"You have the salvation of my soul in your hands, Lilian," he said to her, in so serious a tone that she could not think of being offended because he had called her by her name so suddenly.
More than ever anxiety disturbed the beautiful, soft, virginal face.
"Do you laugh at this humble hope, Lilian? do you laugh at this immense hope? Do you wish me to save myself to end by losing myself?" he continued, in that serious, touching tone of his.
"Who am I to do this?" Lilian asked, hesitating and trembling.
"You are innocence," he replied, bowing as before an image, "and you alone can save me."
"How can I do that?" she stammered, tremblingly.
"You know," he continued, with so ardent a glance that she felt herself scorched by it, from her eyes to her palpitating heart.
"Come," he murmured in her ear, "let us go and look at the summer night outside."
They rose quietly; the old lady was still absorbed in her review reading through her silver-rimmed glasses, of which they had never heard the pages turned, and the old gentleman was hidden behind his large German newspaper, held by a stick like a paper banner. Neither of them had been aware of the presence of the two lovers, or discreetly had pretended not to be aware. As in a dream, with a far-away look in her large blue eyes, Lilian Temple followed Lucio Sabini. Silently, automatically they looked for her mantle and shawl, which were hanging on a peg in a corner of the corridor. Lucio helped her to put on the white woollen cloak, with the long sleeve-like wings prettily trimmed with white fur. He settled the shawl on her head, made of an Eastern fabric, in white gauze trimmed with silver spangles. Together they directed themselves towards a deserted room near the hall, whose balcony opened on to the large covered terrace, and large verandah with pillars: the verandah that stretched along the main body of the Hôtel Kulm, facing the lake. They did not exchange a single word, walking slowly as if absorbed. Opening the window of the balcony behind them and leaning over the balustrade, without moving they contemplated the spectacle which in solitude and silence was beneath their dreamy eyes.
The night was already late, a pungent cold, with breezes that seemed like powerful, icy gasps crossed the silent Engadine country. The pure night air was rendered quite white by the lofty brilliance of the moon, suspended over the lake like a lamp in mid-sky. Meanwhile the mountains around, far and near, were becoming obscure and gloomy with shadows, and even higher and more majestic in the gloom those that the moon did not touch and illuminate, while the opposite shores of the lake, untouched by the moon's rays, grew gloomy; in the middle its waters, touched by the moon, were scintillating. All the lake of St. Moritz, in fact, seemed like a strange cup of peculiar liquid, black and fearsome towards the deserted shores, beneath the shadow of the mountains, brilliant as a cold, metallic liquid in the middle; a fantastic cup containing intoxication and death on the cold summer night in the high mountains. Like night and moon the silence was supreme and everything seemed motionless. Up above a few scattered lights pointed the way from the station to the baths, but no human shadow passed there. Down below at the baths rarer and feebler light flickered now and then, if a too impetuously cold breeze reached them. In an opaque, almost spiritual, whiteness the eternal snow appeared high above, in the night, on the strange Piz Languard; pure and spectral it appeared amidst the deep folds of Monte Corvatsch, and pale as a phantom on the far-off horizon between the two peaks of the Margna. Their souls trembling with an immense sensibility, their hearts palpitating with an immense tenderness, were struck, seized, and conquered by the majesty and purity of things in the presence of the mountains that for centuries have seen time and life pass away; in the presence of the motionless glaciers that no sun's rays could dissolve, and the waters black as shadows or white as the moon. Side by side, they felt their hearts lifted above every little transient, paltry entanglement by so much power, beauty, and nobility; they felt that their hearts were breaking old bonds, and that the secret of their spirit was more intense, profound, and overpowering. They felt that here was the master whom nothing could any longer resist, and that no longer could they lie or remain silent. Sweetly Lucio bent over her and sweetly he drew her to him with a light fleeting action, as he brushed the fair hair on her forehead with his lips.