One night, exhausted by six hours of continuous playing for a hilarious crowd of Americans, Claire crept into one of the coffee-houses and sat down. She was really too tired to go home, and, besides, she had a sudden desire for contrasts while the atmosphere which her own kind had brought to the Greek quarter was already fresh. The appearance of a woman in the coffee-house, other than the waitresses, was unusual, but Claire was surprised to find only the most casual of glances directed her way. A man waited on her. She ordered Turkish coffee. On a raised platform an orchestra was performing; in the clear space just below a half-dozen men were dancing one of the folk-dances Claire was beginning to know so well. The music had the sad, minor quality of highland music the world over, and in addition there was an Oriental strain which recalled certain themes that Rimsky-Korsokov had captured and woven into the Scheherazade suite. On the ochestrion at the Café Ithaca these tunes had been more or less clipped of their wild freedom—adapted to the scale of another set of musical conventions, and Claire had sensed their novelty, but not their lack of precise musical form. Even to-night Claire thought not only the music, but the way in which it was presented, quite outlandish, but as she sat sipping her sweetened coffee the notes and the rhythm gradually assumed a coherence, and unconsciously her own feet began to tap the floor.
She looked about the room. It was crowded and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the odd, pungent aroma from the Oriental water-pipes. Claire had studied Greek history in her high-school days, and she had always held a classical picture of Greek life—flowing garments, marble courtyards, gods and goddesses made flesh. It came to her sharply, as she sat in the coffee-house, that the real flavor had a distinct tang of the Orient and that the picture spread before her was more suggestive of the Arabian Nights than anything else she could call to mind. She tried to fancy the men about her clothed in soft silks, with jeweled turbans on their heads and slippers curving into sharp points. One of the musicians began to sing in a low, monotonous, whining voice, striking the strings of his zither-like instrument with long, graceful strokes. A girl bearing a tray of grenadine syrup and a box of cigars passed her table. This girl had features extraordinarily regular, and her skin was very clear and firm and provocative. Claire could see that she was a favorite and that she left a vague unrest in her wake.
"This," flashed through her mind, "is the danger that they speak of. This is the sort of thing that makes these coffee-houses...."
Abruptly she stopped the course of her thoughts. The memory of Flint's office suddenly recurred. She pictured this girl in a business environment.
"It would be the same!" she finished to herself, shrugging as she did so.
And she became aware that the girl was something of a danger herself, in a fascinating, ruthless, primitive way—a trap set by nature for inscrutable ends. She thought of herself, and a company of pallid, crushed women who passed milestone after milestone with the lagging footsteps that would never know either victory or defeat—a company of wan, pallid women who went on and on without even the respite of an occasional falling by the wayside, women sacrificing everything, even life itself, to the arid joy of standards fixed and immovable.... The girl emptied her tray and passed Claire again. This time she swaggered consciously as if she realized the measure that another of her kind was taking. Claire felt a sudden envy for all the instinctive courage back of the challenge which this palpitating creature was throwing out. She leaned forward to the next table and said to a man sitting there:
"This girl who has just passed ... is she Greek?"
The man rolled a cigarette insolently, and said in almost the precise words of Jimmy:
"Greek? I should say not! Greek women stay home!"
He looked squarely at Claire as he said it, and she rose at once.