Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/263

264 should like to follow Miss Antrobus's excellent example and write to our dear Miss Lucas. But Mr. Thornton is just going to play the Lancers. Miss Antrobus, may I have the pleasure? Thank you. And Miss Craye, may I ask you for the next dance?"

"If there is a next one, I shall be very pleased."

"Oh, there is to be a next one," he assured her. "Miss Quested has decided that it is to be a dancing evening."

"'On with the dance, let joy be unrefined,'" said Lucilla.

"Thank you," said Mr. Tombs. "That's one of my favourite quotations. Let us be tops, Miss Antrobus. But I must lend a hand with the furniture."

"I shouldn't have thought Mr. Tombs would have cared for dancing," said Miss Antrobus, "but he waltzes extraordinarily well, doesn't he? So unexpected."

"Do you think that blue glasses don't go well with dancing then? Appearances are deceitful sometimes."

"I know they are," said Miss Antrobus. And there is something about blue glasses that looks a little—well—furtive, don't you think?"

"I hadn't thought it," said Lucilla, laughing. "It's rather hard, isn't it, if people can't wear blue glasses without being suspected of—what would the noun be?—furtivity?"

"I didn't really mean that I thought our friend deceitful," said Miss Antrobus. "I shouldn't like to think it. I loathe deceit."

"Yes, it is horrid, isn't it?" And as Mr. Thornton—the one called Bill—now came to claim her for the dance, she went on: "I'm sure you hate deceit too, don't you, Mr. Thornton?"

replied the young man promptly.

"Whose is that?" asked Miss Antrobus. "I seem to know it."