Lust giggles at a sly jest out of the cornet. Passion thumbs its nose at the stars out of the cornet. The melody of jazz, the tin pan ghosts of Chopin, Tchaikowsky, Old Black Joe, Liszt and Mumbo Magumbo, jungle troubadour of the Congo, come whinnying out from under the pendant derby. The dancers on the cabaret floor close their eyes and grin to themselves. The cornet kids them along. When they grow sad it burlesques their sorrow. The cornet laughs at them. It leers like a satyr master of ceremonies at them. It is Pan in a clown suit, Silenus on a trick mule, Eros in a Pullman smoker. * * * * * Laugh, dance, jerk, wiggle and kid all you want--but the Lady of the Sea Foam whispers a secret. Aphrodite, become a female barytone, still takes herself very seriously. Aphrodite, alas, is always serious. She gurgles a sonorous plaint out of the saxophone. The cornet sneers at her. The clarinet sneaks up on her and tweaks her nose. The trombone, the bull fiddle and the bassoon ignore her altogether. And the dancers on the cabaret floor are too busy to dance to her simple wails. Yet there is no mistake. Aphrodite, the queen, abandoned by her courtiers and surrounded by this galaxy of mountebanks, is still Aphrodite. Big-bosomed, sleepy-eyed and sad lipped she walks invisible among the dancers on the cabaret floor and they listen to her voice out of the saxophone. The drums, the piano and the violin give her a fluttering drape. But there are things to be seen. This is not the Aphrodite of the Blue Danube waltz--but a duskier, more mystical lady. There are no roses on her cheeks, no lilies in her skin. She is colored like a panther flower and her limbs are heavy with taboo magic. But she is still imperial. In vain the mountebanks and burlesqueries of her court. Her lips place themselves against the hearts of the dancers on the cabaret floor. And she croons her ancient hymns. The hearts of the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen sadly and proudly and they almost forget to dance. * * * * * Midnight approaches. Enameled faces, stenciled smiles, painted eyes and slants of colored hats--these are the women. Careless, polite, suave, grinning--these are the men. The jazz band plays. The cabaret floor, jammed, seems to be moving around like a groaning turnstile.