Explore "The Bird of Paradise" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That night, once more Tanya danced to the enthusiastic plaudits of a huge audience. It was said, with absolute truth, that on that particular night she created a perfect furore. There were men, and women, too, wedged in amongst the crowds standing up in the background, who forgot themselves and their manners, in a wild struggle to force themselves into some place where they could catch a glimpse of that struggling phantasy of a black gown, the white limbs, scarlet lips, and blazing, eyes--calling, and calling, and calling. An elderly _boulevardier_ of the last decade made his escape mopping his forehead.
"My Heaven!" he exclaimed. "It is like when Cleo danced for those three weeks of her madness. Men fought their way on to the stage. They had to have a guard for her. That woman is a she devil, I tell you! There was, never a lady of the pavement who pleaded so eloquently as she."