"It's not so bad. I've never been here before. Do you come often?"
"Oh no! not often: only when Margot brings Gustave to come and fetch me after I've been singing."
She clapped her hands gaily as the waiter set a steaming dish of mussels before them. The house was famed for its moules marinières. "I adore them," she said, unfolding her serviette, and tucking it under her chin. Charnac ladled out the mussels into soup-plates. Their blue iridescent shells shone in an opal-coloured gravy where tiny slices of onion floated on the surface. Her dainty fingers dipped into the plate, and she fed herself with the mussels, biting them from the shells with her sharp white teeth. She ate with an extraordinary rapidity, breaking off generous pieces from the long, crisp roll of bread before her, and drinking deeply of her red Burgundy.
She was simply an animal. Margot ate in much the same way, with greedy, quick gestures, until her plate was piled high with empty mussel shells. And, during the meal, they chattered trivialities, discussing personal friends in a slangy, intimate phraseology.
The sharp taste of the sauce, with its flavour of the salt sea-water, made Humphrey thirsty, and he, too, drank plenty of wine; and the wine and the warmth sent the colour rushing to his cheeks, and filled him with a sense of comfort. The whole atmosphere of the place had a soothing effect on him.
The orchestra started to play a Spanish dance, and the woman in orange rose from her seat, and tossing her lace shawl aside, moved down the aisle of tables in a sidling, swinging dance, castanets clicking from her thumbs, marking the sway and poise of her body above her hips. It was a sexual, voluptuous dance, that stirred the senses like strong wine. Now she flung herself backwards with a proud, uplifted chin. One high-heeled satin shoe stamped the floor. Her eyes flashed darkly and dangerously; she flaunted her bare throat and bosom before them; now she moved with a lithe sinuous motion from table to table, one hand on her hip, and the other swinging loosely by her side.
There was something terrible and triumphant in her dance to the beat of the music with its rhythm of a heart throbbing in passion.
"Bravo! bravo!" they cried, as the dance finished. "Bis," shouted Charnac, lolling back in his seat with his arm round Margot's shoulder.
"She dances well," said Humphrey.