started up.
Across from us was a party of men and women talking to a woman, dark-eyed and olive-skinned, the type of Spanish dancing-girl. As the music started the girl rose.
“Who is that?” asked Craig of the waiter who had brought us our order.
“Señora Ruiz,” he replied briefly, “one of our best dancers.”
We watched her intently. There was something fascinating about the woman. From the snap of her black eyes to the vibrating grace of her shapely ankle there was something that stamped her as unique. She seemed to realize the power nature had given her over the passions of men, to have the keen wit to play them off, and the joy of living to appreciate the dramas which were enacted.
She began with the danza de sombrero. A sombrero was placed on the floor and she danced about it, in and out, now drawing near and now gliding away without touching it. There was something fascinating, not so much about the dance as about the dancer, for the dance itself was interminable, monotonous.
Several times I saw that Kennedy had caught her eye, and when at last the dance ended she contrived to finish close to our table, so close that it was but a turn, an exchange of looks, a word or two, and, as cabaret dancers will, she was sitting at our table a moment later and Kennedy was ordering something.
The Señora spoke very good English and French, and the conversation glided along like a dance from one subject to another, for she had danced her way into almost every quarter of the gay world of America and Europe.
It was not long before Kennedy and she were discussing Mexican dances and some how or other those of the south of Mexico were mentioned. The orchestra, meanwhile, had burst forth into a tango, followed by a maxixe, and many of the habitues of the cabaret were now themselves dancing.
“The Zapotecs,” remarked Kennedy, “have a number of strange dances. There is one called the Devil Dance that I have often wished to see.”
“The Devil Dance?” she repeated. “That usually takes place on feast-days of the saints. I have seen it often. On those occasions some of the dancers have their bodies painted to represent skeletons, and they also wear strange, feathered head-dresses.”
The waiter responded with our order.
“The Zapotec ballroom,” she continued reminiscently, “is an open space near a village, and there the dance goes on by the light of a blazing fire. The dancers, men and women, are dressed in all kinds of fantastic costumes.”
So from dancing the conversation drifted along to one topic after another, Kennedy showing a marvelous knowledge of things Mexican, mostly, I suspected, second-hand, for he had a sort of skill in such a situation of confining the subjects, if he chose, to those on which he was already somewhat acquainted.
“Señora,” called a voice from the other table at which she had been sitting.
She turned with a gay smile. Evidently the party of friends were eager to have her back.
Some words passed, and in a few moments we found ourselves at the other table with the rest of Señora Ruiz’s friends. No one seemed to think it strange in this Bohemian atmosphere that two newcomers should be added to the party. In fact, I rather suspected that they welcomed us as possibly lightening the load of paying the checks which the waiters brought for various things ordered, none of which were exactly reasonable in price.
AMONG others whom we met was an American, a Western mining-woman whom all seemed to know as Hattie Hawley. She was of the breezy type that the West has produced, interested in Mexican affairs through having purchased an interest in some mines in the southern part of the country, and seemed to be thoroughly acquainted with the methods of Wall Street in exploiting mines.
It was a rapid-fire conversation that they carried on, and I kept silent for the most part, fearing that I might say the wrong thing, and following Kennedy’s lead as much as possible.
Mrs. Hawley happened to be sitting next to Kennedy, and as the talk turned on the situation in the country in which all seemed to be interested in some way, Kennedy ventured to her—
“Do you know Colonel Sinclair?”
“I should say I do,” she replied frankly. “Why, it was only a few days ago that he came in here and we were all sitting at this very table discussing the situation down in Oaxaca. You know, I’m interested in some mines near Colonel Sinclair’s, and in the same railroad through the region which he controls.”
“He isn’t here tonight, then?” pursued Kennedy.
“No,” she answered. “I suppose he is out on Long Island at his place at Westport. A fine boy, the Colonel. We all like him.”
There was no mistaking the tone in which she made the remark. Even if it sounded a little unconventional, it was merely her way of testifying that she had a high regard for the gentleman.
“I have known the Colonel fairly well for a number of years,” prevaricated Kennedy, and the conversation drifted on to other topics.
Kennedy managed to lead it about again so that in a perfectly inconsequential way, after the mention of Sinclair’s name, he could say—
“I have heard him mention the name of a Madame Val—” he hesitated, as if the name were not familiar, “a Madame Valoour, I think it is. Is she here? Does she come around to the cabaret?”
“Oh yes,” replied Hattie Hawley. “She comes around here quite often. I haven’t seen her tonight though. She has been away for a few days—down on Long Island, I believe. Perhaps she is there yet.”
I caught her looking significantly at Kennedy, and wondered what was coming next.
She leaned over and whispered—
“Between you and me, I think the Colonel is stuck on her, only I wouldn’t say that aloud here.”
She flashed a glance at one of the men who had been sitting in the shadow, talking with Señora Ruiz.
“He could tell you more about her than I could,” she remarked under her breath. “I never saw any one so crazy over a woman as he is over Valcour.”
“And does she care for him?” asked Kennedy.
Hattie Hawley considered for a moment.
“I don’t believe she cares for anybody,” she answered.
At least there was no hint that the tragedy was known yet here.
I glanced more closely at the man who was talking to Ruiz. He was dark-faced, tall, military in bearing, straight as an arrow, with a little black imperial and a distinguished shock of bushy dark hair.
“It’s evident that she is an ardent admirer of him,” remarked Kennedy following my eye, “whatever he may think of her.” Then, louder, he asked of Mrs. Hawley, “What is his name? I don’t believe I caught it when we were introduced—that is, if we were, in this very informal meeting.”
She laughed. Evidently she liked it.
“His name is Sanchez,” she replied.
