Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/152

 of smoke about him. He sat in a box near the stage. Two tired-looking young men in evening clothes were with him. Unabashed by the novelty of the scene or the blare of the band, Joseph Willis was talking rapidly, his eyes radiant, his white teeth flashing in his infectious smile. Dolorita had not yet come on, but as Miss Herrick settled herself in her seat the dancer's number went up in the announcement rack, and large cards, emblazoned with her name, were hung on each side of the curtain. The band struck into a tingling Spanish dance, and the curtain rose on an empty stage with a background of Andalusian scenery. Out from the wings came the favorite of the hour, and as the superb figure in red and gold appeared, a roar of greeting went up from a thousand throats and rolled in a wave of sound across the footlights. The melting black eyes of the "wickedest woman in Spain" swept languishingly over the parquette, then turned for a moment to a box just opposite where a heart and soul looked back at her from a pair of hungry blue ones. A queer little smile curved her lips. Then she glanced at the