FullReads

Fifth of a Series of Six Stories
[First published in Pictorial Review, September 1916]

The caoutchouc was drawing all London. Slightly more indecent than the Salome dance, a shade less reticent than ragtime, it had driven the tango out of existence. Nor, indeed, did anybody actually caoutchouc, for the national dance of Paranoya contained three hundred and fifteen recognized steps; but everybody tried to. A new revue, “Hullo, Caoutchouc,” had been produced with success. And the pioneer of the dance, the peerless Maraquita, a native Paranoyan, still performed it nightly at the music-hall where she had first broken loose.

The caoutchouc fascinated Roland Bleke. Maraquita fascinated him more. Of all the women to whom he had lost his heart at first sight, Maraquita had made the firmest impression upon him. She was what is sometimes called a fine woman.

She had large, flashing eyes, the physique of a Rugby International forward, and the agility of a cat on hot bricks.

There is a period of about fifty steps somewhere in the middle of the three hundred and fifteen where the patient, abandoning the comparative decorum of the earlier movements, whizzes about till she looks like a salmon-colored whirlwind.

That was the bit that hit Roland.

Night after night he sat in his stage-box, goggling at Maraquita and applauding wildly.

One night an attendant came to his box.

“Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr. Roland Bleke? The Senorita Maraquita wishes to speak to you.”

He held open the door of the box. The possibility of refusal did not appear to occur to him. Behind the scenes at that theater, it was generally recognized that when the Peerless One wanted a thing, she got it–quick.

They were alone.

With no protective footlights between himself and her, Roland came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake. It was not that she was any less beautiful at the very close quarters imposed by the limits of the dressing-room; but he felt that in falling in love with her he had undertaken a contract a little too large for one of his quiet, diffident nature. It crossed his mind that the sort of woman he really liked was the rather small, drooping type. Dynamite would not have made Maraquita droop.

For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this leading question:

“You love me, hein?“

Roland nodded feebly.

“When men make love to me, I send them away–so.”

She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to feel almost cheerful again. He was to be dismissed with a caution, after all. The woman had a fine, forgiving nature.

“But not you.”

“Not me?”

“No, not you. You are the man I have been waiting for. I read about you in the paper, Senor Bleke. I see your picture in the ‘Daily Mirror!’ I say to myself, ‘What a man!'”

“Those picture-paper photographs always make one look rather weird,” mumbled Roland.

“I see you night after night in your box. Poof! I love you.”

“Thanks awfully,” bleated Roland.

“You would do anything for my sake, hein? I knew you were that kind of man directly I see you. No,” she added, as Roland writhed uneasily in his chair, “do not embrace me. Later, yes, but now, no. Not till the Great Day.”

What the Great Day might be Roland could not even faintly conjecture. He could only hope that it would also be a remote one.

“And now,” said the Senorita, throwing a cloak about her shoulders, “you come away with me to my house. My friends are there awaiting us. They will be glad and proud to meet you.”

* * * * *

After his first inspection of the house and the friends, Roland came to the conclusion that he preferred Maraquita’s room to her company. The former was large and airy, the latter, with one exception, small and hairy.