Slowly she was being swept away from him—his gaze following—hers lost in concentrated abstraction.
He saw her slipping away, disappearing behind the noisy waterfall. Around him the restaurant continued to fill, slowly at first, then more rapidly after the orchestra had entered its marble gallery.
The music began with something Russian, plaintive at first, then beguiling, then noisy, savage in its brutal precision—something sinister—a trampling melody that was turning into thunder with the throb of doom all through it. And out of the vicious, Asiatic clangour, from behind the dash of too obvious waterfalls, glided the girl he had followed, now on her way toward him again, still seated at her table, still gazing at nothing out of dark, unseeing eyes.
It seemed to him an hour before her table approached his own again. Already she had been served by a waiter—was eating.
He became aware, then, that somebody had also served him. But he could not even pretend to eat, so preoccupied was he by her approach.
Scarcely seeming to move at all, the revolving floor was steadily drawing her table closer and closer to his. She was not looking at the strawberries which she was leisurely eating—did not lift her eyes as her table swept smoothly abreast of his.
Scarcely aware that he spoke aloud, he said:
“Nihla—Nihla Quellen!...”
Like a flash the girl wheeled in her chair to face him. She had lost all her colour. Her fork had dropped and a blood-red berry rolled over the table-cloth toward him.