The second scene was the camp of the Bacchanals, where Pentheus, as a follower of the god, comes to see the orgies. It was a mountainous scene with a lurid red sky broken by masses of black clouds. There is no need to describe the ballet in detail. The frenzied dancers of the Bacchanals seemed to send the audience wild. There was something fierce and murderous about these orgiastic movements. And through the wild throng darted Lola, in leopard-skin and garlands, bearing a cup of wine, and flinging herself about in wild madness. She appeared to be a devil, and Dorothy shrank back at the sight of her wild face. The music also was terrible, and excited the dancers to further efforts of madness. It was a feast of witches, a Walpurgis night, a revel of the earth-powers. There was nothing spiritual about this riot of the flesh; the audience shuddered at the fierce rapture of the dancers, at the alluring pain of the music, at the reckless abandon of Lola Velez. "It's too awful!" murmured Dorothy, moving to the back of the box, beside Derrington; "that woman is a demon." "Yet your friend Mr. Brendon helped her to this, position," said the old man, grimly. "I am sure he cannot approve of this dancing," shuddered the girl, who was very pale. "There is nothing improper about it," said Derrington. "No. Everything is right in that way; but it is maddening, and unholy, and altogether terrible. The music is something like that in Tannhäuser--cruel, evil, voluptuous." "Ah, your poor spiritual nature shrinks from that sort of thing! But Mrs. Ward seems to enjoy it." She certainly did. Craning forward so as to get a full view of the stage, Mrs. Ward's eyes were alight. She would have enjoyed being in the throng herself, and would have danced as madly as the worst of them. And queerly enough Miss Bull appeared also spellbound. Her face was flushed, her eyes glittered, and her breath came and went in quick pants. "It's wonderful, Margery," she said, leaning out of the box and fixing her eyes intently on the whirling mass. "It's very pretty," said Margery, stupidly. Her dull brain could not understand the wild madness of the scene, and she was as unmoved as though she had been listening to a sermon. "Dorothy! Dorothy!" whispered Mrs. Ward, "come back to your seat. Lola juggles the head of Pentheus. It is the great dance." "No," answered Dorothy, and clung to Derrington's arm. "I will stop here. It is too terrible." The old man understood, and in the darkness of the box he slipped his arm round her. In that kind embrace Dorothy felt safe. If she looked upon that madness again she felt that she must cry out. Derrington quite appreciated her feelings. It was the repulsion experienced by the spiritual against the material.