Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/156

148 “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! “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.