Chapter 1

            It was Barclay who had insisted : "A teacher with a reputation like yours must go to this kind of mundane evening party" and now, he found himself in the brilliant and moving crowd of the highest American society, a glass in his hand, fairly irritated by the unceasing chattering of an over-excited Barclay.

            He was busy staring at these people when he saw her. He was practically certain that it was her! His pupil, who, the evening before, had fainted in his arms. Her beauty was dazzling, and the dark-red dress she was wearing made her look like a princess, with her skirts that fluttered around her as she moved.

Her hair was high, complex curls were rolling around her head and some of them were hanging down, framing her face in a very charming way. Her nape, thus bared, and her gracious neck captured the shadows and the lights as she moved, in a so subtle way that he was dying to let his elegant fingers run on them, in a sensual caress.

            He raised his eyes up to her face, she was without make-up, which was strongly out of place among the other women who were here, all plastered with a thick coat of paint in a grotesque manner. She had fine and delicate features, but her lips smiled with self-confidence, and her eyes shone with strength, as part of the aura of power that emanated from her.

Indeed, since she had walked in the room, a little crowd had gathered around her in order to greet and to compliment her the way courtiers would do with royalty, to which she answered with a little move of her head or with a smile.

He noticed that she was observing him too, an arc of brightness in her eyes. The pounding of his heart went slightly faster, while they stayed that way, looking into each others' eyes.

            She was surprised to see him here, he who hated so much the populace and who seemed to give some much price to loneliness. He was still wearing the same weird attire, a kind of black costume and a ...cloak! It was deep black, tied his fine and long silhouette up and floated behind him as he walked, strengthening the authority that emanated from his moves, his look and his voice.

            His hair, smooth as black locks of silk, elegantly fell upon his shoulders, contrasting with his skin as white as porcelain. His lips, although bloodless, were the only sweetness on his face, contrasting sharply with the ruggedness of his cheek-bones, his aquiline nose and his icy deep dark look.

She realized that his eyes were on her. She felt bashful, as if two bottomless wells were diving into the depths of her soul. She didn't hear the noiseful crowd around her anymore, her eyes were locked up to those of this living mystery that this man was.

          She shuddered as she was thinking back to her detention the evening before. He has imposed it to her because of her perpetual lack of attention during the chemistry lecture, and of her total failure in the making of an experiment that everybody else had managed to do.

 He had enjoined her to put some shelves in order and to label different solutions, and that was what she was doing when her recurrent nightmare had striken her as she was wide awake. She had let the flasks she was holding fall and break themselves on the floor, drawing the teacher's attention to her just in time so that he could catch her as she was fainting.

She had recovered consciousness, sobbing with remorse and terror in the teacher's arms, he was looking at her without speaking a word.

            "Melina, Melina". Eddies' voice pulled her out of her thoughts, the contact with the eyes of the man in black broke, and at least she realized the crowd around her. This kept her from thinking to the sight of the classroom after her faint and to her teacher's proposal.

"Come on, I must introduce you someone who could be interested in your paintings."

When she was dragged along a little farther by the young man in a beige suit who was holding her arm, Snape turned around and called Barclay.

"Who is she?"

The latter burst out laughing :

"Ah, ah, Snape! Always looking at pretty girls!"

Snape shot him with his look and the laughter of the little chubby man muffled in his throat.

"She is Andrea Chamblas, the artist. Her paintings are sold a large sum of money, everybody is crazy for them", he said showing the toffs with a small move of his head.

"She also rides horses, makes horse shows, from what I heard, she is excellent, always the first."

Chamblas, that was really the name of his intriguing student..."

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I'm French, I hope I haven't make too much fault!