The costume served to display to advantage her matchless figure, however, and Chick was fain to admit that he had never seen a much more striking beauty.
"She's a bird, all right, and no mistake," he said to himself, while intently regarding her handsome face and jewel-bedecked figure. "Yet she has a bad eye, despite her beauty, and a cruel mouth. She certainly would put up a wicked fight, if once aroused. Yes, a deucedly bad eye! What in thunder is she staring at, to look like that!"
From her position near one of the lower wings, Sanetta Cervera was gazing steadfastly across the stage at something which Chick could not see.
The dark eyes of the Spanish dancer had taken on a threatening glare. Her curved brows had drooped and knit, until they formed a straight line below her forehead, and her red lips were drawn and firmly compressed.
Before Chick could discover any occasion for this mute display of feeling, the performance in front of the set scene concluded, and the act of the snake charmer was due to begin.
Then came a rapid change of scenery, during which Chick was again obliged to change his position, and for a time he lost sight of Cervera in the stir and confusion of the busy stage.
He did not succeed in locating her again until she began her performance, when a full stage was given her for the marvelously graceful and impassioned dances of which her act consisted, and which had fairly turned half the heads in the city.
In the white glare of the limelight, she certainly presented a wild and dazzling picture. Her beauty was indescribably accentuated. She appeared like a being ablaze with diamonds. Her every attitude was one of seductive grace, her every movement as swift and light as those of a startled leopard.
At its conclusion her act evoked thunders of applause, and then Chick saw her hastening toward her dressing room, flushed with excitement and panting for breath.
Suddenly she halted and her smile vanished.