Here was something new: a dance in which a great amount of fluttering silk was kept aloft, the while upon it there constantly played variegated lights, projected by what in the profession is known as a “color-wheel,” a circular device containing various colored media, rotated before an arc-lamp. Thus was born the _Serpentine Dance_. Here was no struggle on the part of the artist to find her medium of expression, no seeking for a new technique or slogging effort perfecting an old one; no hours spent sweating at the _barre_; no heartache. Loie Fuller was not concerned with steps, with style, with a unique and individual quality of movement. Loie Fuller had a scarf. Loie Fuller had an instantaneous success. Her career was made on the _Serpentine Dance_. But she also had one other inspiration. A “sunrise” stage effect that she used was mistaken by the audience as a dance of fire, as the light rays touched her flowing scarves and draperies. “La Loie” was not one to miss a chance. She gathered her electricians about her--for in the early days of stage lighting with electricity nothing was impossible. The revolving “light-wheels” were increased in number, as were the spot-lights. Since all this happened in Paris, Loie Fuller’s _Danse de Feu_ became to France what the _Serpentine Dance_ had been to America. The French adopted her as their own. Widely loved, she became “La Loie.” Her stage arrangements were often startling; they could not always be called dancing. The arms and feet of her “children” were always subordinated to the movements of the draperies. So tricky was the business of the draperies that it is said that none of her designers or seamstresses were permitted to know more than a small part of their actual construction. Her imitators were many, with the result that, for a time, the musical comedy stages of both Europe and America had an inundation of illuminated dry goods. It was the “children” who kept “La Loie’s” serpentine and fire dances alive. When Loie Fuller suggested the American tour, the idea interested me because of the novelty involved. It was, incidentally, my only “incognito” tour. I accepted an invitation from Queen Marie of Roumania to visit her at the Royal Palace in Bucharest to discuss the proposed tour with Her Majesty and Loie Fuller, who was a close friend and confidante of the Queen. The tour was in the interest of one of the Queen’s pet charities and, moreover, it had diplomatic overtones. Naturally, under the circumstances, no managerial auspices were credited on the programmes. In addition to the purely Loie Fuller characteristic numbers, the Loie Fuller Dancers, on this tour, offered _Some Dance Scenes from the Fairy Tale of Her Majesty Queen Marie’s_ “_The Lilly of Life_,” as _presented at the Grand Opera, Paris_. Apart from this, the “children” had all the old Loie Fuller tricks, and a few new ones. Their dance vocabulary was far from extensive, but there was a pleasant enough quality about it.