Anna Lombard, page 9 by Victoria Cross
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ad been passed in the hardest study and closest intellectual training in a dull, fog-laden old town urn the Cornish coast. There, she told me, she had walked on the sea-beaten sands repeating her lessons in the classics to the wild, wet winds that were busy blowing the color jnto her exquisite skin, while her restless, impatient mind had been wandering far off in the sunny lands and speculating on those strange passions and emotions she was learning of through the lettered pages. And now, suddenly transported to the vivid glowing East, taken from that quiet solitude of study and placed in a whirlpool of human life and gayety in these gorgeous surroundings of Nature for nowhere on earth is there a more dazzling or brilliant arena for life to play itself out than in India she was ]ike an amazed, delighted, and clever child watching the curtain rise for the first time on the splendor of a pantomime.
We sat and talked through two entire dances, then as the strains of a particularly seductive waltz reached us I asked her if she would not give it to me, and she assented, with I fancied the slightest possible flush. She confessed to me later that though she had been carefully taught and made to practice dancing at home, this was her first "real ball." My heart beat as I put my arm round her and guided her among the dancers. I can not say or divine exactly the attractiveness of her manner; but there was a sort of appealing timidity in it that, united with such an obviously clever and gifted mind and such a sweet face and form, had in it a keen flattery.
I held her close to me, and with a perfect unity of step and motion we glided round the room in the great circle of other dancers. The warmth of the slight white arm on my shoulder and the white breast against my own, the sight of the fair, animated face, and a swift glance now and then from those passionate, blue eyes, seemed working on me like a subtle charm. I felt happy, contented; India was no longer a gorgeous but barren desert, life was not full of di