Balniaux. There was not the slightest hope of intimidating or
buying over this particular lady's allegiance. I had to learn exactly
who was subsidizing her machinations and there was no possibility of
obtaining the clew from her.
I must find the accessible person among her intimate friends. From
time to time I had seen her with a pretty little dark-haired girl who
danced in the Folies Arabic. I learned her name was Cecelia Coursan.
I began to frequent the Folies, a kind of cabaret crowded every night
with Turkish officers. Admiration was no longer a delight to her and
she accepted it with a wooden smile.
The Folies is quite dissimilar from its European or American
prototypes, by reason of its Oriental atmosphere. Most of the year
round it is conducted in the open. Picture a large court, the center
of which is covered with a priceless Smyrna carpet. Seated around on
little divans and silk cushions are the principal native performers,
Neulah girls wearing the teasing Yamashk, covering half their faces
although the rest of their figures are visible through gauzy Damascene
shawls. The European performers, dressed in the latest and most
startling Paris creations, flirt and flitter among the
audience--seated round on dainty marble-topped bamboo tables,
inhaling, in the case of Madame, a dainty "Regie," or if Bey or
Effendi, a Tshibuk or Narghile, gravely drawing on the amber
mouthpiece and slowly exhaling the perfumed smoke.
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