"Take a look whether our crowns are on straight," Hal whispered, passing her with the quartet of harpists.
She peered at the frieze of insouciant young men ranging from a short darkly handsome stocky figure to blond slender Hal as they sat, coroneted heads perched above the points of the extra high collars Figente had insisted upon, adjusting their harps between narrow legs and, with knowing fingers against the strings, eying her for the cue. There was about them, as with the pianist, a professional assurance capable of coping with unexpected incidents, and she nodded, smiling; and as the curtain rose, braced herself as the five boys plucked from the strings the voluptuous Debussy music. On the grey velour drapes the electrician floated washes of mauve and rose and there entered first two, then three, girls in wisps of tarlatan or abbreviated pastel silks that drifted or clung negligently as they moved in the carefully rehearsed steps which now, to her amazement, appeared ingenuous in the games the girls played. Enormous black-painted eyes shone from beneath great fanciful headdresses whose sensuously waving plumes were kept in place by festoons of ribbons and giant pearls tied below each naughty chin.
Then, as the enchanting vagaries of their movements brought them together, Lucy came, walking with small steps on toe, her small head swaying jauntily under a turban of grey chiffon wound with pearls and narrow black velvet ribbons that escaped here and there and surmounted by a helterskelter of bobbing plumes. A carnation of forget-me-not blue tarlatan circled the juncture of her pink silk legs and a wisp of pale lemon chiffon above was tied loosely over one shoulder. As she danced alone or mingling with her maidens Vida wondered whether she had read of the precocious maidens of Bilitis, a bevy of girls whose play among themselves would drive any beholding man to distraction.
She had not, as Ilona had, Vida noted, reserved the effective moments only for herself. Spinning and gamboling they wove an infectious romp until at the end, in make-believe exhaustion, they held out their arms inviting the audience to catch them, and the curtain came down to a roar of delight which did not subside until a portion of the ballet was repeated.
"Thank heaven it's over," Vida groaned happily, astonished to see that she was the only one exhausted and that the exhilarated dancers seemed equal to beginning all over.
"It takes a little while before they begin to show how tired they are," Mae explained.
