dance--swayed gracefully from the hips, without moving her feet, in the
style of a Nautch girl. She was waiting for some one, since to right and
left she swung with a delicate hand curved behind her ear. Suddenly she
started, as if she heard an approaching footstep, and in maidenly
confusion glided to a distance, where she stood with her hands across
her bosom, the very picture of a surprised nymph. Mentally, the dance
translated itself to Lambert somewhat after this fashion:

"She waits for her lover. That little run forward means that she sees
him coming. She falls at his feet; she kisses them. He raises her--I
suppose that panther spring from the ground means that he raises her.
She caresses him with much fondling and many kisses. By Jove, what
pantomime! Now she dances to please him. She stops and trembles; the
dance does not satisfy. She tries another. No! No! Not that! It is too
dreamy--the lover is in a martial mood. This time she strikes his fancy.
Kara is playing a wild Hungarian polonaise. Wonderful! Wonderful!"

He might well say so, and he struggled to his feet, leaning against the
pillar of stone to see the dancer better. From the wood came the fierce
and stirring Slav music, and Chaldea's whole expressive body answered to
every note as a needle does to a magnet. She leaped, clicking her heels
together, advanced, as if on the foe, with a bound--was flung back--so
it seemed--and again sprang to the assault. She stiffened to stubborn
resistance--she unexpectedly became pliant and yielding and graceful,
and voluptuous, while the music took on the dreamy tones of love. And
Lambert translated the change after his own idea:

"The music does not please the dancer--it is too martial. She fears lest
her lover should rush off to the wars, and seeks to detain him by the
dance of Venus. But he will go. He rises; he speeds away; she breaks off