"Why, certainly!" she said smilingly.
A waltz was being played.
If I were a fair dancer, I was first-rate at the waltz. The Spanish girl discovered this at the first round we made, and she gave herself up to it completely, feeling she was being well steered and had a good partner.
"You waltz very well," she said.
"You flatter me," I responded; "hitherto I have only had chairs to waltz with."
"Chairs?" she asked.
"Yes, I learnt to waltz the year I took my first communion," I said, "and the Abbé Grégoire forbade me to waltz with girls; so my dancing-master, thinking I really must hold something in my arms, gave me a chair; I was thus enabled to take my lesson without sinfulness."
My partner stopped short; I thought she would choke with laughter.
"You really are the funniest boy, I like you very much," she said, when she could regain her faculty of speech.... "Let us waltz again."