Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/264

Rh "It's by 'Anon,' I think—that popular author," said he, but as he led Lucilla away he whispered: "I made it up, of course; didn't she see I was making it up?"

"One never knows what she does or doesn't see," Lucilla permitted herself to say.

"No, but anyhow, what a lot there is that she doesn't see—that nobody sees. What a little window it is, anyhow, that you look in at anyone else by, isn't it?"

"'Yes. In this sea of life en-isled . . . '" quoted Lucilla.

"Exactly," said he. "And there's no Lancers like the old original, Jim always plays them. Tum-tiddy-tumpty-tumpty-tum! What a glorious game dancing is!"

"Score each point as you come to it, even if it's the last," he said, as he led flushed and panting Lucilla to cool on the front-door steps. "That's my philosophy of life. Even if the world ends to-morrow—well, we've had to-night! If it ends to-night—well—I've had this dance with you. And I may have the next and the next and the next and the one after that?"

"Mr. Tombs," murmured Lucilla, much agitated by this sudden advance. "I'm dancing the next one with Mr. Tombs."

He brought her a chair from the hall. "And you?" she said.

"I can sit at your feet," said he—"my proper place," and he sat down on the doorstep. "Now give me a flower—one of those apricot-scented roses—and be kind to me. Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

"Do you always talk nonsense when you've been dancing?" said Lucilla, defending herself as best she could against this sudden swirl of an unknown sea of flattery.

"Not always. But to-night's such a night—and you're all such darlings, and it's such a long time since I've danced or talked with people who are real people, that my head's in a whirl and I see everything double. I daresay I really see you twice as charming as you are, but my fixed illusion is that you are far more than twice as charming than you appear."