, gazing over Remigio's shoulder, vaguely
conscious of the sound of guitars and suppressed drums, the insistent
ring of a triangle. She stamped her foot now, and the castanets were
sharp, exasperated. Then slowly she began to dance.

She wove a design of simple grace with her hips still and her arms
lifted and swaying; she leaned back, her eyes, under the slanted brim
of her hat, half closed; and her movements, the rhythm, grew more
pronounced. Through the music Charles could hear the stamp of her
heels, the augmented shrilling of the castanets. Her fire increased;
there were great scarlet peonies on her shawl, and they fluttered as
though they were troubled by a rising wind. La Clavel swept in a
widening circle on her hips, and her arms were now extended and now
thrust down rigidly behind her.

She dominated the cruel colors of her shawl with a savage intensity
that made them but the expressions of her feelings--the scarlet and
magenta and burning orange and blue were her visible moods, her
capriciousness and contempt and variability and searing passion. Her
hat was flung across the stage, and, with her bound hair shaking loose
from its high shell comb, she swept into an appalling fury, a
tormented human flame, of ecstasy. When Charles Abbott felt that he
could support it no longer, suddenly she was, apparently, frozen in
the immobility of a stone; the knotted fringe of her manton hung
without a quiver.

An uproar of applause rose from the theatre, a confusion of cries, of
Ole! Ole! Anda! Anda! Chiquella! A flight of men's hats sailed like
birds around her. Jaime Quintara pounded his cane until it broke, and,
with the others, Charles shouted his unrestrained Spanish approbation.
They crowded into the front of the box, intent on every movement,
every aspect, of the dancer. Afterwards, at the Tuileries, Andres
expressed their concerted feeling:

"The most magnificent woman alive!"

Jaime went across the cafe to speak to a man who had a connection with
the Tacon Theatre. He returned with an assortment of information--La
Clavel was staying at the St. Louis; she would be in Havana for a
month; and she had been seen with Captain Ceaza y Santacilla, of the
regiment of Isabel II. This latter fact cast them into a gloom; and
Remigio Florez so far broke the ban of sustained caution as to swear,
in the name of the Lady of Caridad, at Santacilla and his kind.

Nothing, though, could reduce their enthusiasm for La Clavel; th