Miss Carroll had gone to supper well cloaked, but in the costume of
the tropic wood nymph. A skirt of fern leaves touched her knee; she
was like a humming-bird--green and golden and purple.
And then she danced a fluttering, fantastic dance, so agile and light
and mazy in her steps that the other three members of the Carroll
Comedy Company broke into applause at the art of it.
And at the proper time Delmars leaped out at her side, mimicking
the uncouth, hideous bounds of the gorilla so funnily that the
grizzled sergeant himself gave a short laugh like the closing of a
padlock. They danced together the gorilla dance, and won a hand from
all.
Then began the most fantastic part of the scene--the wooing of the
nymph by the gorilla. It was a kind of dance itself--eccentric and
prankish, with the nymph in coquettish and seductive retreat, followed
by the gorilla as he sang "I'll Woo Thee to My Sylvan Home."
The song was a lyric of merit. The words were non-sense, as befitted
the play, but the music was worthy of something better. Delmars
struck into it in a rich tenor that owned a quality that shamed the
flippant words.
During one verse of the song the wood nymph performed the grotesque
evolutions designed for the scene. At the middle of the second verse
she stood still, with a strange look on her face, seeming to gaze
dreamily into the depths of the scenic forest.
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