Whilst I was thus meditating, my face glued to the window, I thought that a sudden blaze illuminated the room, and by degrees I became conscious of the glare of countless candles, some of the candelabra branching from the walls, and others—of chased silver—standing on the table. I then saw the door at the far end of the apartment open, and a young and charming girl, dressed à la mode de Marie Antoinette, her gown high-waisted and her hair poudré, hurriedly enter. She gave a quick glance at the table, and then, advancing to the fireplace, where, for the first time, I perceived the cheery glow of a huge log of wood, gazed at herself in a large, richly-framed mirror. The reflection evidently pleased her, for she turned round all smiles; and then her eyes fell on the window, and on me.
In an instance her countenance changed. Putting a finger to her lips with a great air of mystery, she beckoned to me to come in. I started back in confusion. Again she beckoned, and with such pretty pleading in her eyes that, despite my travel-stained clothes, I yielded. I walked to the front door; she opened it, and in hushed tones, in which I detected a slight French accent, she bade me welcome.
“We are having a fancy-dress dance,” she said, “but none of the guests have as yet arrived, and I want you to come into the ball-room while I rehearse some of the dance music.”
She led the way across a big, deserted and strangely silent hall, up a flight of thickly-carpeted stairs, along a dimly lighted corridor, peopled with nothing but odd shadows, to which I could see no material counterparts, and into a room obviously prepared for a ball.
“There is no one about but you and I,” she said laughingly. “Only we two; but someone else will arrive soon. It’s not half-past twelve, is it?”
“No,” I said; “twenty past.”
“Ten more minutes!” She sighed deeply, and her expression, which up to now had been one of gay mischief, changed to one of immeasurable sadness. Then she nodded, suddenly burst out laughing, and casting the most bewitching look at me from out her long, thickly lashed blue-grey eyes, sat down at the piano and began to play a Strauss waltz.
Fascinated though I was by her extreme archness and beauty, I could not stifle the thousand and one uncomfortable thoughts that speedily crowded into my mind.
Who was this strangely friendly and peculiarly solitary girl? Surely someone must have helped her prepare the house and supper. Where were they? Besides, she couldn’t possibly live in that house alone.
And yet, apart from the music—which seemed to reverberate through every stick and stone of the building—there was no other sound. I might have been alone with her on some desert island in the far Pacific.