thoughtfully and dreamily lucio sabini was dallying, stretched in his arm-chair beside his writing-table; a newspaper had fallen from his hand and lay opened on the carpet, his cigarette had gone out and he had not lit another. in the little, sympathetic h?tel caspar badruth, with its rather small rooms, every summer for some years he had always occupied the same room, one of the largest and most beautiful, with two windows looking on to the lake. he had divided the large room into two parts with a tall screen of japanese silk, quaintly bordered with flowers and plants, animals and figures. on one side the bedroom was isolated, on the other quite a little salon had been devised, with his arm-chairs, writing-table, and little tables, and on this ordinary furniture lucio had placed fabrics, vases, photographs, a shining silver writing-nécessaire, a red leather writing-case, and some pocket-books; in fact, everything personal and intimate that can conquer the discouraging banality of an hotel bedroom. although the dinner-hour was drawing rapidly near, lucio remained in his arm-chair, still in the dressing-gown he had donned an hour ago on returning from a walk. his servant, francesco, who for ten years had followed him everywhere, and who in the ten years had especially learned never to direct a remark to his master except when asked, and then to reply in the least number of words possible, had noiselessly prepared on the other side of the screen what was necessary for his master's evening toilette, even to another cigarette-case full of cigarettes and a silk neckerchief to place under the overcoat, and silently and discreetly had vanished, shutting the door without noise. probably lucio sabini had not even been aware of his presence. it was nearly eight o'clock. there was a knocking at the door. with a start lucio, still distrait and far-away, called out, "come in."
"i am come to say good-bye," said franco galatà, entering, and offering his hand to lucio.
lucio conjured a vague smile, took the hand, looked for his cigarette-box, and opened it.
franco galatà, prince of campobello, was a sicilian gentleman of thirty-five, who passed but two or three months of the year at palermo and one at licata, where his property was. the rest of the year he was always travelling, to rome, paris, biarritz, ostend; to monte carlo, cairo, and st. moritz, always mixing with the most brilliant society, knowing everything and everybody. of medium stature, but lean and robust, very brown of countenance, with a little spiked beard, and two very black eyes, slightly bald, a very good fencer, a perfect and tireless dancer, speaking french and english, and even italian, with a strong sicilian accent, franco galatà, prince of campobello, at first succeeded in being attractive; but his attraction did not last. his acquaintances changed frequently, not from year to year, but from season to season. people with whom he was intimate for three months, on the fourth month greeted him no more, and he himself avoided them, proudly and mockingly. friends liked him for a short time, and then suddenly spoke ill of him, and he, franco galatà, spoke ill of them. women grew agitated in speaking of him, changed the subject, or withdrew. lucio sabini gave the prince of campobello a worldly sympathy, very uncertain and very superficial, in which at bottom there was doubt and repugnance.
"are you leaving st. moritz?" he asked courteously.
"i am leaving this hotel, dear sabini. i am going to the grand hotel. i waited till they had a room free. this evening i am going to occupy it."
"don't you like the 'badruth'?"
"oh, a regular box. there's nothing to do," exclaimed the sicilian.
"what do you mean?"
"with the ladies, i mean to say," explained franco galatà.
"don't you think there are beautiful women here?" suggested lucio, becoming very cold and staring at the prince of campobello.
"here? very few: well acquainted with me and all, and i very well known to them. there's nothing to do," he repeated, with an even harder accent; "therefore i am going elsewhere."
"you travel to find women?" asked lucio coldly, placing himself in unison with galatà.
"for nothing else," affirmed the prince of campobello. "it is the only thing that interests me, pleases me, amuses me. i find nothing else better in life, such as it is," and he sighed lightly.
"and do one or many please you?"
"they all please me, even the least beautiful and the least young. those who please me most are the ones i can't possess," concluded galatà, with a slightly irritable accent.
"and do you never fall in love?" asked lucio icily.
"in love? not at all. i should be silly to let myself fall in love. sometimes they believe i am in love; and sometimes love matters nothing at all to them," murmured the prince cynically.
"therefore you are going to the grand hotel," said lucio, with a sneer.
