little to the imagination of the spectator.
In one of the figures a gaudy handkerchief, waved more or less
gracefully by dancer and danseuse before the dazzled eyes of each other,
acted as love's signal, and was used to express alternate admiration
and indifference, shyness and audacity, fear and transport, coyness
and coquetry, as the dance proceeded. I need not say that Enriquez'
pantomimic illustration of these emotions was peculiarly extravagant;
but it was always performed and accepted with a gravity that was an
essential feature of the dance. At such times sighs would escape him
which were supposed to portray the incipient stages of passion;
snorts of jealousy burst from him at the suggestion of a rival; he was
overtaken by a sort of St. Vitus's dance that expressed his timidity in
making the first advances of affection; the scorn of his ladylove struck
him with something like a dumb ague; and a single gesture of invitation
from her produced marked delirium. All this was very like Enriquez; but
on the particular occasion to which I refer, I think no one was prepared
to see him begin the figure with the waving of FOUR handkerchiefs! Yet
this he did, pirouetting, capering, brandishing his silken signals like
a ballerina's scarf in the languishment or fire of passion, until, in a
final figure, where the conquered and submitting fair one usually
sinks into the arms of her partner, need it be said that the ingenious
Enriquez was found in the center of the floor supporting four of the
dancers! Yet he was by no means unduly excited either by the plaudits of
the crowd or by his evident success with the fair. "Ah, believe me, it
is nothing," he said quietly, rolling a fresh cigarette as he leaned
against the doorway. "Possibly, I shall have to offer the chocolate or
the wine to thees girls, or make to them a promenade in the moonlight
on the veranda. It is ever so. Unless, my friend," he said, suddenly
turning toward me in an excess of chivalrous self-abnegation, "unless
you shall yourself take my place. Behold, I gif them to you! I vamos!
I vanish! I make track! I skedaddle!" I think he would have carried
his extravagance to the point of summoning his four gypsy witches of
partners, and committing them to my care, if the crowd had not at
that moment parted before the remaining dancers, and left one of
the onlookers, a tall, slender girl, calmly surveying them through
gold-rimmed eyeglasses in complete critical absorption.