They had reached the cognac and were now smoking, gabbling. His table companion was the Bullrush who already felt his wine. He saluted the virgins by their names, and when he forgot them he invented new ones; sometimes his inventions weren't tasteful. One girl, fatter than the others, he called rumpsteak and patted her when she passed. But it was a well-trained orchestra; not by the movement of an eye-brow did she notice his rudeness. After a brief interlude, during which every one bawled or guzzled, there was heard the premonitary tinkling of little bells. The twelve virgins emerged in Indian file; they had changed their scanty costume; they no longer wore sashes. Instead, sleigh-bells were fastened to their ankles, and to the insistent clicking of castanets they danced the Dance of the Seven Devils. This spawn of Satan, these devil's daughters, had been drilled in the technique of the ballet infernal. Monotone of castanets and tufted footfalls framed rhythmic obscenities. At times Ulick gasped, and he had been in Oriental brothels where sex is become a delirium. The Ctéis was appropriately worshipped. They sprawled and postured, they reared their polished posteriors in porcine rhythms, as if to invite their brethren, who ringed them with applause, urging them to audaciously lascivious acts. The air was charged with cigarettes, the acrid smell of wine and odor di femina. Ulick's head began to ache. Suddenly from languourous weavings, from legs and arms in unholy embrace, the current changed to crazy gallopings. The dancing mania seized the men, all except the Zephyr, who leaned against a wall and coolly regarded the spectacle, surely not a novel one to him. Ulick was caught by the plump blonde and furiously whirled. She was an enticing houri with gold-coloured eyes and scarlet lips--rouged. Her breath was extra-dry. He turned his head away as she repeatedly kissed him. But the heated curves of her finely modelled torso made him a helpless prisoner. Sweetness exhaled from her. Young, pretty, absolutely depraved, she had fancied the handsome youth who sat so still and haughty, coldly refusing her libations and unconsciously frowning when Robbie Sanderson pinched her cheeks. She drank with the others each time they went out to the service-room, and she found her tongue as the night wore on in frenzied intoxication. The men were in their shirtsleeves. Everyone sang. The heat and noise were terrific. And all this pagan revelry in a drab, respectable quarter of New York! No matter, Ulick breathlessly exclaimed, it's a relief from the accursed hypocricy of puritanical Yankeedom. Again the whistle sounded. A lull followed. The girls, their smooth bodies glistening with moisture, slipped away. A fresh attack was made on the wine stacked in ice-pails.