"The dance is shamefully poor," said she. "How that girl mouthed her words, and failed to give the right accent! The click of the castanets is not timed to her motions. And the movement of her ankles—as awkward as if her legs were flail-sticks. The girls are not artists. Let them sing again, and I will show them how."
She rose from the divan and, seizing the cythera from the hand of one of the performers, rendered the song with wonderful power. Now Helena's notes floated as buoyantly as those of a lark, and anon sank into exquisite softness and depth, as blue wings sink into the azure. Then, dropping from her shoulders her outer robe, with snapping fingers in lieu of castanets, she gave the dance.
Helena's figure had evidently once been of that perfect balance which makes the impression of being without weight, and which, with the aid of proper draperies, gives the illusion of floating in the air. But her body had clearly taken on solidity, and a distribution of substance better adapted to one who would pose in stateliness than to one who would play the sylph. There is a grace of motion and another grace of inertia. Very young persons ordinarily monopolize the former; the latter is the compensation which nature gives for advancing years. Helena did not realize the grade she had attained in beautiful womanhood—not an uncommon inadvertence of her sex. Otherwise she danced with faultless art—art evidently acquired only through careful instruction and lengthened practice; the art which, according to Glaucon, was forbidden to princely personages and free-born women among the Greeks. Her performance ended in an attitude illustrative of the closing lines of the song, in which the singer accepts the embrace of her lover. Helena's face flushed with the excitement of the exercise. Her eyes flickered unsteadily through the effect of the wine. As the last note died upon her lips she reached out her hands to Glaucon.
Whether the Jew was dazed by the superb acting, or by the unexpected revelation on the part of the actress, we may not say—but dazed he seemed, for he sat stupidly still.
His irresponsive look startled, if it did not sober, the dancer. She gazed about her; put her hand to her head, as if to realize her identity; and, tripping upon the robe which she had dropped from her hand, fell into her seat.
"I must be ill," she said. "Give me—give me—some wine."
One by one her guests, with such semblance of courtesy as the Princess' condition allowed them to render, took their departure; but not until one of the dancing women was heard to declare:
"I will bet my garters that she is none other than the great Clarissa herself; for I am sure that the old Queen of the Grove of Daphne could not have done it better. Did you catch the trill?"
"Aye, and the long step and the short one. 'Beauty's Limp' they call it. Clarissa invented that, and all the girls in the Grove practised it; but they say that nobody could do it perfectly except herself."
"I think that the Princess did it splendidly, except that her flesh wobbled; she's too fat."