“And I can’t do it?”
“Could you? Did you? You are not built that way.”
“Sort of Clarence MacFadden,” he said, lighting a pipe as if the conversation did not interest him.
“Yes—what ages since we sang that!
‘Clarence McFadden he wanted to dance
But his feet were not gaited that way . . . ’
“I remember we sang it after one corn harvest—we had a fine time. I never thought of you before as Clarence. It is very funny. By the way—will you come to our party at Christmas?”
“When? Who’s coming?”
“The twenty-sixth.—Oh!—only the old people—Alice—Tom Smith—Fanny—those from Highclose.”
“And what will you do?”
“Sing charades—dance a little—anything you like.”
“Polka?”
“And minuets—and valetas. Come and dance a valeta, Cyril.”
She made me take her through a valeta, a minuet, a mazurka, and she danced elegantly, but with a little of Carmen’s ostentation—her dash and devilry. When we had finished, the father said:
“Very pretty—very pretty, indeed! They do look nice, don’t they, George? I wish I was young.”
“As I am——” said George, laughing bitterly.
“Show me how to do them—some time, Cyril,” said Emily, in her pleading way, which displeased Lettie so much.
