"Quite like Carmen and Don José in the opera," murmured Lambert, sliding
down to the foot of the rude stone.

"What of her and of him? Were they Romans?"

"Carmen was and José wasn't. She danced herself into his heart."

Chaldea's eyes flashed, and she made a hasty sign to attract the happy
omen of his saying to herself. "Kushto bak," cried Chaldea, using the
gypsy for good luck. "And to me, to me," she clapped her hand. "Hark, my
golden rye, and watch me dance your love into my life."

The wind was rising and sighed through the wood, shaking myriad leaves
from the trees. Blending with its faint cry came a long, sweet,
sustained note of music. Lambert started, so weird and unexpected was
the sound. "Kara, isn't it?" he asked, looking inquiringly at Chaldea.

"He talks to the night--he speaks with the wind. Oh-ah-ah-ah.
Ah-oha-oha-oha-ho," sang the gypsy, clapping her hands softly, then,
as the music came breathing from the hidden violin in dreamy sensuous
tones, she raised her bare arms and began to dance. The place, the
dancer, the hour, the mysterious music, and the pale enchantments of
the moon--it was like fairyland.

Lambert soon let his cigar go out, so absorbed did he become in watching
the dance. It was a wonderful performance, sensuous and weirdly unusual.
He had never seen a dance exactly like it before. The violin notes
sounded like actual words, and the dancer answered them with responsive
movements of her limbs, so that without speech the onlooker saw a
love-drama enacted before his eyes. Chaldea--so he interpreted the