of
such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of the
disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinate
centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. With
a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered.

And snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. The dancing couples
talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant
good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips and
expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed and
distance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm pulsed
in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currents
of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowded
ball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all this
discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the--Snow.

But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan
yearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleaming
in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he
transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the
personality of the girl--the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was waiting
for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues of
moonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; the
soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of her
presence in the way she came and the way she had gone again--like a
flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. She, like himself,
belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her little windy voice come
sifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name
... that haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of his
life as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do....

But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. He
danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as each
girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows,
hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come ... and at
length, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned; groups left
one by one, going home to their hotels and chalets; the band tired
obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, the
men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed.

It was close on midnight. As Hi