She smiled at them all in her swift and comradely fashion, and stepped promptly toward the little platform. Not a man there who did not know Polly Pendleton of the Follies, the best-liked girl on the stage that year. Singer, violinist, dancer—she had made her way up by one or the other of her arts or all of them, until now she might use all or either, as she liked.
A woman of about middle stature was Polly Pendleton, of covetably slender and firm-set figure. Her eyes were large and dark, with long lashes, her face a strong, clean oval, her skin clear, her teeth brilliant, her head a mass of short, dark curls. So much might be said of many women, perhaps, but Polly Pendleton had some strange plus charm of her own, that charm for which managers pay any price. She seemed the very spirit, the very embodiment of life, youth, eagerness—of vital joy itself. The thought of evil could not touch her, so sweet and clean she seemed, in every fiber of her being there was such life and such joy in living. Her gestures were those of the young animal, of the bird, careless, unstudied. She had no art, but succeeded through her lack of art and through her own zest, her sheer vitality.
When Polly Pendleton stood waiting for something, interested in anything, keyed up, not even her feet could rest upon the floor. She had a strange way sometimes, even when talking to one, of dancing up and down on her toes, light as a feather, her young limbs seeming not to feel the weight of her body. There seemed an ethereal air about her, as though she needed not to walk, needed not to stand, unless she liked.
She stood now before them, having drawn from beneath her coat her cherished violin, whose music had pleased so many thousands. Obviously she intended first to play. She laid aside her cloak and stood, eager, interested, slightly leaning forward, anxious, dancing up and down upon her little feet. Youth, life, joy, vitality, freedom from care, absolute ignorance and disregard of toil or trouble or anxiety—there stood Polly Pendleton.
She laid the violin to her cheek and, her eyes now aside and high, drew a strong, firm bow across the strings. When she did this she drew out the heart and soul from the body of David Joslin.
But David Joslin never really had heard the violin before. Of actual music he knew nothing. He had never heard a master of any instrument in all his life. But the sound of the violin itself, last keen climax in this atmosphere of exhilaration, where now the young spirit of this one fragile girl commanded the strong masculine spirit of all these massed men—for David Joslin constituted an overwhelming experience.
She finished her number, and when the roar of applause had ceased turned to her associate, who seated herself at the piano. They both sang—one of their duets; and as part of this Polly Pendleton herself danced—whirling about in pirouettes where her toes seemed scarce to find a footing, her round, strong limbs insouciantly exposed. She was but the spirit of youth, of life, of joy.
Now certain of the critical began to demand something known earlier as especially delectable.
“Sing us the real one, Polly!” they cried. “Sing us ‘The Only Man,’ why don’t you?”