And he sat and dreamed under the palms, taking no heed of the sudden cessation of music, the gathering of the dancers against the walls; the half-suppressed, laughter and moistening of lip with furtive tongue and the unusual feeling of expectancy in the heavy, perfumed air.

But he came back to earth when from some corner of the room there came the faint tapping of a drum.

Three times there fell a single beat, then a gentle roll and a single beat, bringing him to his feet as he recognised the measure, just as the lights were switched off, excepting for one great beam which, striking down from some device in the ceiling, made a silvery pool in the middle of the floor.

“No!” he cried from the shadows, “this must not be.  It is not seemly for the eyes of women.”

But the answer to this protest came in little jeering laughs and quick remonstrance from those who feared that the whetting of their appetites should be snatched from them, and a sigh of satisfaction went up when, from the shadows, there sprang an Arabian youth, beautiful as a god, supple as a snake, quick upon his feet as any fighting stallion.

He stood for a second with arms outflung to the men and women he knew were watching his every movement outside the radius of the light, and then he sprang back with that marvellous leap which is the gift of some Arabian male dancers.

Ah me! you talk in pharisaic whispers of the Nautch girl; in righteous anger against the dainty geisha; in horror of the weaving Salomes as known in Western cities; wait, however, before you pour the last drop from your vials of wrath and indignation until you have seen an Arab dance “al-fajr” which, being translated, means the dawn.  You can put what interpretation you like upon it:  the dawn of day, or love, anything will do, but you most certainly ought not to watch it.

If, however, you persist in so doing, you should blush to the roots of your hair—­you will not, because it will be the perfect poetry of motion you will be witnessing; also ought you, after the third movement, to turn your back or flee the room—­you will not, again, because of the mocking sensuality which will keep you rooted where you stand; again, you ought to stuff your ears against the throbbing of the drum—­but that will you not do because of the words of love which fall, seemingly reft from the dancer’s lips in the rapture of his movements.  It is the last word in sensual ecstasy, and should be prohibited for public exhibition to Europeans, yet it is quite impossible to point at any one movement and label it as the cause of the tumult within you.

But Hugh Carden Ali, standing under a palm, turned quickly when a little sound of distress caught his ear, and put out his hand and pulled the girl he had recognised in the dark by her perfume towards him, so that the back of her head rested against his arm; and sensing her nausea at the sight from which she had been trying to fly, and knowing the sheer impossibility of keeping the eyes shut in a theatre, he pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and placed it across her eyes.