shed by the first successful moment in many
dreary seasons, was almost too gulpy to speak. But words came at last.

"Really, my dear Duchess, I don't know who she is. I don't know where
she comes from or what she is. I only know her price and the name of her
dance. If I told the price, well, there wouldn't be any rush in this
crowd to engage her." So early did power lead the long-suffering Mrs.
Ruttle-Marter to lap at revenge!

"Well, tell us the name of her dance, anyway," said a tall, soldierly
gray-head that was feeling something for the first time in twenty years.
"Do hurry! She's going to begin."

"I can do that," said Mrs. Ruttle-Marter. "Her dance is called 'Love is
blind.'"

"Love is blind," repeated Lewis to Lady Derl. "Let's see what she makes
of it."

People did not note just when the music began. They suddenly realized
it. It was so with Vi's dance. So gradually did her body sway into
motion that somebody who had been staring at her from the moment she
appeared whispered, "Why, she's dancing!" only when the first movement
was nearing its close.

The music was doubly masked. It was masked behind the wings and behind
the dance. It did not seem interwoven with movement, but appeared more
as a soft background of sound to motion. So it remained through all the
first part of the dance which followed unerringly all the traditions of
Greek classicism, depending for expression entirely on swaying arms and
body.

"Who would have thought it!" whispered Lewis. "To do something well at a
range of two thousand years! That's more than art; it's genius."

"It's not genius," whispered back Lady Derl; "it's just body. What's
more, I think I recognize the body."

"Well," said Lewis, "what if you do? Play the game."

"So I'm right, eh? Oh, I'll play the game, and hate her less into the
bargain."

So suddenly that it startled, came a crashing chord. The dancer quivered
from head to foot, became very still, as though she listened to a call,
and then swirled into the rhythm of the music. The watchers caught their
breath and held it. The new movement was alien to anything the marbled
halls of Greece are supposed to have seen; yet it held a haunting
reminder, as though classicism had suddenly given birth to youth.

The music swelled and mounted. So did the dance. Wave followed on
ripple, sea on wave, and on the sea the foaming, far-flung billow. Limb
after limb, the whole supple body of the blind dancer came into play