
drawing her table closer and closer to his. She was not looking at the
strawberries which she was leisurely eating--did not lift her eyes as
her table swept smoothly abreast of his.

Scarcely aware that he spoke aloud, he said:

"Nihla--Nihla Quellen!..."

Like a flash the girl wheeled in her chair to face him. She had lost
all her colour. Her fork had dropped and a blood-red berry rolled over
the table-cloth toward him.

"I'm sorry," he said, flushing. "I did not mean to startle you----"

The girl did not utter a word, nor did she move; but in her dark eyes
he seemed to see her every sense concentrated upon him to identify his
features, made shadowy by the lighted candles behind his head.

By degrees, smoothly, silently, her table swept nearer, nearer,
bringing with it her chair, her slender person, her dark, intelligent
eyes, so unsmilingly and steadily intent on him.

He began to stammer:

"--Two years ago--at--the Villa Tresse d'Or--on the Seine.... And we
promised to see each other--in the morning----"

She said coolly:

"My name is Thessalie Dunois. You mistake me for another."

"No," he said, in a low voice, "I am not mistaken."

Her brown eyes seemed to plunge their cle