The floor
was crowded. Looking at the mass, Neale could only see whirling,
heated faces, white, clinging arms, forms swaying round and round, a
wild rhythm without grace, a dance in which music played no real
part, where men and women were lost. Neale had never seen a sight
like that. He was stunned. There were no souls here. Only beasts of
men, and women for whom there was no name. If death stalked in that
camp, as Hough had intimated, and hell was there, then the two could
not meet too soon.
If the mass and the spirit and the sense of the scene dismayed
Neale, the living beings, the creatures, the women--for the men were
beyond him--confounded him with pity, consternation, and stinging
regret. He had loved two women--his mother and Allie--so well that
he ought to love all women because they were of the same sex. Yet
how impossible! Had these creatures any sex? Yet they were--at least
many were--young, gay, pretty, wild, full of life. They had swift
suppleness, smiles, flashing eyes, a look at once intent and yet
vacant. But few onlookers would have noticed that. The eyes for
which the dance was meant saw the mad whirl, the bare flesh, the
brazen glances, the close embrace.
The music ended, the dancers stopped, the shuffling ceased. There
were no seats unoccupied, so the dancers walked around or formed in
groups.
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