"
The money was paid, and the mad dance was held at night in a walled courtyard
at the back of Madame Binat's house. The lady herself, in faded mauve silk
always about to slide from her yellow shoulders, played the piano, and to the
tin-pot music of a Western waltz the naked Zanzibari girls danced furiously by
the light of kerosene lamps. Binat sat upon a chair and stared with eyes that
saw nothing, till the whirl of the dance and the clang of the rattling piano
stole into the drink that took the place of blood in his veins, and his face
glistened. Dick took him by the chin brutally and turned that face to the
light. Madame Binat looked over her shoulder and smiled with many teeth. Dick
leaned against the wall and sketched for an hour, till the kerosene lamps began
to smell, and the girls threw themselves panting on the hard-beaten ground.
Then he shut his book with a snap and moved away, Binat plucking feebly at his
elbow. "Show me," he whimpered. "I too was once an artist, even I!" Dick showed
him the rough sketch. "Am I that?" he screamed. "Will you take that away with
you and show all the world that it is I,--Binat?" He moaned and wept.
"Monsieur has paid for all," said Madame. "To the pleasure of seeing Monsieur
again.
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