Around them a group of professional dancers, scantily attired, were performing risque solo dances, but von Sarnoff, sensual though he was, had no eyes for their display. But like Herod of old begging Salome to dance, he pleaded with Sana to give them an exhibition of her dancing art. What tempestuous thoughts ran through her mind, one cannot tell, but with a wild laugh and the cry “I will” Sana sprang up on the table, and kicking off the remaining slipper sent it flying across the room. Her dinner gown was too long to allow of much freedom, so with deft hands she lowered the shoulder straps and cast it off. The eager Sarnoff grasped the shimmering garment, buried his face into its perfumed folds, and looking up with eyes full of lust and passion shouted, “This is the dance of the virtuous vampire.”
Sana was dancing the dance de Rochelle had taught her while under his hypnotic influence. Wild and free! It spoke of desert nights and starry skies; of whispering winds and silent places. A dance of beauty. Suddenly she ceased dancing. The fire had died down. The coaxing, passionate creature was gone, and in its place stood just a girl.
Springing from the table, she demanded her dress. With a mocking laugh von Sarnoff sprang aside, crying “No. I shall keep it always as a souvenir of passion’s maddest moment.”
With a look of supreme disgust at the laughing guests, Sana pulled the cloth off an adjoining table, regardless of the flying dishes and silver, and wrapping it about her body, fled from the room, followed by von Sarnoff, pouring forth words of endearment and affection.
Rushing to her rooms, she slammed the door in his face with a cry that bespoke the agony in her heart, “Keep away! I hate you!”
That night, counseled by heads wiser than his own, von Sarnoff left the place.
Among Sana’s various friends at the Stephanie was Herr Heinecke, a young German engineer.
Heinecke was combining business with pleasure during his stay at the hotel. He had been sent to Baden-Baden to supervise an electrical development in the suburbs of the city, and took advantage of the opportunity to partake of the baths, the efficacy of whose waters are known the world over—in fact the Romans were aware of it, in the days that are gone, and spoke of the waters as Aquae Aurelias.
But the waters and his work were not the only things to occupy his thoughts. There was Sana. If one could question his mind or seek out the innermost regions of his heart, Sana would loom up high above even his work. His work could be neglected, he reasoned with his conscience, but not Sana. She could not, would not be neglected.