"naturally! what is one to do in a small hotel, with such few people as we are, all acquainted with each other? everything is noted and observed, everything is heard. hurrah for the large hotels, sabini! for every reason there is nothing like them for what i want. plenty of unknown or little known women; i unknown to them or little known; immense salons, immense halls, vast terraces—the earthly paradise, my friend, the paradise of adventures of a day, of three days, of a week, especially when they are on the point of leaving ... when they are unlikely to be seen again, you understand, they dare more easily."
the prince of campobello laughed, with his red, carnal, sensual mouth beneath his black moustaches; and his black beard shook a little, and his eyes shone with a desire that was ever satisfied and ever unsatisfied.
"but these women whom you meet on your travels, dear galatà, are they easy to conquer?" asked lucio, with cynical curiosity.
"ah, not all certainly, my friend; but i try with all."
"with all?"
"no one excluded. it is my method. i assure you it is the best way."
there was a brief silence. lucio did not interrupt him.
"i like you so much; come away with me to my hotel," said galatà familiarly, not heeding the silence.
"you think so?" murmured the other, fencing, with the coldest politeness.
"i have got to know that there are some very eccentric russian women, also two or three divorced english women, a demi-vierge or two. come, we will amuse ourselves. do not remain in this virtuous barrack."
"oh, i shouldn't amuse myself there," declared lucio, somewhat decisively.
"what? don't you like women?"
"yes; but one at a time."
"really? and are you capable of loving the one? seriously?" exclaimed galatà, astonished and almost scandalised.
"i am even capable of loving the one seriously."
"for some time? then you give her up?"
"later, much later, i give her up ... when i have ceased to love her."
"what ingenuousness!" exclaimed the prince of campobello, astonished.
"infantile, infantile! i have no spirit in these love affairs," said lucio sabini, with a sneer; "but i wish you every success there! you shall tell me about it afterwards when we meet."
"all you want to know. a pity you won't come."
they took leave of each other at the door. coming down the corridor someone was advancing towards lucio. he stopped beside him, while the prince of campobello, after a slight, sarcastic smile, which the new-comer did not see, withdrew with the elastic step of a good fencer and dancer. with a rearward movement at the threshold of his room, lucio sabini tried to escape the meeting and conversation with serge de illyne; but he did not succeed. serge, bending his tall stature and his beautiful face, said to him in the purest french, in a musical voice:
"allow me; i should like to say a few words."
lucio, with bad grace, was forced to stand aside and let him pass. serge de illyne remained standing because the other did not ask him to sit down. he was a tall young man, of almost statuesque figure, in modern attire. he was already in evening dress, with a stupendous orchid in the buttonhole and a peculiar waistcoat of pale green velvet, with oxidised silver buttons. serge was of rare masculine beauty, with a very white complexion, large, dark eyes loaded with melting sweetness, a florid mouth beneath the soft, light chestnut moustaches, and a round, white neck. his perfectly shaped, pink hands were loaded with quaint rings, of antique shape, with gems of strange colours, and beneath his shirt-cuff a gold bracelet fell over his wrist, in the fashion of a snake with carbuncle eyes.
"why, dear count sabini," asked the russian, in his sing-song voice, "do you smoke those bad cigarettes? let me send you some of my exquisite ones!"
"thank you!" said sabini a little curtly, "but i am used to my own."
the russian, in a tranquil attitude, with his beautiful face on which bloomed a smile, was not discouraged.
"do you use eau de lubin?" he resumed. "why don't you use a mixture of ambre and chypre? i assure you they are delicious."
and he offered him a pink, bejewelled hand, as if to make him smell it. sabini pretended not to notice it. he neither touched nor smelt the hand and replied rudely:
"they are perfumes for women, in fact for cocottes. i don't like them."
the young russian shook his head graciously. then seeing that lucio sabini, staring a little impatiently, was questioning him with his eyes, he said:
"i came to ask you, dear sabini, if you would accompany us after dinner to st. moritz bad."
"with you and others? with whom, then?"
"why, first of all with me, and with hugo pforzheim, you know, dear hugo, the graceful german, and lewis ogilvie, the scotch psychologist who has invented the theory of the music of colours, and james field, another friend, an artist of the pencil. his drawings are stupendous; don't you know them?"
"all your set, in fact?" asked lucio, restraining his disgust.
