A chorus rose at once about him. He hesitated a moment—glanced at Sophy. She was smiling. "Shall I?" he said doubtfully.
"Well— I confess I'm curious to see how a 'reformed Alcibiades' would dance...." she said, still smiling.
Von Hoff, the young man at the piano, began a most enticing, fiery measure. It went to Loring's head. He tossed off a whiskey and soda, cried, "Here goes, then!" and ran from the room.
"Haven't you really ever seen him do it, Mrs. Loring?" said the woman who had asked for the dance.
"No— I didn't even know he could dance so cleverly——"
"You've a treat before you, then. It's the most delicious thing you ever saw...."
"Strike up, slave!" came Loring's voice from the next room. Von Hoff "struck up." Loring had whispered him what to play as he ran out. It was a voluptuous, half Spanish, half Oriental measure. To its rhythm Loring danced back into the room. He had set a huge wreath of artificial roses with flying ribbons on his head. His evening trousers were rolled up, leaving his legs bare from the knee down. A pair of elaborate sandals—relics of Harvard days—encased his feet. He had taken off his coat and collar and rolled back his shirt-sleeves. A wide, white silken scarf of Sophy's formed his peplum. Under one arm was tucked a big, stuffed pheasant to represent the pet quail of Alcibiades. In his hand he held a wine-cup, inverted.
The dance began charmingly. Alcibiades was evidently refusing all invitations to drink from many invisible comrades.... The first shock of thus seeing him comically "dressed up"—in a costume which was only saved from low absurdity by the perfect beauty of his classic head and slight figure—this first startled recoil having passed, Sophy watched his amazingly graceful poses with a tolerable pleasure. She could not really enjoy it—that her husband should prance about so attired for the amusement of their guests—but she remembered, soberly enough, that he was very young, and that her distaste was probably the result of maturer years.
Then came the real shock. The dance grew frankly ludicrous. With dextrous sleight of hand, Alcibiades made it appear as though his "quail" were angrily demanding a drink from the inverted goblet. The fowl finally conquers. The goblet is filled for him again and again. Alcibiades can no longer resist temptation, thus seeing a mere fowl take its fill. He, too, begins to drink.... The dance ends in a mad, drunken whirl, in which Alcibiades crowns the pheasant with his wreath, and they collapse together upon the floor in a maudlin heap.
The thing was really wonderfully well done. The guests were in ecstasies of laughter. But Sophy felt cold and sick. It seemed to her that he could not love her as she had thought. Else how could he turn the body that she loved into a travesty for others to laugh at? She felt as though the dignity of their mutual love were lying there on the floor, sprawled and ruffled and lifeless like the stuffed pheasant....