Now the Tetrarch, beaming, looked to his left beyond his Tetrarchess. “It is our wish that our beloved daughter Salome honor our birthday by dancing for the Tetrarch and his guests,” he declared in honeyed tones. “Will you not dance for us, my dear child?”
Cornelius leaned forward to watch Herodias’ daughter. Salome seemed amazed at her stepfather’s request. “But, Sire,” she ventured to protest, as she turned on her couch to face the unctuously smiling Tetrarch, “doesn’t my dear father know that I am not a dancer? Surely he prefers the dancing of women trained in the art.” She shook her head firmly. “Sire, I would not wish to display before this company just how poorly....”
“Oh come now, my child, your dancing will delight the Tetrarch and his guests. Do not let maidenly modesty deny us the pleasure of seeing you perform.” The Tetrarch’s eyes were beginning to flame. “We would delight in your dancing, my dear. After all that dark flesh, a flashing before us of firm, white, youthful....”
“But Salome, the Tetrarch well knows, is not accustomed to dancing before companies such as this.” Herodias, her eyes challenging, caught her husband’s arm in protest. “And has not the Tetrarch seen enough already of both white and dark female flesh? Is he not surfeited with women? Why should he wish to see a child...?”
“I wish to see her dance, my dear Tetrarchess. I have never seen her dance. And is this not my birthday? Shouldn’t one be indulged on his birthday?” He leaned past his wife to plead again with Salome. “Won’t you, my dear Salome, dance just this once, to please and flatter your doting father?”
Claudia leaned close to Cornelius. “I don’t believe ‘doting’ is the word,” she whispered; “I’d say ‘drooling’ is more like it.”
Antipas was still pleading with the girl. “If you will but dance this once for us, Salome, my child,” he said, his voice soft and sugared, his round face disarmingly friendly, “I will grant any request you make of me.”
“If I could dance well, Sire, I would be happy to dance for the Tetrarch, but I am not skilled in that art, nor do I have the mature charms of the Arabian women nor the....”
“But you have the tender charms, my dear Salome, the virginal charms of the bud about to open to full flowering. And I am satiated with these wide-open flowers ready to shatter.” He stood up and braced himself against the table, then turned toward her with renewed pleading. “Dance for us, my dear. Dance for us, and I will reward you what you will, I swear by the High Priest’s beard, even to the half of our tetrarchy!”
“But, Sire, even were I able to please the Tetrarch with my poor efforts, I am not suitably dressed....” The girl paused, for her mother had leaned over to whisper in her ear. She listened, solemn-faced, and then, suddenly smiling, she turned back to address the Tetrarch. “Sire, if the Tetrarch would not unmercifully censure my stumbling attempts, and”—she hesitated, and her smile was demure—“does the Tetrarch really intend seriously to grant any request I might make of him?”