Through stained glass

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Lewis went to the Ruttle-Marter ball determined to be gay. He searchedfor Vi, but did not find her. By twelve o'clock he had to admit that hewas more than bored, and said so to a neighbor.

  "That's impossible," said the neighbor, yawning. "Boredom is anultimate. There's nothing beyond it; consequently, you can't be morethan bored."

  "You're wrong," said Lady Derl from behind them. "For a man there'salways something beyond boredom: there's going home."

  "_Touche_," cried Lewis and then suddenly straightened. While they hadbeen chatting, the curtain of the improvised stage at one end of theball-room had gone up. In the center of the stage stood a figure thatLewis would have recognized at once even if he had not been aparticipant in the secret.

  The figure was that of a tall woman. Her dark hair--and there was plentyof it--was done in the Greek style. So were her clothes, if such filmydraperies could be justly termed clothes. They were caught up under herbreasts, and hung in airy loops to a little below her knees. They wereworn so skilfully that art did not appear. They fluttered about hersoftly moving limbs, but never flew. The woman was apparentlyblindfolded--with chiffon. The foamy bandage proved an efficient mask.Chiffon and draperies were of that color known to connoisseurs as_cuisse de nymphe_.

  A buzz of interested questioning swept over the company. Mrs.Ruttle-Marter, who had been quite abandoned for over an hour, suddenlyfound herself the center of a curious and eager group.

  "Who is she?" "What is she?" "Where did you get her?"

  The trembling hostess, flushed by the first successful moment in manydreary seasons, was almost too gulpy to speak. But words came at last.

  "Really, my dear Duchess, I don't know who she is. I don't know whereshe comes from or what she is. I only know her price and the name of herdance. If I told the price, well, there wouldn't be any rush in thiscrowd to engage her." So early did power lead the long-suffering Mrs.Ruttle-Marter to lap at revenge!

  "Well, tell us the name of her dance, anyway," said a tall, soldierlygray-head that was feeling something for the first time in twenty years."Do hurry! She's going to begin."

  "I can do that," said Mrs. Ruttle-Marter. "Her dance is called 'Love isblind.'"

  "Love is blind," repeated Lewis to Lady Derl. "Let's see what she makesof it."

  People did not note just when the music began. They suddenly realizedit. It was so with Vi's dance. So gradually did her body sway intomotion that somebody who had been staring at her from the moment sheappeared whispered, "Why, she's dancing!" only when the first movementwas nearing its close.

  The music was doubly masked. It was masked behind the wings and behindthe dance. It did not seem interwoven with movement, but appeared moreas a soft background of sound to motion. So it remained through all thefirst part of the dance which followed unerringly all the traditions ofGreek classicism, depending for expression entirely on swaying arms andbody.

  "Who would have thought it!" whispered Lewis. "To do something well at arange of two thousand years! That's more than art; it's genius."

  "It's not genius," whispered back Lady Derl; "it's just body. What'smore, I think I recognize the body."

  "Well," said Lewis, "what if you do? Play the game."

  "So I'm right, eh? Oh, I'll play the game, and hate her less into thebargain."

  So suddenly that it startled, came a crashing chord. The dancer quiveredfrom head to foot, became very still, as though she listened to a call,and then swirled into the rhythm of the music. The watchers caught theirbreath and held it. The new movement was alien to anything the marbledhalls of Greece are supposed to have seen; yet it held a hauntingreminder, as though classicism had suddenly given birth to youth.

  The music swelled and mounted. So did the dance. Wave followed onripple, sea on wave, and on the sea the foaming, far-flung billow. Limbafter limb, the whole supple body of the blind dancer came into play;yet there was no visible tension. Never dead, never hard, but limp,--aslimp as flowing, rushing water,--she whirled and swayed through all theemotions until, at the highest pitch of the mounting music, she fellprone, riven by a single, throbbing sob. Down came the curtain. Themusic faded away in a long, descending sweep.

  Men shouted hoarsely, unaware of what they were crying out, and womenfor once clapped to make a noise, and split their gloves. A youth, hishair disordered and a hectic flush in his cheeks, rushed straight forthe stage, crying, "Who is she?"