"of course, all our set," murmured serge de illyne candidly; "we are going to reginald rhodes's—you must know the name, for he is already celebrated—the english poet. he has condescended to read us a poem this evening, an unpublished poem, on a fascinating subject."
"which is?"
"'narcissus' is the title."
"ah," exclaimed lucio sabini, at the height of impatience, "and you want me to come as well? are there to be ladies there?"
"oh, no, no!" exclaimed serge, with a gesture of annoyance; "we never have women with us."
"you dislike them, eh?" sneered lucio.
"we don't dislike them. we think them vain, silly, useless creatures," said de illyne contemptuously.
"well, if there are no women i can't come," concluded lucio, smiling sarcastically; "i like women's society."
"dommage, dommage!" murmured the russian, in his melodious voice.
"this evening i have a lover's tryst," said lucio sabini roughly.
"oh," exclaimed serge, as if scandalised, but questioning with his beautiful, tender eyes.
"really: a lover's tryst. and i must leave you to dress," insisted lucio, still somewhat insolently.
"with whom—a lover's tryst?" murmured serge de illyne.
lucio then looked at him with such intense and silent disdain on his face that the handsome russian paled a little, turned on his heels, and departed, bowing his tall person with the statuesque figure, while lucio sabini, with an energetic movement of the shoulders, disguised as an offensive farewell, retired behind the screen to dress. his toilette was, more than usual, long and accurate. he had almost finished when he heard a voice calling him from the other side of the screen.
"sabini, are you ready? are you coming to dinner?"
lucio put forth his head only from the screen and recognised francis mornand, a french gentleman, who had entered the room without lucio being aware of it. very thin, pallidly brown, with a clean-shaven face on which a calm and peaceful expression of correctness was permanently spread, with close-cropped hair, still black at the forehead, but slightly sprinkled with white at the temples, with monocle fixed without support, causing not a single wrinkle to the face, and dressed in austere elegance, when he was silent francis mornand had a more english than french appearance. but no one ignored the fact that he was one of the wittiest men in engadine society, as of any society in which he happened to find himself. everyone knew that, having lived thirty or forty years in the great cosmopolitan world, with an iron memory and an extraordinary adaptability of spirit, he was a conteur without a rival.
"i am nearly ready, mornand," replied sabini, with a smile, "but whither will you lead me?"
"first to dinner with me, then to our place."
"i must dine in haste, because it is late," replied sabini, who had again gone behind his screen.
"as you like. afterwards we will take a turn."
"where?" replied the other, without any curiosity.
"to st. moritz bad, to the 'kurhaus,' where the great tenor caruso is singing for a charity. i have some tickets, also for you. after midnight to the 'palace.' paul fry—you know him—has arrived, the greatest cutter at baccarat, who always cuts a five. there is to be play to-night, when all the ladies have gone to bed. it is to be a great game—most interesting. all those who have no money play hard."
"i can't come," replied lucio sabini, stepping into the room, already dressed.
"and why?" asked francis mornand, with a little smile.
"because i have to go elsewhere."
"elsewhere?" asked the frenchman.
again lucio did not reply. he took from a glass vase a magnificent white rose, a single rose, and placed it in the buttonhole of his dress-suit.
"you are going to the ball at the 'kulm.' you are very much in love with miss lilian temple," said francis mornand kindly, with a slight smile.
lucio stood still, with lowered eyes, and made no reply.
"well, dear sabini, at any rate if you will dine with me, since i am all alone this evening, i will tell you the history of miss lilian temple," declared mornand, in an indifferent tone, without even looking at his companion.
"her history? her history?" blurted lucio, with a tremble in his voice. "has lilian temple a history?"
"see how much in love you are, sabini!" added francis mornand, chuckling quietly. "confess that you love her."
"i adore her," replied lucio simply.
"well, my dear fellow," declared the amiable frenchman, placing his arm in lucio's, with affectionate familiarity, "miss temple has no history. she is an ideal creature; and if i say so you can believe me. but if you do not cruelly desert me at dinner, i can tell you the history of miss lilian temple's family, which i knew well in london. that ought to interest you a lot, if you really love her."
"i adore her," repeated sabini, and his words were veiled with emotion. "let us go."
