I looked along the room.
Yonder were the tables of the winter sports people, there the tables of the solid burghers, there sat the French, there the English, and Dutchmen with the homely syllables of their speech, recalling meadows and the sea—and among them this little colony of sickness and death.
I looked at Pat—meadows and sea—surf and sand and swimming—ach, thought I, dear frail brow! dear hands I dear life—that I can only love and cannot save.
I got up and went outside.
I was stifled with oppression and impotence.
I walked slowly along the path.
I shivered with the cold, and the wind behind the houses made my flesh creep.
I clenched my fists and stared at the hard, white mountains in a wild mixture of helplessness, anger and pain.
A sleigh tinkled past on the road below.
I went back.
Pat was coming toward me.
"Where have you been?"
"Only outside."
"Are you vexed?"
"Not at all."
"Be gay, darling!
Be gay to-day.
For my sake.
Who knows when I'll be able to go to a ball again?
"You'll go very often."
She laid her head on my shoulder.
"If you say so, it must be true.
Come, let's dance again.
We've never danced together before."
We danced, and the warm, soft light was merciful; it hid all the shadows that the late night had drawn on the faces.
"How do you feel, Pat?" I asked.
"Good, Robby."
"How lovely you are, Pat."
Her eyes brightened.
"It's lovely of you to say that to me."
I felt her warm, dry lips on my cheek.
It was late when we got back to the sanatorium.
"See now what he looks like," sniggered the violinist, furtively pointing to the Russian.
"You look just the same," said I irritably.
He eyed me, startled.
"Yes—of course—you health-hog," he muttered.
I shook hands with the Russian.
He nodded to me, and gently and lightly helped the Spanish girl up the stairs.
As they climbed, his big, bowed back and the girl's frail shoulders against the feeble night-lighting looked as if the burden of the whole world lay on them.
The death's head dragged the sulking gigolo off down the passage.
Antonio said good night to us.
It was all rather ghostly, this almost soundless, whispered parting.
Pat pulled her dress over her head.
She stood bending over, and tugged at the shoulders.
As she did so the stuff tore.
Pat examined the place.
"It was probably split already," said I.
"It doesn't matter," said Pat, "I probably shan't ever use it again."
Slowly she folded up the dress, and did not hang it again in the wardrobe.
She laid it in her trunk.