To this accompaniment the girl danced.
Had any British matrons been present we must hope they would have
walked out, yet, to the eye of the artist, there was nothing coarse
or offending, simply a most beautiful harmony of motion. The girl's
beauty, her grace and youth, and the slight lissomness of all her
body lent to the dance a poetry, a refinement it would not have
possessed with another exponent.
Moreover, though there was a certain ardour in her looks and
gestures, in the way she yielded her limbs and body to the
influence of the music, yet there was also a gay innocence, a
bright naive irresponsibility in it that contrasted strongly with
the sinister intention underlying all the movements of the other
two Indian dancers. At the end of the dance Hamilton took a rupee
from his pocket and threw it across the tin lamps towards her feet.
She picked it up smiling, though she left the other coins which
fell on the stage untouched, and went back to her chair.
After her dance, the great negro came forward and did a turn of his
own. Hamilton looked away. What was this man to the little circle?
he wondered. He could not keep his mind off that one query? Were
they his slaves? willing or unwilling? did they constitute his
harem? or were they paid, independent workers? His mind was made up
to get speech with this one girl, at least, that evening.
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