ly, obviously not to distract attention from the slave
dance. But as she walked, eyes followed her instead of the dancer's
beautiful moves.

She passed Weems' table. With the eagerness of a man who has formed a
slight acquaintance and would like to make it grow, Weems rose from his
table and bowed. The woman known as Madame Sin smiled a little. She
spoke to him, with her exotic dark eyes seeming to mock. Her slender
hands moved restlessly with the gold-link purse she carried. Then she
went on, and Weems sat down again at his table, with his eyes resuming
their contented scrutiny of the dancer's convolutions.

The dancer swayed toward him, struggling gracefully with her symbolic
chains. Weems started to raise a glass of champagne abstractedly toward
his lips. He stopped, with his hand half-way up, eyes riveted on the
dancer. The spotlight caught the fluid in his upraised glass and flicked
out little lights in answer.

The dancer whirled on. And Weems stayed as he was, staring at the spot
where she had been, glass poised half-way between the table and his
face, like a man suddenly frozen--or gripped by an abrupt thought.

The slave-girl whirled on. But now as she turned, she looked more often
in Weems' direction, and a small frown of bewilderment began to gather
on her forehead. For Weems was not moving; strangely, somehow
disquietingly, he was staying just the same.

Several people caught the frequence of her glance, and turned their eyes
in the same direction. There were amused smiles at the sight of the
stout, wealthy man seated there with his eyes wide and unblinking, and
his hand raised half-way between table and lips. But soon those who had
followed the dancer's glances saw, too. Weems was holding that queer
attitude too long.

The dancer finished her almost completed number and whirled to the
dressing-room door. The lights went on. And now everyone near Weems was
looking at him, while those farther away were standing in order to see
the man.

He was still sitting as he had been, as if frozen or paralyzed, with
staring eyes glued to the spot where the dancer had been, and with hand
half raised holding the glass.

* * * * *

A friend got up quickly and hastened to the man's table.

"Weems," he said sharply, resting his hand on the man's shoulder.

Weems made no sign that he had heard, or had felt the touch. On and on
he sat there, staring at nothing, hand half raised to dri