“I should like Miss Lacy best,” said Pennie; and while Ethel was receiving this answer with another long stare, Monsieur Deville was announced.
The dancing-master was tall and slim, with a springing step and a very graceful bow; his sleek hair was brushed across a rather bald head, and he had a long reddish nose. He carried a small fiddle, on which he was able to play while he was executing the most agile and difficult steps for the benefit of his pupils. On that day, and always, it was marvellous to Pennie to see how he could go sliding and capering about the room, never making one false note, nor losing his balance, and generally talking and explaining as he went. He spoke English as though it had been his native tongue, and indeed there did not seem to be anything French about him except his name.
The class opened with various exercises, which Pennie was able to do pretty well by dint of paying earnest attention to the child immediately in front of her, but soon some steps followed which she knew nothing about. She stood in perplexity, trying to gather some idea from the hopping springing figures around her. They had all learnt dancing before, and found no difficulty in what looked to her a hopeless puzzle. “Bend the knees, young ladies!” shouted Monsieur Deville above the squeaking of his fiddle. “Slide gently. Keep the head erect. Very good, Miss Smithers. The wrong foot, Miss Hawthorne. Draw in the chin; dear, dear, that won’t do at all,”—stopping suddenly.
Miss Lacy now advanced to inform Monsieur that Miss Hawthorne was quite a beginner, at which every member of the class turned her head and looked at Pennie. What a hateful thing a dancing lesson was!
“Ah! we shall soon improve, no doubt,” said Monsieur cheerfully; “the great thing is to practise the exercises thoroughly—to make the form supple and elastic. Without that as a foundation we can do nothing. With it we can do wonders. Miss Hawthorne had better try that step alone. The rest stand-still.”
Pennie would have given the world to run out of the room, but she grasped her dress courageously, and fixing a desperate eye on Monsieur’s movements, copied them as well as she could.
“That will do for the present. All return to your seats. The Miss Smiths will now dance ‘Les Deux Armes.’”
Two sisters, old pupils of Monsieur Deville, advanced with complacency into the middle of the room.
“A little fancy dance composed by myself,” said the dancing-master, turning to Miss Lacy as he played a preliminary air, “supposed to represent the quarrel and reconciliation of two friends, introducing steps from the minuet and gavotte. It has been considered a graceful trifle.”
Pennie gazed in awe-struck wonder at the Miss Smiths as they moved with conscious grace and certainty through the various figures of the dance, now curtsying haughtily to each other, now with sudden abruptness turning their backs and pirouetting down the room on the very tips of their toes; now advancing, now retreating, now on the very point of reconciliation, and now bounding apart as though nothing were further from their thoughts. Finally, after the spectators for some time in doubt as to their intentions, they came down the length of the room with what Monsieur called a chassé step, and curtsied gracefully hand in hand.