Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased it
even to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snow
the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place,
would even look for him. Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the
little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sit
straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie upon
the shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright. "I
look younger than I usually do," he thought. It was unusual, even
significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and
certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he was. Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no fuel
for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces of his
soul and mind not called upon for "work" and obvious duties, all went to
Nature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he loved;
night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he felt
their claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught his
blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But chiefly
snow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white, seductive
dreams.... For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had somehow come
with it--into his mind. And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat
askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "What in the world is up
with me?" he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving
the room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk that
held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. Tied to
the lid was the visiting card with his brother's London address "in case
of accident." On the way down to the hotel he wondered why he had done
this, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who dealt in
presentiments. Moods with him were strong, but ever held in leash. "It's almost like a warning," he thought, smiling. He drew his thick
coat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. "Those
warnings one reads of in stories sometimes ...!" A delicious happiness was in his blood. Over the edge of the hills
across the valley rose the moon. He saw her silver sheet the world of
snow. Snow covered all. It smothered sound and distance. It smothered
houses, streets, and human beings. It smothered--life. V


In the hall there was light and bustle; people were already arriving
from the other hotels and chalets, their costumes hidden beneath many
wraps. Groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking
"snow" and "ski-ing." The band was tuning up. The claims of the
hotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. At the big glass
windows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way home
from the _cafe_ to peer. Hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict he
used to imagine. He laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal. He
belonged so utterly to Nature and the mountains, and especially to those
desolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and sweet, that
there was no question of a conflict at all. The power of the newly
fallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. Out there, upon
those lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay ready--masses
and masses of it--cool, soft, inviting. He longed for it. It awaited
him. He thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in the
moonlight.... Thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he stood
there smoking with the other men and talking all the "shop" of ski-ing. And, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured also
through his inner being the power of the girl. He could not disabuse his
mind of the insinuating presence of the two together. He remembered that
queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let her in. That any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath the sway of
such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of the
disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinate
centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. With
a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered. And snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. The dancing couples
talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant
good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips and
expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed and
distance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm pulsed
in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currents
of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowded
ball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all this
discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the--Snow. But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan
yearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleaming
in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he
transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the
personality of the girl--the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was waiting
for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues of
moonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; the
soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of her
presence in the way she came and the way she had gone again--like a
flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. She, like himself,
belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her little windy voice come
sifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name
... that haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of his
life as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do.... But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. He
danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as each
girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows,
hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come ... and at
length, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned; groups left
one by one, going home to their hotels and chalets; the band tired
obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, the
men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed. It was close on midnight. As Hibbert passed through the hall to get his
overcoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the "sport-room,"
greasing their ski against an early start. Knapsack luncheons were being
ordered by the kitchen swing doors. He sighed. Lighting a cigarette a
friend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some question as to
whether he could join their party in the morning. It seemed he did not
hear it properly. He passed through the outer vestibule between the
double glass doors, and went into the night.