soft and retiring because you are a woman." His eyes had become shining strong coffee black that made her heart pound.
Another time he had said, after showing her some movements, "Now you must do it alone," and she had danced, self-conscious at the newness of the movement and because of how he looked at her.
But hard as she tried she could not rid herself completely of ballet timing and transitions. Sometimes she would stop to do the dance movement over but he would say, "No, no, do it like that way, it is you, it is charming."
This did not seem right to her but she had learned, and this was another big surprise, that her strangeness was exotic to him, as his strangeness was exotic to her. She never would have believed anyone would think her exotic.
At the end of the first week he gave her a voluminous Hindu skirt of patterned ruby silk and this helped make her feel more at ease though she still had to count to herself to achieve continuity in the foreign movements. But when they danced together she was drawn into his erotic improvisations. This somewhat reassured her as she was not quick at extemporaneous invention, except in jazz. His pleasure at her response was evident and she wondered whether their concord in movement was not a sign that they were well matched for love. She knew it was up to her to keep them from toppling over the brink into lovemaking.
She discovered that as much as lessons she looked forward to their talks which drifted through inconsequential and often playful subjects, mostly their likes and dislikes. He would show her books of Hindu art, or play his records, explaining words and instruments. Through it all she was conscious of his many delicate ways to please her. Master of Dance. Master of Love!
Time passed quickly and it became natural to drop in every day. She never had been so content with a man before and wondered whether she was not learning about art and love together. During the third week he said, "I must see how you look with your hair smoothed back, as a real Hindu princess."
"I'll get my comb." She went to fetch it.
If only, he thought, she did not always push him into work but would be content to play with him driftingly on a paradisal nonself plane. Her laugh was as the ascending trill of a happy but too wide-awake bird. In Kashmir birds trilled thus at dawn unaware of human awakening languors. But this golden girl, with lapis lazuli eyes, made for love, seemed unaffected by Yogi phrases which had
