“The library is not a very large one, you see,” said Tacita’s guide. “It is nearly as much weeded as added to. It is surprising how much literature thought to be original is found out to be only a turn of the kaleidoscope. I won’t quote Solomon to you.”
“My grandfather,” Tacita said, “used to say that one folio would contain all the thoughts of mankind that are worth preserving, and ten all the commentaries worth making on them.”
“This is the way they condense here,” said her companion. “For necessarily San Salvador must be a city of abridgments. Say that ten authors write on some one subject worthy of attention. The best one is selected and then interleaved with extracts from the others. To this is added a brief notice of the authors quoted. It’s a good deal of work for one person to do; but it saves the time of everybody else who has to read on the subject.”
Returning to the Salon they found that Dylar and Iona had come down from the terrace, and some boys were carrying about cups of a pleasant drink that seemed to be milk boiled, sweetened, and delicately spiced.
“Iona must take you up to-morrow night to look at Venus,” Dylar said. “It is very beautiful now.”
The bells rang ten o’clock, the signal for going home, and they went down stairs. Dylar took leave at the door; but the young Englishman asked permission to accompany Tacita and Elena to their door. The music had ceased in the dance-room, and the lights were half extinguished; but the last couples came out still dancing, humming a tune, and, hand in hand, danced homeward.
“You will like to see our fancy dances,” Elena said. “Some of them are very dramatic. There is a good deal of grace and precision in them, but no parade of agility. I know nothing more disgusting than the flesh and muscle exhibition of the ordinary ballet. Some of our dances require quite as much command of muscle, but there must be no effect of effort. To see a woman gracefully draped float like a cloud is quite as wonderful as to see her half naked and leaping like a frog. We have a Sun-dance, with the whole solar system; and I assure you the moons have to be as nimble-footed as the chulos of a bull-fight. The Zodiac dance is more like a minuet in time. There are twelve groups which keep always the same position with regard to each other; but the whole circle slowly revolves, having two motions, one progressive. It is a science, and requires a good deal of practice. Iona used to be the lost Pleiad, and wandered about veiled, threading the whole maze, but never finding her place. Of course all are in costume; and it is an out-door dance, occupying the whole Square. Her part was like some little thing of Chopin’s, plaintive, searching, and unanswered.”
When the two had gone up stairs, Elena said: “Do you think that you would ever be willing to marry the young man who came home with us to-night?”
“Oh, no!” Tacita exclaimed. “What should put it into your mind?”
“He wished me to ask you. I thought that it was vain; but I promised to ask. If there is the least chance, he will stay longer. If not, he will go to-morrow. He has long known you by reputation, and he admired you at sight.”