On the edge of evening she came out of the Palace of Mirrors and
crossed the wet asphalt, which already reflected primrose lights from
a clearing western sky.
A few moments before, he had been thinking of her, never dreaming that
she was in America. But he knew her instantly, there amid the rush and
clatter of the street, recognised her even in the twilight of the
passing storm--perhaps not alone from the half-caught glimpse of her
shadowy, averted face, nor even from that young, lissome figure so
celebrated in Europe. There is a sixth sense--the sense of nearness to
what is familiar. When it awakes we call it premonition.
The shock of seeing her, the moment's exciting incredulity, passed
before he became aware that he was already following her through
swarming metropolitan throngs released from the toil of a long, wet
day in early spring.
Through every twilit avenue poured the crowds; through every
cross-street a rosy glory from the west was streaming; and in its
magic he saw her immortally transfigured, where the pink light
suffused the crossings, only to put on again her lovely mortality in
the shadowy avenue.
At Times Square she turned west, straight into the dazzling fire of
sunset, and he at her slender heels, not knowing why, not even asking
it of himself, not thinking, not caring.
A third figure followed them both.
The bronze giants south of them stirred, swung their great hammers
against the iron bell; strokes of the hour rang out above the din of
Herald Square, inaudible in the traffic roar another square away,
lost, drowned out long before the pleasant bell-notes penetrated to
Forty-second Street, into which they both had turned.
Yet, as though occultly conscious that some hour had struck on earth,
significant to her, she stopped, turned, and looked back--looked quite
through him, seeing neither him nor the one-eyed man who followed them
both--as though her line of vision were the East itself, where, across
the grey sea's peril, a thousand miles of cannon were sounding the
hour from the North Sea to the Alps.
He passed her at her very elbow--aware of her nearness, as though
suddenly close to a young orchard in April. The girl, too, resumed her
way, unconscious of him, of his youthful face set hard with controlled
emotion.
The one-eyed man followed them both.
A few steps further and she turned into the entrance to one of those
sprawling, pretentious restaurants, the sham magnificence of which
becomes grimy overnight. He halted, swung around, retraced his steps
and followed her. And at his heels two shapes followed them very
silently--her shadow and his own--so close together now, against the
stucco wall that they seemed like Destiny and Fate linked arm in arm.
The one-eyed man halted at the door for a few moments. Then he, too,
went in, dogged by his sinister shadow.
The red sunset's rays penetrated to the rotunda and were quenched
there in a flood of artificial light; and there their sun-born
shadows vanished, and three strange new shadows, twisted and
grotesque, took their places.
She continued on into the almost empty restaurant, looming dimly
beyond. He followed; the one-eyed man followed both.
The place into which they stepped was circular, centred by a waterfall
splashing over concrete rocks. In the ruffled pool goldfish glimmered,
nearly motionless, and mandarin ducks floated, preening exotic
plumage.
A wilderness of tables surrounded the pool, set for the expected
patronage of the coming evening. The girl seated herself at one of
these.
At the next table he found a place for himself, entirely unnoticed by
her. The one-eyed man took the table behind them. A waiter presented
himself to take her order; another waiter came up leisurely to attend
to him. A third served the one-eyed man. There were only a few inches
between the three tables. Yet the girl, deeply preoccupied, paid no
attention to either man, although both kept their eyes on her.
But already, under the younger man's spellbound eyes, an odd and
unforeseen thing was occurring: he gradually became aware that, almost
imperceptibly, the girl and the table where she sat, and the sleepy
waiter who was taking her orders, were slowly moving nearer to him on
a floor which was moving, too.
He had never before been in that particular restaurant, and it took
him a moment or two to realise that the floor was one of those trick
floors, the central part of which slowly revolves.
Her table stood on the revolving part of the floor, his upon fixed
terrain; and he now beheld her moving toward him, as the circle of
tables rotated on its axis, which was the waterfall and pool in the
middle of the restaurant.
A few people began to arrive--theatrical people, who are obliged to
dine early. Some took seats at tables placed upon the revolving
section of the floor, others preferred the outer circles, where he sat
in a fixed position.
Her table was already abreast of his, with only the circular crack in
the floor between them; he could easily have touched her.
As the distance began to widen between them, the girl, her gloved
hands clasped in her lap, and studying the table-cloth with unseeing
gaze, lifted her dark eyes--looked at him without seeing, and once
more gazed through him at something invisible upon which her thoughts
remained fixed--something absorbing, vital, perhaps tragic--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 clear regard into the depths of
his very soul--not in recognition, but in watchful, dangerous
defiance.
He began again, still stammering a trifle:
"--In the morning, we were to--to meet--at eleven--near the fountain
of Marie de Medicis--unless you do not care to remember----"
At that her gaze altered swiftly, melted into the exquisite relief of
recognition. Suspended breath, released, parted her blanched lips; her
little guardian heart, relieved of fear, beat more freely.
"Are you Garry?"
"Yes."
"I know you now," she murmured. "You are Garret Barres, of the rue
d'Eryx.... You _are_ Garry!" A smile already haunted her dark young
eyes; colour was returning to lip and cheek. She drew a deep,
noiseless breath.
The table where she sat continued to slip past him; the distance
between them was widening. She had to turn her head a little to face
him.
"You do remember me then, Nihla?"
The girl inclined her head a trifle. A smile curved her lips--lips now
vivid but still a little tremulous from the shock of the encounter.
"May I join you at your table?"
She smiled, drew a deeper breath, looked down at the strawberry on the
cloth, looked over her shoulder at him.
"You owe me an explanation," he insisted, leaning forward to span the
increasing distance between them.
"Do I?"
"Ask yourself."
After a moment, still studying him, she nodded as though the nod
answered some silent question of her own:
"Yes, I owe you one."
"Then may I join you?"
"My table is more prudent than I. It is running away from an
explanation." She fixed her eyes on her tightly clasped hands, as
though to concentrate thought. He could see only the back of her head,
white neck and lovely dark hair.
Her table was quite a distance away when she turned, leisurely, and
looked back at him.
"May I come?" he asked.
She lifted her delicate brows in demure surprise.
"I've been waiting for you," she said, amiably.
The one-eyed man had never taken his eyes off them.