The music broke into a mad riot of rhythm; the violins seemed to run races with one another in an intoxication of sound, pulsing, penetrating, overpowering. The white figure twirled in the Prince's arms, her gold hair a blot against the scarlet of his sleeve, faster and faster. Her head drooped; her eyes closed again.
The rhythm was alive, tempting, subtle, like a madness in the veins; and as they whirled, the rubato, dreamy, sudden, caught them as in a leash; the steps faltered, slower, more lingering; slower, still slower until the music stopped, dying away into the dome of the vault in a last faint echo of sound.
The Countess swayed suddenly.
Her face was white as the lace on her bosom, and her eyes grew dark and big, with black shadows sweeping her cheeks. Others stepped forward to the dance; their places were filled and the music commenced again.
"Lean on me," whispered the Prince, "Are you ill? Countess, lean on my arm—so."
His voice was hoarse and excited. He was swaying a little himself from the intoxication of the dance.
"Take me away somewhere, some quiet place," she whispered back. "Let me rest—I am faint."
He drew her after him and the two figures, the scarlet and the white, passed under the archway into a salon beyond. The Prince raised a curtain: "This is the Duke's own room," he said in her ear, "Go under—be quick!"
The curtain fell heavily behind them and the two stood alone in the Grand-Duke's room. There was a desk in the corner littered with papers, a lamp stood beside, heavily shaded, and back in the shadowy recesses was a couch.
"Help me there," whispered the Countess, "And then go—go, Prince, leave me. My head is on fire! See, my cheeks, my hands, how they burn? Help me to the couch."