Cinderella, and Other StoriesDavis, Richard Harding
General
Cinderella, and Other Stories
Davis, Richard Harding
United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
The step which she and her partner were exhibiting was one that probably
had been taught her by a professor of dancing at some East Side academy,
at the rate of fifty cents per hour, and which she no doubt believed was
the latest step danced in the gilded halls of the Few Hundred. In this
waltz the two dancers held each other's hands, and the man swung his
partner behind him, and then would turn and take up the step with her
where they had dropped it; or they 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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