Daughter of the House

Devil swept his bow and backed into the wings.

The curtain rose at once on the dancers. Four girls arched their taut bodies against four triangular columns. Two faces of the columns were mirrored and the third was black.

The orchestra began to play ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’.

The columns were mounted on spindles, and in the recess beneath their feet a stagehand turned a drum and the columns silently revolved. The girls moved into their dance. Four were multiplied to eight, and the mirrors reflected their reflections until sixty-four splintered images danced into the light, were swallowed up by the turning darkness, and then pirouetted into view again. Dozens of white plumes swayed and the jewels shot points of fire.

The audience drew a collective breath and the applause for this vision almost drowned out the music.

Devil watched from the wings. The elfin dancer spun en pointe and her blank gaze passed over his face. But on the next turn their eyes locked for a fraction of a second. No one else saw it, but the ghost of her smile for him was multiplied into infinity.

Devil lifted his gloved hand in a small salute. He turned away through the wings, and returned to his office where the bills were still piled on his desk.

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