  Lewis stuck out his foot and tripped him. Great was his fall, and thecommotion thereof switched the emotions of the throng back to sanity.Conventional, dogged clapping and shouts of "_Bis! Bis_!" were relied onto bring the curtain up again, and relied on in vain. Once more Mrs.Ruttle-Marter was surrounded and beseeched to use her best efforts. Asshe acceded, a servant handed Lewis a scribbled note. "Come and take meout of this. Vi," he read. He slipped out behind the servant.

  In the cab they were silent for a long time. Lewis's eyes kept wanderingover Vi, conventional once more, and lazing in her corner.

  "Well," she drawled at last, "what did you think of it?"

  "Think of it?" said Lewis. "There were three times when I wanted toshout, 'Hold that pose!' After that--well, after that my brain stoppedworking."

  "Do you mean it?" asked Vi.

  "Mean what?"

  "About wanting me to hold a pose."

  "Yes," said Lewis; "of course. What of it?"

  "What of it? Why, I will. When?"

  "Do _you_ mean it?" asked Lewis.

  Vi nodded.

  "Name your own time."

  "To-morrow," said Vi, "at ten."

  The following morning Lewis was up early, putting his great, bare studioin fitting order, and trying to amplify and secure the screened-incorner which previous models had frequently damned as a purely tentativedressing-room. Promptly at ten Vi appeared.

  "Where's your maid?" asked Lewis. "You've simply got to have a maidalong for this sort of thing."

  "You're wrong," said Vi. "It's just the sort of thing one doesn't have amaid for. It's easier to trust two to keep quiet than to keep a maidfrom vain imaginings. And--it's a lot less expensive."

  "Well," said Lewis, "where's your costume?"

  "Here," said Vi, "in my recticule."

  They laughed. Ten minutes later Vi appeared in her filmy costume.Lewis's face no longer smiled. He was sitting on a bench at the fartherend of the room, solemnly smoking a pipe. He did not seem to notice thatVi's whole body was suffused, nervous.

  "Dance," said Lewis.

  Vi hesitated a moment and then danced, at first a little stiffly. Buther mind gradually concentrated on her movements; she began to catch theimpersonal working atmosphere of a model.

  "Hold that!" cried Lewis, and, a second later: "No, that will never do.You've stiffened. Try again."

  Over and over Vi tried to catch the pose and keep it until, without aword, she crossed the room, threw herself on a couch, and began to cryfrom pure exhaustion. When she had partly recovered, she suddenly awoketo the fact that Lewis had not come to comfort her. She looked up. Lewiswas still sitting on the bench. He was filling a fresh pipe.

  "Blown over?" he asked casually. "Come on. At it again."

  At the end of another half-hour Vi gave up the struggle. She had caughtthe pose twice, but she had been unable to hold it.

  "I give it up," she wailed. "I'll simply never be able to _stay_ thatway."

  "If you were a professional dancer," said Lewis, "I'd say 'nonsense' tothat. But you're not. I'm afraid it would take you weeks, perhapsmonths, to get the stamina. Take it easy now while I make some tea."

  "Tea in the morning!" said Vi. "I can't stand it. I'd rather have aglass of port or something like that."

  "I've no doubt you would, but you're not going to get it," said Lewis,calmly, as he went about the business of brewing tea.

  Vi finished her first cup, and asked for a second.

  "It's quite a bracer, after all," she said. "I feel a lot better." Sherose and went to the mode
l's throne at one side of the room. "Is thiswhere they stand?" she asked.

  Lewis nodded.

  Vi climbed the throne, and took a pose. Her face was turned from Lewis,her right arm half outstretched, her left at her side. She was in theact of stepping. Her long left thigh was salient, yet withdrawing. Itwas the pose of one who leads the way.

  "This is the pose you will do me in," she said.

  For a moment Lewis was silent, then he said gravely:

  "No, you don't really want me to do you that way."

  "I do, and you will," said Vi, without looking around.

  For another long moment Lewis was silent.

  "All right," he said at last. "Come down. Dress yourself. You've hadenough for to-day."