La Clavel was indolent; she tapped a heel and sounded her castanets experimentally; a reminiscent smile hovered on the sombre beauty of her face. Suddenly Charles’ attention was wholly captured by the dancer; he leaned forward, gazing over Remigio’s shoulder, vaguely conscious of the sound of guitars and suppressed drums, the insistent ring of a triangle. She stamped her foot now, and the castanets were sharp, exasperated. Then slowly she began to dance.
She wove a design of simple grace with her hips still and her arms lifted and swaying; she 55 leaned back, her eyes, under the slanted brim of her hat, half closed; and her movements, the rhythm, grew more pronounced. Through the music Charles could hear the stamp of her heels, the augmented shrilling of the castanets. Her fire increased; there were great scarlet peonies on her shawl, and they fluttered as though they were troubled by a rising wind. La Clavel swept in a widening circle on her hips, and her arms were now extended and now thrust down rigidly behind her.
She dominated the cruel colors of her shawl with a savage intensity that made them but the expressions of her feelings—the scarlet and magenta and burning orange and blue were her visible moods, her capriciousness and contempt and variability and searing passion. Her hat was flung across the stage, and, with her bound hair shaking loose from its high shell comb, she swept into an appalling fury, a tormented human flame, of ecstasy. When Charles Abbott felt that he could support it no longer, suddenly she was, apparently, frozen in the immobility of a stone; the knotted fringe of her mantón hung without a quiver.
An uproar of applause rose from the theatre, a confusion of cries, of Olé! Olé! 56 Anda! Anda! Chiquella! A flight of men’s hats sailed like birds around her. Jaime Quintara pounded his cane until it broke, and, with the others, Charles shouted his unrestrained Spanish approbation. They crowded into the front of the box, intent on every movement, every aspect, of the dancer. Afterwards, at the Tuileries, Andrés expressed their concerted feeling:
“The most magnificent woman alive!”
Jaime went across the café to speak to a man who had a connection with the Tacon Theatre. He returned with an assortment of information—La Clavel was staying at the St. Louis; she would be in Havana for a month; and she had been seen with Captain Ceaza y Santacilla, of the regiment of Isabel II. This latter fact cast them into a gloom; and Remigio Florez so far broke the ban of sustained caution as to swear, in the name of the Lady of Caridad, at Santacilla and his kind.
Nothing, though, could reduce their enthusiasm for La Clavel; they worshipped her severally and together, discussing to the last shading her every characteristic. She was young, but already the greatest dancer the world had—would ever have, Charles added. And Andrés was instructed to secure the box for her every appearance in Havana; they must learn, they decided, 57 if she were to dance in Santiago de Cuba, in Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, in Cathay. They, if it were mortally possible, would be present. Meanwhile none of them was to take advantage of the others in the contingency that she should miraculously come to love him. That incredible happiness the individual must sacrifice to his friendship, to his oath above all other oaths—Cuba. The country’s name was not spoken, but it was entirely understood.
They were seated on the lower floor, by the stairs which led up to the salon for women; and, sharply, Charles grasped Andrés’ arm. Passing them was a slender woman muffled in a black silk capote, with no hat to cover the intricate mass of her hair piled against a high comb. Behind her strode a Spanish officer of cavalry, his burnished scabbard hooked on his belt against its silver chain; short, with a thick sanguine neck above the band of his tunic, he had morose pale blue eyes and the red hair of compounded but distinct bloods.
“La Clavel,” Charles whispered; “and it must be that filthy captain, Santacilla, with her.”