Vernabelle says he reminds her of some untamed creature of the open, some woodsy monster of the dells, and Jeff says that's just what he feels like. He's going on to tell her some more about what he feels like, but Vernabelle is now greeting Oswald Cummings, the pagan of splendid sins, from the Elite Bootery. She tells Oswald there is a cold cruelty in the lines of his face that reminds her of the emperor Nero.
Finally about twenty choice spirits who did things was gathered for this half-lighted hour, so everybody set down on chairs and the couch and the floor, leaving a clear space for Vernabelle; and Professor Gluckstein, our music teacher, puts down his meerschaum pipe and goes to the piano and plays a soft piece. The prof is a German, but not a pro-German, and plays first rate in the old-fashioned way, with his hands. Then, when all the comrades get settled and their cigarettes lighted, the prof drifted into something quite mournful and Vernabelle appeared from behind a screen without her kimono.
The early Greeks must of been strong on art jewellery. Vernabelle clanked at every step with bracelets and anklets and necklaces. She had a priceless ruby weighing half a pound fastened to the middle of her bony forehead. Her costume was spangled, but not many spangles had been needed. The early Greeks couldn't of been a dressy lot. If Vernabelle had been my daughter I could of give her what she deserved with almost no trouble. The costume, as Metta had said, not only followed the lines of the figure, so far as it went anywhere at all, but it suggested and almost revealed that Vernabelle had been badly assembled. The Bohemians kind of gasped and shivered, all except Jeff Tuttle, who applauded loudly. They seemed to feel that Vernabelle was indeed getting away from it all.
Then came this here cycle-of-dance portrayals. The first one wasn't much dance; it was mostly slow, snaky motions with the arms and other things, and it was to portray a mother cobra mourning her first-born. At least that's the way I understood it. Another one was called "The Striving Soul," to which the prof played something livelier. Vernabelle went round and round, lifting her feet high. It looked to me like she was climbing a spiral staircase that wasn't there. Then she was a hunted fawn in a dark forest and was finally shot through the heart by a cruel hunter--who was probably nearsighted. And in the last one she was a Russian peasant that has got stewed on vodka at the Russian county fair. This was the best one. You couldn't see her so well when she moved quick.