But already, under the younger mans 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, 42 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.
Im 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 dOr 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 Médicis 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 dEryx 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 45 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.
Ive been waiting for you, she said, amiably.
The one-eyed man had never taken his eyes off them.
IV
DUSK
She had offered him her hand; he had bent over it, seated himself, and they smilingly exchanged the formal banalities of a pleasantly renewed acquaintance.
A waiter laid a cover for him. She continued to concern herself, leisurely, with her strawberries.
When did you leave Paris? she enquired.
Nearly two years ago.
Before war was declared?
Yes, in June of that year.
She looked up at him very seriously; but they both smiled as she said:
It was a momentous month for you then the month of June, 1914?
Very. A charming young girl broke my heart in 1914; and so I came home, a wreck to recuperate.
At that she laughed outright, glancing at his youthful, sunburnt face and lean, vigorous figure.
When did you come over? he asked curiously.
I have been here longer than you have. In fact, I left France the day I last saw you.
The same day?
I started that very same day shortly after sunrise. I crossed the Belgian frontier that night, and I sailed for New York the morning after. I landed here a week later, and Ive been here ever since. That, monsieur, is my history.
Youve been here in New York for two years! he repeated in astonishment. Have you really left the stage then? I supposed you had just arrived to fill an engagement here.
They gave me a try-out this afternoon.
You? A try-out! he exclaimed, amazed.
She carelessly transfixed a berry with her fork:
If I secure an engagement I shall be very glad to fill it and my stomach, also. If I dont secure one well charity or starvation confronts me.
They gave me a try-out this afternoon.
You? A try-out! he exclaimed, amazed.
She carelessly transfixed a berry with her fork:
If I secure an engagement I shall be very glad to fill it and my stomach, also. If I dont secure one well charity or starvation confronts me.
He smiled at her with easy incredulity.
I had not heard that you were here! he repeated. Ive read nothing at all about you in the papers
No I am here incognito I have taken my sisters name. After all, your American public does not know me.
But
Wait! I dont wish it to know me!
But if you
The girls slight gesture checked him, although her smile became humorous and friendly:
Please! We need not discuss my future. Only the past! She laughed: How it all comes back to me now, as you speak that crazy evening of ours together! What children we were two years ago!
Smilingly she clasped her hands together on the tables edge, regarding him with that winning directness which was a celebrated part of her celebrated personality; and happened to be natural to her.
Why did I not recognise you immediately? she demanded of herself, frowning in self-reproof. I am stupid! Also I have, now and then, thought about you She shrugged her shoulders, and again her face faltered subtly:
Much has happened to distract my memories, she 48 added carelessly, impaling a strawberry, since you and I took the key to the fields and the road to the moon like the pair of irresponsibles we were that night in June.
Have you really had trouble?
Her slim figure straightened as at a challenge, then became adorably supple again; and she rested her elbows on the tables edge and took her cheeks between her hands.
Trouble? she repeated, studying his face. I dont know that word, trouble. I dont admit such a word to the honour of my happy vocabulary.
They both laughed a little.
She said, still looking at him, and at first speaking as though to herself:
Of course, you are that same, delightful Garry! My youthful American accomplice!.. Quite unspoiled, still, but very, very irresponsible like all painters like all students. And the mischief which is in me recognised the mischief in you, I suppose I did surprise you that night, didnt I?.. And what a night! What a moon! And how we danced there on the wet lawn until my skirts and slippers and stockings were drenched with dew!.. And how we laughed! Oh, that full-hearted, full-throated laughter of ours! How wonderful that we have lived to laugh like that! It is something to remember after death. Just think of it! you and I, absolute strangers, dancing every dance there in the drenched grass to the music that came through the open windows And do you remember how we hid in the flowering bushes when my sister and the others came out to look for me? How they called, Nihla! Nihla! Little devil, where are you? Oh, it was funny funny! And to see him come out on the lawn do you remember? He looked so fat and 49 stupid and anxious and bad-tempered! And you and I expiring with stifled laughter! And he, with his sash, his decorations and his academic palms! Hed have shot us both, you know
They were laughing unrestrainedly now at the memory of that impossible night a year ago; and the girl seemed suddenly transformed into an irresponsible gamine of eighteen. Her eyes grew brighter with mischief and laughter laughter, the greatest magician and doctor emeritus of them all! The immortal restorer of youth and beauty.
Bluish shadows had gone from under her lower lashes; her eyes were starry as a childs.
Oh, Garry, she gasped, laying one slim hand across his on the table-cloth, it was one of those encounters one of those heavenly accidents that reconcile one to living I think the moon had made me a perfect lunatic Because you dont yet know what I risked Garry!.. It ruined me ruined me utterly our night together under the June moon!
What! he exclaimed, incredulously.
But she only laughed her gay, undaunted little laugh:
It was worth it! Such moments are worth anything we pay for them! I laughed; I pay. What of it?
But if I am partly responsible I wish to know
You shall know nothing about it! As for me, I care nothing about it. Id do it again to-night! That is living to go forward, laugh, and accept what comes to have heart enough, gaiety enough, brains enough to seize the few rare dispensations that the niggardly gods fling across this calvary which we call life! Tenez, that alone is living; the rest is making the endless stations on bleeding knees.
Yet, if I thought he began, perplexed and troubled, if I thought that through my folly
Folly! Non pas! Wisdom! Oh, my blessed accomplice! And do you remember the canoe? Were we indeed quite mad to embark for Paris on the moonlit Seine, you and I? I in evening gown, soaked with dew to the knees! you with your sketching block and easel! Quelle déménagement en famille! Oh, Garry, my friend of gayer days, was that really folly! No, no, no, it was infinite wisdom; and its memory is helping me to live through this very moment!
She leaned there on her elbows and laughed across the cloth at him. The mockery began to dance again and glimmer in her eyes:
After all Ive told you, she added, you are no wiser, are you? You dont know why I never went to the Fountain of Marie de Médicis whether I forgot to go whether I remembered but decided that I had had quite enough of you. You dont know, do you?
He shook his head, smiling. The girls face grew gradually serious:
And you never heard anything more about me? she demanded.
No. Your name simply disappeared from the billboards, kiosques, and newspapers.
And you heard no malicious gossip? None about my sister, either?
None.
She nodded:
Europe is a senile creature which forgets overnight. Tant mieux You know, I shall sing and dance under my sisters name here. I told you that, didnt I?
Oh! That would be a great mistake
Listen! Nihla Quellen disappeared married some fat bourgeois, died, perhaps, she shrugged, anything 51 you wish, my friend. Who cares to listen to what is said about a dancing girl in all this din of war? Who is interested?
It was scarcely a question, yet her eyes seemed to make it so.
Who cares? she repeated impatiently. Who remembers?
I have remembered you, he said, meeting her intently questioning gaze.
You? Oh, you are not like those others over there. Your country is not at war. You still have leisure to remember. But they forget. They havent time to remember anything anybody over there. Dont you think so? She turned in her chair unconsciously, and gazed eastward. They have forgotten me over there And her lips tightened, contracted, bitten into silence.
The strange beauty of the girl left him dumb. He was recalling, now, all that he had ever heard concerning her. The gossip of Europe had informed him that, though Nihla Quellen was passionately and devotedly French in soul and heart, her mother had been one of those unmoral and lovely Georgians, and her father an Alsatian, named Dunois a French officer who entered the Russian service ultimately, and became a hunting cheetah for the Grand Duke Cyril, until himself hunted into another world by that old bag of bones on the pale and shaky nag. His daughter took the name of Nihla Quellen and what money was left, and made her début in Constantinople.