swung around and around each other several times, as people do in fancy skating, and sometimes he spun her so quickly one way that the skirt of her walking-dress was wound as tightly around her legs and ankles as a cord around a top, and then as he swung her in the opposite direction, it unwound again, and wrapped about her from the other side.  They varied this when it pleased them with balancings and steps and posturings that were not sufficiently extravagant to bring any comment from the other dancers, but which were so full of grace and feeling for time and rhythm, that Van Bibber continually reversed his partner so that he might not for an instant lose sight of the girl with auburn hair.

“She is a very remarkable dancer,” he said at last, apologetically.  “Do you know who she is?”

His partner had observed his interest with increasing disapproval, and she smiled triumphantly now at the chance that his question gave her.

“She is the seventh floor chambermaid,” she said.  “I,” she added in a tone which marked the social superiority, “am a checker and marker.”

“Really?” said Van Bibber, with a polite accent of proper awe.

He decided that he must see more of this Cinderella of the Hotel Salisbury; and dropping his partner by the side of the lady recitationist, he bowed his thanks and hurried to the gallery for a better view.

When he reached it he found his professional friends hanging over the railing, watching every movement which the girl made with an intense and unaffected interest.

“Have you noticed that girl with red hair?” he asked, as he pulled up a chair beside them.

But they only nodded and kept their eyes fastened on the opening in the crowd through which she had disappeared.

“There she is,” Grahame West cried excitedly, as the girl swept out from the mass of dancers into the clear space.  “Now you can see what I mean, Celestine,” he said.  “Where he turns her like that.  We could do it in the shadow-dance in the second act.  It’s very pretty.  She lets go his right hand and then he swings her and balances backward until she takes up the step again, when she faces him.  It is very simple and very effective.  Isn’t it, George?”

Lester nodded and said, “Yes, very.  She’s a born dancer.  You can teach people steps, but you can’t teach them to be graceful.”

“She reminds me of Sylvia Grey,” said Miss Chamberlain.  “There’s nothing violent about it, or faked, is there?  It’s just the poetry of motion, without any tricks.”

Lester, who was a trick dancer himself, and Grahame West, who was one of the best eccentric dancers in England, assented to this cheerfully.