k. One of the guests, a young Bavarian, had
played rousingly on the piano. The keys seemed to smoke under his long,
vigorous hands. He ended with some frenzied Polish dances. Everybody was
drinking and smoking--Loring drank more than he smoked. A pretty gypsy
looking woman jumped up and began an impromptu dance to the wild music.
Loring began to dance with her. The game of drawing-room romps became
breathless.

Sophy sat amused like the rest. His head looked so oddly Greek with its
short, tossing locks above the ugly cylinders of his modern dress. He
should have had on a leopard's skin. As this thought came to her, some
one cried: "Oh, Morry!--_Do_ give us the 'Reformed Alcibiades'. Do!
_do!_--I haven't seen you do it for a whole year...."

A chorus rose at once about him. He hesitated a moment--glanced at
Sophy. She was smiling. "Shall I?" he said doubtfully.

"Well-- I confess I'm curious to see how a 'reformed Alcibiades' _would_
dance...." she said, still smiling.

Von Hoff, the young man at the piano, began a most enticing, fiery
measure. It went to Loring's head. He tossed off a whiskey and soda,
cried, "Here goes, then!" and ran from the room.

"Haven't you really ever seen him do it, Mrs. Loring?" said the woman
who had asked for the dance.

"No-- I didn't even know he could dance so cleverly----"

"You've a treat before you, then. It's _the_ most delicious thing you
ever saw...."

"Strike up, slave!" came Loring's voice from the next room. Von Hoff
"struck up." Loring had whispered him what to play as he ran out. It was
a voluptuous, half Spanish, half Oriental measure. To its rhythm Loring
danced back into the room. He had set a huge wreath of artificial roses
with flying ribbons on his head. His evening trousers were rolled up,
leaving his legs bare from the knee down. A pair of elaborate
sandals--relics of Harvard days--encased his feet. He had taken off his
coat and collar and rolled back his shirt-sleeves. A wide, white silken
scarf of Sophy's formed his peplum. Under one arm was tucked a big,
stuffed pheasant to represent the pet quail of Alcibiades. In his hand
he held a wine-cup, inverted.

The dance began charmingly. Alcibiades was evidently refusing all
invitations to drink from many invisible comrades.... The first shock of
thus seeing him comically "dressed up"--in a costume which was only
saved from low absurdity by the perfect beauty of his classic head and
slight figure--this first sta