"Joanna Caldwell."
"Jem" Gunning's party that night was a great success. He had done a good-natured thing by inviting Ferrars, whom he scarcely knew, but had interchanged a few words with on board ship, and had subsequently met at the Ballingers'. Ferrars was their friend; he had greatly admired Carmencita's public performances, and he had expressed a desire to see her in private, hence the invitation. Of course all the very "smartest" of New York society were there, including the Hurlstones and Mrs. Van Winkle, and besides these two or three artists justly supposed to be more in touch with the wayward, capricious dancer, who, it was said, required the enthusiasm of Bohemia to stimulate her efforts. Before a cold, fashionable circle she had been known to be a failure. They had arranged the beautiful picture-gallery added by the late Mr. Gunning to his fine mansion so that the dancer should have a little stage to herself at one end, backed by tall folding screens of Cordova leather. The electric light fell full upon this, while it was subdued in the rest of the gallery. The whole effect of the beautifully-dressed women, mostly young, not overcrowded, but seated in groups with their cavaliers, against the rich background of pictures, was, in itself, a little tableau.
Before Carmencita arrived the Hungarian band played, and people wandered about, some to look at the pictures (which were all modern French), some to the refreshment-room adjoining. Then, when it was announced that the dancer and her accompanying band of guitars had arrived, the guests were arranged in semicircles of chairs; and, there being plenty of room for all, the men were not relegated to doorways, or flattened upright against the wall, as is generally the case in London. The band of guitars seated themselves, and began thrumming a bolero with wonderful spirit and a body of sound that was surprising from such poor instruments. In the midst of this a young woman entered from a side door. She was dressed in white and gold, and wore a white lace mantilla over her head. She was neither pretty nor ugly, a common type of Spaniard, and her movement as she walked was swaggering. She was greeted by a great clapping of hands, which the artists led. She acknowledged this by an awkward and, as it seemed to Grace, a surly salute. Then she sat down, with her feet apart, a fan in one hand, the other lying in her lap, the palm upwards. Her eyes looked dead, her whole face dull and expressionless. Could this be Carmencita? Why, the woman was not even graceful! And the smart ladies who saw her for the first time whispered, "So badly dressed! Hair so blowzy, and frock gathered so fully over the hips that it makes them look ever so much too large!"
Ferrars had a chair immediately behind Grace.
"Is it possible that this is the dancer all the artist world rave about?" she asked.
"Wait."
"I can't fancy that any agility can compensate for the lack of grace and charm," she insisted.
"Wait," he again repeated. "If you are not a convert before ten minutes are over write me down an ass."
The guitars had ceased their little prelude. They were chattering to each other. The leader's head was turned away. He had not once glanced at Carmencita since she entered. Now, however, he revolved upon his stool, struck a chord, looking down as he screwed up one string; then raised his eyes. They met hers. It was like the falling of a spark upon some explosive substance. Her whole face was illuminated. She flung away her mantilla, and rose transformed, as the guitars struck up once more. The genius of her art had now hold of her, and went impatiently quivering through her frame. Her feet tapped the ground; her arms and hands—those apathetic hands—were lifted with a sort of exultant passion; she drew herself proudly up, and her bolero began.
Considered merely as dancing, probably many of the spectators had witnessed more wonderful performances. It was the dramatic force, the vivid intensity of every movement, that distinguished it from any ordinary Terpsichorean feat. Without being what is understood as pantomimic, the little dance told its story as no dance of the kind has ever done before. When she sprang forward with that defiant audacity, bent, swayed, flung her body back till it seemed as though her head would touch the floor, her eyes appeared to flash fire, her hands and wrists in their delicate and flexible intonations played through the whole gamut of passionate emotion; they spoke with an eloquence that was not to be resisted. It was no longer a woman dancing—it was a creature possessed by some demoniac influence, struggling, supplicating, conquered, swept like a leaf before the wind in a series of gyrations so rapid and astounding that, when she sank to the earth, the spectators gasped with almost a sense of relief, amid the storm of applause that arose.