THE DANCER
Ah, but it was a sweet and wonderful thing to see La Belle Louise
dance; a strange and wonderful thing. She was so light, so strong, so
full of grace, so like a bird in all her motions. She swam through
the air as though her feet scarce touched the floor, her loose silken
skirts resembling wings. Now on one side of the lighted stage, now
back again, nodding, beckoning, courtesying to something which she
saw--this spectacle must have moved any one of us to applause, as it
did these thousands who came to witness it. The stage has no
traditions of any dance like this of La Belle Louise. It is now
danced no more, this dance which a maid or a lily or a tall white
stork might understand, each after its own fashion.
Scores of times had La Belle Louise given this dance, each time with
but trifling variations, each time to thunders of applause, with an
art so free of effort that it was above all art. But what had now,
for the first time, come to La Belle Louise? Did her bosom labor in
the physical exertion of these measured steps? Was the quality of
lightness and freedom lacking? Was the self-absorption, the
abandonment, the impersonal, bird-like quality less to-night than
before? And was the subtile, cruelly just sense of the public right
in its hesitation, in its half-applause? Had there been actual change
in the dancing of La Belle Louise?
The dancer looked from side to side, as though in search of some face
or figure; as though in fear, in distress. Was she actually panting
when she left the stage--she, La Belle Louise, the ethereal, the
spirituelle, the very imponderable dream of the dance itself? This
might have been; for presently she cast herself into the arms of
Madame Delchasse in a state bordering upon actual panic.
"Auntie!" she cried, "I can not dance! I am done with it! I shall
never dance again. I can not! I can not!" She trembled as though in
actual fear or suffering as she spoke.
"Now, now, my cherished!" said the old French lady, gathering her to
her ample bosom, "what is it that has come to you? You have illness?
Come, we'll go at 'ome."
The dancer was slow in laying aside her silken skirts and putting on
her street attire. Madame waited some time before thrusting her head
through the half-open door, "See! my dearie," she cried, "I have the
surprise for you. Monsieur shall ride home with you. He has ordered
for to-night the second carriage, which I shall myself take--since
you are so soon to ride with monsieur all the time, is it not?"
The head of madame disappeared. The girl, when at last ready to
depart, sat with her gaze fixed on the door; yet she started when
presently there came a knock. Henry Decherd entered.
"Louise!" he cried, "Louise!" and would have caught her in his arms.
She repulsed him and stood back, pale and trembling.
"Oh, I say," protested Decherd, "one would think I had no right."
"You have no right to touch me," she replied. "You shall not. Go on
away with auntie in the other carriage. I will follow you home."
"Come, now," said Decherd, approaching; "this sort of thing won't do.
I don't understand what you mean."
"No, you don't understand a girl," she said.
"At least I understand how a girl ought to treat the man she is to
marry."
"Marry!" said Miss Lady, whispering to herself. "Marry!" There was
silence between them for a time, but she turned to him at length.
"I shall never dance again," said she. "Neither to-morrow, nor at any
other time, shall I set foot upon the stage again."
"You will not need to do so, when once we are married," said he. "I
shall be willing--but tell me, what's the matter to-night? You are
only tired. You will wake up again."
"Wake up!" cried she, "that is the very word. I feel as though I had
suddenly awakened, this very night." She pressed her hands to her
reddening cheeks. "Can't you see?" she cried. "To-night for the first
time I felt them! I felt their eyes. I _felt_ them, out there in
front, as though there were many; as though there were more than one.
I felt that they were women-that they were _men!_"
"Well, they have been there all the time," said Decherd. "It's odd
you should just realize that."
"I never did before," said she. "It kills me. Why, can't you see? I
have been selling myself--my body, my face, my eyes, _myself,_ a
little at a time, a little to each of them. I've been selling myself.
They paid to see _me._ Now I can dance no more. Yes, you are right, I
am awake at last; and I tell you I am some one else. I have been in a
dream, it seems to me, for years. But now I can see."
"Well, let the dancing go," said Decherd, rising and coming toward
her. "Never mind about that."
"Let everything go!" cried Miss Lady, fiercely. "Let everything go!
Marry you? Why, sir, if indeed you understood a girl, you would not
want me to come to you feeling as I do now. Can't you see that a girl
must _depend_ on the man she loves? I have tried to feel sure. I
have tried to see you clearly. Now, to-night, it is just as it was
that time years ago when you spoke to me; something comes between us.
I can not see you clearly. I can not understand. And so long as that
is true, I can never, never marry you. I can not talk about it. Go! I
do not want to see you!"
A sudden alarm seized upon Henry Decherd. "Listen," he said; "listen
to me. I can not have you talk this way. Why, you know this sort of
thing is absolutely wrong."
"Everything's wrong!" cried Miss Lady, burying her face in her hands
as she sank on a couch. "Everything is wrong! I am ashamed, I can not
tell you why. I don't know why, but I have changed, all at once. I'm
not myself any more. I'm some one else. I don't know _who_ I am!
I never knew. Oh, shall I never know--shall I never understand why I
am not myself!"
Decherd caught her hands. "We shall not wait," said he, "we'll be
married to-morrow." His voice trembled in a real emotion, although on
his face there sat an uneasiness not easily read. "Dearest, forget
all this," he repeated. "Go home and sleep, and to-morrow--"
Her eyes flashed in the swift, imperious anger wherewith upon the
instant sex may dominate sex, leaving no argument or answer. Yet in
the next breath the girl turned away, her anger faded into anxiety.
She wavered, softened in her attitude.
"Oh, he told me, he told me!" murmured she to herself. "I can not--I
can not!" She seemed unconscious of Decherd's presence. But soon she
forgot her own soliloquy. Once more she looked Decherd squarely in
the face.
"I can not marry you," she said. "I _will_ not!"
"I'll not allow you to make a fool of yourself, or of me," said
Decherd. "What do you mean--who is 'he'?"
He had his answer on the moment, not from her lips, but by one of
those strange freaks of fate which often set us wondering in our
commonplace lives.
There came a tap at the door, and a call boy offered a card. "It's
against orders, I know, ma'am," he began, "but then--"
Decherd, full of suspicion, sprang at the messenger and caught the
card before Miss Lady saw it. His swift glance gave him small
comfort.
"Eddring!" he cried. "By God! John Eddring! So--"
"Yes," she flashed again at him. "You are rude; and there is your
answer; and here is mine to you, and him." She turned to the call
boy.
"Tell the gentleman that Miss Loisson can not be seen," said she.
A ghastly look had come upon Henry Decherd's face at these words. His
features were livid in his rage. "So Eddring is here, is he!" said
he, "and he has been talking to you! By God, I'd kill him if I
thought--"
"Carry my wrap, sir!" said Miss Lady, rising like a queen. "You may
do so much for the last time. At the gate I shall bid you good-by.
Open the door!"