For her gros bebees, if they were really in want of it, she would do anything.

She would flout a star-covered general, box the ears of a brilliant aid, send killing missiles of slang at a dandy of a regiment de famille, and refuse point-blank a Russian grand duke; but to "mes enfants," as she was given to calling the rough tigers and grisly veterans of the Army of Africa, Cigarette was never capricious; however mischievously she would rally, or contemptuously would rate them, when they deserved it.
And she was dancing for them now.
Her soft, short curls all fluttering, her cheeks all bright with a scarlet flush, her eyes as black as night and full of fire; her gay little uniform, with its scarlet and purple, making her look like a fuchsia bell tossed by the wind to and fro, ever so lightly, on its delicate, swaying stem; Cigarette danced with the wild grace of an Almeh, of a Bayadere, of a Nautch girl--as untutored and instinctive in her as its song to a bird, as its swiftness to a chamois.

To see Cigarette was like drinking light, fiery wines, whose intoxication was gay as mischief, and sparkling as themselves.

All the warmth of Africa, all the wit of France, all the bohemianism of the Flag, all the caprices of her sex, were in that bewitching dancing.

Flashing, fluttering, circling, whirling; glancing like a saber's gleam, tossing like a flower's head, bounding like an antelope, launching like an arrow, darting like a falcon, skimming like a swallow; then for an instant resting as indolently, as languidly, as voluptuously, as a water-lily rests on the water's breast--Cigarette en Bacchante no man could resist.
When once she abandoned herself to the afflatus of the dance delirium, she did with her beholders what she would.