Kennedy selected a table not in the circle, but around an "L," inconspicuously located so that we could watch the dancing without ourselves being watched.
At one end of the room an excellent orchestra was playing. I gazed about, fascinated. At the dancing tea was represented, apparently, much wealth—women whose throats and fingers glittered with gold and gems, men whose very air exuded prosperity—or at least its veneer.
About it all was the glamor of the risqué. One felt a sort of compromising familiarity in this breaking down of old social restraints through the insidious influence of the tea room, with its accompaniments of music and dancing.
"I suppose," remarked Craig after we had for some time settled ourselves and watched the brilliant scene, "that, like many others, Walter, you have often wondered whether these modern dances are actually as stimulating as they seem."
I shrugged my shoulders non-committally.
"Well, there is what psychologists might call a real dance neurosis," he went on, contemplatively, toying with a glass. "In fact few persons can withstand the physical effect of the peculiar rhythm, the close contact, and the sinuous movements—at least where, so to speak, the surroundings are suggestive and the dance becomes less restrained and more sensuous, as it does often in circumstances like these, often among strangers."
The music had started again and one after another couples seemed to float past in unhesitating hesitation—dowager and débutante, dandy and doddering octogenarian.
"Why," he exclaimed, looking out at the whirling kaleidoscope, "here in the most advanced epoch, people of culture and intelligence frankly say they are 'wild' for something primitive."
"Still," I objected, "dancing even in the wild, stimulating emotional manner you see here need not be merely an incitement to love, need it? May it not be a normal gratification of the love instinct—eroticism translated into rhythm? Perhaps it may represent sex, but not necessarily badly."
Kennedy nodded. "Undoubtedly the effect of the dances is in direct ratio to the sexual temperament of the dancer," he admitted.