They were in a compartment of the express, which leaves Munich late in the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the gloom of early morning. Lilly and her husband sat in the corner seats by the windows. Not far from them, on the corridor side, a young man had taken his place with a pleasant smile, and then, without heeding his fellow-travellers, had soon become deep in a book that appeared to be written in Italian. Probably he was Italian too, an ambassador from that earthly paradise come to bid her welcome. Her interest in him was thus instantly arrested. From under her lowered lids, apparently asleep, she studied him. His severely cut even features were of a peculiar milky ivory colour. There was not a line or wrinkle in his clear skin, which looked as smooth as enamel. A small, dark, slightly curled moustache adorned his upper lip. The crisp hair on his temples was so closely cropped that the skin underneath gleamed through. She wanted to see what his eyes were like, but these were kept obstinately bent on his book, though he seemed to be only skimming the pages.
What excited her admiring wonder about him most was the finished grace of his movements. It was almost as if a young woman were disguised in that black and white check suit, which charmed her eye with its distingué cut. His throat disclosed a peep of a violet and dark-red striped silk shirt, under the soft collar of which a green tie was carelessly knotted.
All this was not in the least bizarre in effect, but harmonised perfectly. The costume apparently had been chosen with care and taste, and, together with his total disregard of herself, it exercised a fascination on Lilly. She could almost believe that this young stranger, by his dress, bearing, and especially by his disregard of her presence, was compelling her notice.
Absurd as it was, she felt quite nervous. When they reached the Austrian frontier and the custom-house officials entered the carriage, he said a few foreign words in a low tone, which the officials evidently understood, for they turned away from him with low bows.
At the same moment he raised his eyes and let them wander round the carriage, and while the colonel was opening his bag, they rested for a second on her. What curious eyes they were! A dark, diamond-like radiance shot from them, yet they caressed, yes, caressed with a wicked confident tenderness, full of impatient questions--questions that made you blush.
The next minute it was as if nothing had happened. He bent over his book as before, and appeared not to have seen her.
Her husband gave her a look of watchful cunning as if he had discovered something in her face for which he had long been searching. Then, when the train went on again, he settled himself to sleep. For greater comfort he moved to the unoccupied seat next to the corridor. The stranger, wishing to avoid being opposite him, involuntarily shifted his position more towards the middle, so that the distance between himself and Lilly was appreciably diminished. A little more, and he would have been sitting directly opposite her.
Had Lilly been on her guard she would have paid more attention to her husband's sleep. But all her senses were centred on a desire to elude the stranger, whose proximity pricked her with a thousand needles.
She drew far back into her corner and looked intermittently out of the window, on the dark background of which the interior of the carriage was reflected as in a mirror. In this way she could contemplate him in peace, untroubled by a fear of his looking up and catching her. The light from the lamp in the ceiling sharply illumined his smooth, soft cheeks, with their polished surface merging into blue shadows on the temples. Such cheeks were surely made to be stroked and pressed against yours; to pass your hand over them would be a joy. And how long his eyelashes were--longer than her own--their shadow cast dark semi-circles as far down as his finely chiselled nostrils.