He had seen many a ball in progress, but never had he seen dancing as he saw it here, where grace rubbed shoulders with absolute gaucherie, and wild hilarity mingled unashamed with a curious seriousness—one had almost said iciness—of demeanor. The women, who formed the definite interest of the picture, were for the most part young, with a youth that lent slimness and suppleness to the figure and permeated through the freely used paint and powder like some unpurchasable essence. Among this crowd of women some were fair, some brown, a few red-haired, but the vast majority belonged to the type that was to become familiar to Max as the true Montmartroise—the girl possessed of the dead white face, the red, sensual lips, the imperfectly chiselled nose, attractive in its very imperfection, and the eyes—black, brown, or gray—that see in a single glance to the bottom of a man's soul. Richness of apparel was not conspicuous among them, but all wore their clothes with the sense of fitness that possesses the Parisienne. Each head was held at the angle that best displayed the well-dressed hair and cleverly trimmed hat; each light skirt was held waist-high with a dexterity that allowed the elaborate petticoat to sweep out from the neat ankles in a whirl of lace.
Some of these girls danced with pleasure-seeking young Englishmen or Americans in conventional evening dress, others with little clerks in ill-fitting clothes and bowler hats, while many chose each other for partners, and glided over the waxed floor in a perfection of motion difficult to excel.
Leaning back against the wall, he watched the picture, gaining courage with familiarity, and unconsciously a little gasp of regret parted his lips as the waltz crashed to a finish and the dancers moved in a body toward the tables and the bars. Then for the first time he remembered Blake, and, looking round, saw his green eyes fixed upon him in a quizzical, satirical glance.
"Well, the devil has a pleasant way with him, there's no denying it! Come and find a seat! The next will be one of the special dances—a can-can or a Spanish dance. I'd like you to see it."
"Who will dance it?"
"Who? Oh, probably, if it's the can-can, half a dozen of the best-looking of those girls with the elaborate lingerie. They're paid to dance here. They're part of the show."
"I see!" Max was interested, but his voice did not sound very certain. "And the others?" he added. "That fair girl, for example, sitting at the table with the hideous, untidy little man in the brown suit?"
Blake's eyes sought out the couple. "What! The two smiling into each other's eyes? Those, my boy, are true citizens of the true Bohemia. She is probably a little dressmaker's assistant, whose whole available capital is sunk in that Pierrot hat and those pretty shoes; and he—well, he might be anything with that queer, clever head! But he's probably a poet, in the guise of a journalist, picking up a few francs when he can and where he can. A precarious existence, but lived in Elysium! Wish I were twenty—and unanalytical! Come along! It's to be a Spanish dance. You mustn't miss it!"
They made their way forward, pushing toward the open space, upon which a shaft of limelight had been thrown, the better to display the faces and figures of eight Spanish women who, dressed in their national costume, stood preening themselves like vain birds, tossing their heads and showing their white teeth in sudden smiles of recognition to their friends among the audience. While Max's interested eyes were travelling from one face to another, the signal was given, and with an electric spontaneity the dance began. It was a wonderful dance—a dance of sensuous contortion crossed and arrested at every moment by the fierce flash of pride, the swift gesture of contempt indicative of the land that had conceived it—a dance that would diminish to the merest sway of the body accompanied by the slow, hypnotic enticement of half-closed eyes, and then, as a fan might shut or open, leap back in an instant to a barbaric frenzy of motion in which loosened hair and flaming draperies carried the beholder's senses upon a tide of intoxication.
Max was conscious of quickened heart-beats and flushed cheeks as the dancers paused and the high, shrill call that indicated an encore pierced through the smoke-laden air; and without question he turned and followed Blake to one of the many tables standing in the shadow of the galleries.