In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

having practiced l'éscrime with the bloodstained family arms.
At intermission, Penny watched the people drift around the
refreshment table from the balcony. Nadelman's colossal marble muses
stood guard at either side. She spotted Ula handing Sandro doppios as
she guzzled champagne along with Beatrice and Dick. Some people
stared in recognition at them, but with Sandro swaying, didn't dare
approach. Ula pushed him outside for some air, but there was no air
outside that night, so he just leaned on the balustrade and smoked.
Penny could see him through the glass, a black silhouette against the
lights of the Lincoln Center fountain. She wanted more than anything
to run down and leap into his arms. Instead she pulled herself back up
to her seat for the second act. The bell rang and the people start filing
in and edging down the rows.
Sandro dutifully followed Ula to their seats. Dick and Beatrice
were already in theirs, scanning the parterre for the familiar faces of
business associates. Penny ducked back into her perch.
The music started up for act two, and it was all about act two.
The Wilis were chilling enough without the blue floodlights. A regiment
of identical zombie girls hopped forward, frozen in that position Ula
called arabesque penchée. Thunk, freeze, thunk another inch, freeze.
Inexorably they thunked through the mist on that one foot, to Giselle's
tombstone and the crumpled figure of the grieving prince beneath it.
Sandro watched the whole act gripping the arms of his seat,
with Ula resting her head on his shoulder, but she was not asleep.
After all the sweaty, shiny eyed dancers had taken their bows
the privileged marched crisply into the wings to pay homage. Penny
galloped to the patio in front of the fountain and leaned over the
balustrade. In the crowd's midst were Ula, Sandro, Beatrice and Dick,
zigzagging in the general direction of the waiting taxis on the curb.
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