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"Let that be a promise," Keith replied. "Ah, Count Caloveglia! How good
of you to come. I would not have asked you to such a worldly function
had I not thought that this dancing might interest you."
"It does, it does!" said the old aristocrat, thoughtfully sipping
champagne out of an enormous goblet which he carried in his hand. "It
makes me dream of that East which it has never been my fortune, alas,
to behold. What a flawless group! There is something archaic, Oriental,
in their attitudes; they seem to be fraught with all the mystery, the
sadness, of life that is past--of things remote from ourselves."
"My gipsies," said Keith, "are not everybody's gipsies."
"I think they despise us! And this austere regularity in the steps of
the dancers, this vibrating accompaniment that dwells persistently on
one note--how primitive, how scornfully unintellectual! It is like a
passionate lover knocking to gain an entrance into our hearts. And he
succeeds. He breaks down the barrier by the oldest and best of lovers'
expedients--sheer reiteration of monotony.


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