There were many others who aroused her curiosity, but whose rank and character she could not learn. There was even a real prince, a pale, fair, extremely young fellow, who dared not ask to be introduced to Lilly because his mistress kept guard on him and would not let him out of her sight. The women, of course, were not so gushing to her as the men, though the one or two whose acquaintance she made were very warm in their overtures of friendship.
A brunette, with a small, voluptuously beautiful figure, bright restless eyes, and a seductive smile, approached her with: "You and I ought to be friends. I'll introduce you to my particular pal, and we'll have supper together at a little table, and be quite a cosy family party."
Another, a very thin young girl, taller than most of the men present, with wells of blue fire for eyes, swept about in long white "impressionist" draperies like a figure in a dream, undisturbed by the tumult in which she moved. She spoke without moving her head, and smiled without curving her lips. She was a fair young Dane, who had come to study painting and to "live life," as she expressed it.
"Who are you?" she asked Lilly. "You are different from the rest. You must have strong arms, if you do not want to be washed along by the current."
With a bold gesture, she flung back the wide sleeves of her gown, and displayed two marble-white perfect arms, with wonderfully supple movements. Then she glided on.
A flaxen-haired, extremely graceful woman, no longer young, whose pretty, laughing face was burnt as brown as a berry from exposure to sub and wind, held out her hand to Lilly with a merry twinkle in her eye, as if they had known each other for years.
"How sweet you are, and how beautiful!" she said softly. "We've all flown into this cage and don't know why; and we don't even know whether we shall get out unhurt or not. But where do you hail from? I am----" She mentioned the name--the name of a great musician who in the house of Kilian Czepanek had been a kind of demi-god.
"Yes, I am Welter's former wife.... Positively I am," she added gaily, and again took the arm of the man she was with and turned away.
"A sort of 'Generalin,' like me," thought Lilly.
There were thrown in a few married couples, mostly very young and foolish, who herded for a long time timidly together and then frisked wildly about like monkeys let loose.