ften regarded the ladies of the ballet as easy prey, but the ladies
were shy as antelopes aware of the hunter crawling through the grasses.
They were independent of masculine patronage; laughed at the fools with
their easy manners and genial condescension. They might desire applause
over the footlights, but under the moon they were free from the
necessity for favor. They had, with all its incidental humiliations, the
self-respect which a great art confers. They were children of Apollo.

The difference between the gorgeousness of the ballet and the dim air of
the court was unimaginable to the blockheads outside. They had seen the
girls in crimson and gold, in purple and emerald, in white and silver;
they had seen them spangled and glittering with armor; they had heard
the tinkle of jewelry. They had watched their limbs; gloated upon their
poses. They had caught their burning glances; brooded on their lips and
eyes and exquisite motion. Inflamed by the wanton atmosphere of the
Orient, they had thought the ladies of the ballet slaves for the delight
of fools, but round the stage-door all their self esteem was blown away
like a fragment of paper by a London night wind. Their complacent selves
by most of the girls were brushed aside like boughs in a wood. Some,
Jenny and Irene amongst them, would ponder awhile the silly group and
gravely choose a partner for half an hour's conversation in a cafe. But
somewhere close to twelve o'clock Jenny would fly, leaving not so much
as a glass slipper to console her sanguine admirer. Home she would fly
on the top of a tram and watch in winter the scudding moon whipped by
bare blown branches, in summer see it slung like a golden bowl between
the chimney stacks. The jolly adventures of youth were many, and the
partnership of Jenny and Irene caused great laughter in the
dressing-room when the former related each diverting enterprise.

The tale of their conquests would be a long one. Most of the victims
were anonymous or veiled in the pseudonym of a personal idiosyncrasy.
There was Tangerine Willy, who first met them carrying a bag of oranges.
There was Bill Hair and Bill Shortcoat and Sop and Jack Spot and Willie
Eyebrows and Bill Fur. They all of them served as episodes mirthful and
fugitive. They were mulcted in chocolates and hansoms and cigarettes.
They danced attendance, vainly dreaming all the time of conquest. Jenny
held them in fee with her mocking eyes, bewitched them with musical