The far from gentle orchestra at the Gayety was playing with a vivacity

which set the pulses leaping, while the densely packed audience,

scarcely breathing from intensity of awakened interest, were focussing

their eager eyes upon a slender, scarlet-robed figure, an enveloping

cloud of gossamer floating mistily about her, her black hair and eyes

vividly contrasting against the clear whiteness of her skin, as she

yielded herself completely to the strange convolutions of her weird

dance. The wide stage was a yellow flood of light, and she the very

witch of motion. This was her third encore, but, as wildly grotesque

as ever, her full skirts shimmering in the glare of the foot-lights,

her tripping feet barely touching the sanded floor, her young, supple

figure, light as a fairy, weaving in the perfect rhythm of music, the

tireless child of Mexico leaped and spun, wheeled and twirled,--at

times apparently floated upon the very air, her bare white arms

extended, her wonderful eyes blazing from the exhilaration of this

moment of supreme triumph.

Beth Norvell, neatly gowned for the street, her own more sedate

performance already concluded, had paused for a single curious instant

in the shadow of the wings, and remained looking out upon that scarlet

figure, flitting here and there like some tropical bird, through the

gaudy glare of the stage. Winston, waiting patiently for twenty

minutes amid the denser gloom just inside the stage door, watched the

young girl's unconsciously interested face, wondering alike at both

himself and her. This entire adventure remained an unsolved problem to

his mystified mind--how it was she yet continued to retain his

interest; why it was he could never wholly succeed in divorcing her

from his life. He endeavored now to imagine her a mere ordinary woman

of the stage, whom he might idly flirt with to-night, and quite as

easily forget to-morrow. Yet from some cause the mind failed to

respond to such suggestion. There was something within the calm,

womanly face as revealed beneath the reflection of garish light,

something in the very poise of the slender figure bending slightly

forward in aroused enthusiasm, which compelled his respect, aroused his

admiration. She was not a common woman, and he could not succeed in

blinding himself to that fact. Even the garish, cheap environments,

the glitter and tinsel, the noise and brutality, had utterly failed to

tarnish Beth Norvell. She stood forth different, distinct, a perfectly

developed flower, rarely beautiful, although blooming in muck that was

overgrown with noxious weeds. Winston remained clearly conscious that

some peculiar essence of her native character had mysteriously perfumed

the whole place--it glorified her slight bit of stage work, and had

already indelibly impressed itself upon those rough, boisterous Western

spirits out in front. Before her parting lips uttered a line she had

thoroughly mastered them, the innate purity of her perfected womanhood,

the evident innocence of her purpose, shielding her against all

indecency and insult. The ribald scoffing, the insolent shuffling of

feet, the half-drunken uneasiness, ceased as if by magic; and as her

simple act proceeded, the stillness out in front became positively

solemn, the startled faces picturing an awakening to higher things. It

was a triumph far exceeding the noisy outburst that greeted the

Mexican--a moral victory over unrestrained lawlessness won simply by

true womanliness, unaided and alone. That earlier scene had brought to

Winston a deeper realization of this girl's genius, a fresher

appreciation of the true worth of her esteem. No struggle of heart or

head could ever again lower her in his secret thought to the common

level.




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