The assembled males applauded when they saw these two young women standing there—short of skirt, low of slipper, low of gown. All but one rose gaily to welcome them. One man sat transfixed. There was revealed to David Joslin, in the person of Polly Pendleton, such a vision as never had he known in all his life, a dream which he not yet had dreamed, nor could have dreamed, so wholly outside of all his possible experience must it have been called. He never before had seen woman at her frank best in sheer riot of the beauty of her sex. It awed him. She was a woman, but scarce seemed that to him. To his eyes she was not woman, but some supernal thing, a Presence, a Being. And in the sheer fact that she was of his genus, of his species, that she was woman and he was man, he sat suddenly exalted, glorified himself, superman—for now at last his eyes had seen! She smiled at them all in her swift and comradely fashion, and stepped promptly toward the little platform. Not a man there who did not know Polly Pendleton of the Follies, the best-liked girl on the stage that year. Singer, violinist, dancer—she had made her way up by one or the other of her arts or all of them, until now she might use all or either, as she liked. A woman of about middle stature was Polly Pendleton, of covetably slender and firm-set figure. Her eyes were large and dark, with long lashes, her face a strong, clean oval, her skin clear, her teeth brilliant, her head a mass of short, dark curls. So much might be said of many women, perhaps, but Polly Pendleton had some strange plus charm of her own, that charm for which managers pay any price. She seemed the very spirit, the very embodiment of life, youth, eagerness—of vital joy itself. The thought of evil could not touch her, so sweet and clean she seemed, in every fiber of her being there was such life and such joy in living. Her gestures were those of the young animal, of the bird, careless, unstudied. She had no art, but succeeded through her lack of art and through her own zest, her sheer vitality. When Polly Pendleton stood waiting for something, interested in anything, keyed up, not even her feet could rest upon the floor. She had a strange way sometimes, even when talking to one, of dancing up and down on her toes, light as a feather, her young limbs seeming not to feel the weight of her body. There seemed an ethereal air about her, as though she needed not to walk, needed not to stand, unless she liked. She stood now before them, having drawn from beneath her coat her cherished violin, whose music had pleased so many thousands. Obviously she intended first to play. She laid aside her cloak and stood, eager, interested, slightly leaning forward, anxious, dancing up and down upon her little feet. Youth, life, joy, vitality, freedom from care, absolute ignorance and disregard of toil or trouble or anxiety—there stood Polly Pendleton.