Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/397

 "I was beginning to wonder if you were coming," Clem said, more animated than she ever had seen him.

"You've certainly gone to town!" she complimented, laughing because he was so pleased.

"I'm sorry your mother didn't come," he said earnestly.

You could feel, she thought affectionately, he meant it, unlike Lyle when he was making up to her through Mother. She decided to be as nice as possible without encouraging him too much. It was really a shame that they could not be just good friends. If only he still didn't want her. I'm going to see if I can't find him a nice girl, she resolved as she went to speak first to Master and Madame who had been nice enough to come to the party. So were all these people, though some probably came only for the drinks—but, still keyed up, she felt an affection for everyone, except Paul Vermillion who hadn't shown up at all.

Master and Madame attended opening nights, where one of their pupils performed, primarily as diagnosticians, to judge the subject's balletic condition so as to prepare a frank critical prescription for the next lesson. At such performances Master never had been seen in any other costume than a somber black suit of turn-of-the-century European cut, and as a counterpart Madame invariably was clad in a rusty black velvet evening gown which dated to the days when she was a première ballerina. Not an unpleasant woman, Madame surveyed the world at large, but particularly American ballet dancers, with a somewhat jaundiced glance inevitable in one who had been a prima ballerina assoluta in the good old Czarist days. The sole remaining signs of her former glory were the small turned-out steps and sway-back of her period. "American girls," she often complained about her husband's pupils, "are more interested in preserving long thin legs and figures than in perfecting themselves in classical ballet." Thus, as they were rarely inspired to make token appearances at parties celebrating their pupils' exhibitions, Lucy felt that maybe they hadn't found her too bad.

In this she was correct. Master and Madame liked Lucy, though they feared she lacked the single-minded dedication to make her a great ballerina. They remained only long enough to voice distaste of Ilona Klemper to Lucy, be polite about Ranna, and to approve of her ballet which however they believed could be improved if done entirely sur le point. Also, Master reminded her, lest the success go to her head, her cabriolé could be improved and, as always, her Rh