steps, gradually falling in with the waltz rhythm, but, even so, the
movement was without any definite form, certainly not enough to call it
a dance.

As she swayed about, listless, apparently indifferent to any effect she
might be producing, Hanson had a full opportunity to study her, and, in
that concentrated attention, the man and the manager were fused. He was
at once the cynical showman discounting every favorable impression and
the most critical and disillusioned of audiences.

In this dancer he saw a woman who was like the desert willow and younger
than he had supposed; straight and supple, with a body of such
plasticity, such instant response to the directing will of its possessor
as only comes from the constant and arduous exercises begun in early
childhood.

"Been trained for it since she was born, almost," was Hanson's first
unspoken comment.

She wore a soft, clinging frock of scarlet crêpe. It was short enough to
display her ankles, slender for a dancer, and her arched feet in
heelless black slippers. In contrast to her red frock was a string of
sparkling green stones which fell low on her breast. Her long, brown
fingers blazed with rings, and in her ears, swinging against her olive
cheeks, were great hoops of dull gold. Her black shining hair was
gathered low on her neck, her unsmiling lips were scarlet as a
pomegranate flower, and exquisitely cut; and the fainter, duskier
pomegranate bloom on her oval cheeks faded into delicate stains like
pale coffee beneath her long, narrow eyes.