The next number on the program was a dance; a somewhat modified Salomé dance, performed by Miss Price.
When Miss Price ran coyly in with bare legs and feet, and a few Oriental jewels jingling round her scantily draped form, even Madame Pitou gave way completely, and had to let the little Pitous laugh as they would, while she, with her face hid behind her handkerchief, gasped and choked and gurgled. The convulsive hilarity soon gained all the refugees. Every posture of Miss Price, her every gesture, every waggle of her limbs, every glimpse of the soles of her feet—somewhat soiled by contact with the stage carpet—made all the occupants of the two front rows rock and moan with laughter. Those immediately behind them noticed it. Then others; it was whispered through the hall that the refugees were laughing. Soon the entire audience was craning its neck to look at the unworthy, thankless foreigners for whose benefit the entertainment had been arranged, and who were rudely and stupidly laughing like two rows of lunatics.
The unwitting Miss Price was just rising from an attitude of genuflexion with a rapturous smile and two black marks on her knees, when she caught sight of the Pitou boy writhing with silent merriment at the end of the first row. Her eye wandered along that row and the next one and she saw all the bowed and quivering figures, the flushed faces hidden in handkerchiefs, and the heaving shoulders.
Casting upon them a glance of ineffable disdain she walked haughtily with her bare legs into the wings. Mr. Mellon rippled on at the piano for a little while, then he, too, stopped and hurried off the stage at the nearest exit.
Behind the scenes the artists were assembled in an indignation-meeting. There were eleven numbers still to come, but no one would go on. It was proposed that the curate should go out and make a short but cutting speech; and he went half-way out and then came back again, not having anything ready to say. Besides the sight of the refugees still convulsed with laughter upset him. For their part his appearance and disappearance did nothing to allay their condition, now bordering on collective hysteria.
Finally, after rapid consultation in the wings, the good-natured Miss Johnson was prevailed upon to go out and sing the "Merry Pipes of Pan." She was not nervous and did not care whether the silly refugees laughed or not.
When she stepped out she saw that Mr. Mellon was not there to accompany her, so after a long wait she went off into the wings on one side, just as Mr. Mellon—wiping his mouth after a hasty refreshment—came hurrying in on the other.
Miss Johnson had to be coaxed and driven and pushed out again, and this so flustered her that she forgot most of her words and had to make a series of inarticulate sounds until she came to the refrain.
Here she felt safe.
"Then follow the mipes,"