“Ye-es,” Steptoe commended doubtfully, “a lettle too—well, too habrupt, as you might sye. Most lydies—real ’igh lydies, like the lyte Mrs. Allerton—inclines their ’ead slow and gryceful like. First, they throws it back a bit, so as to get a purchase on it, and then they brings it forward calm like, lowerin’ it stytely—Perhaps if madam’ud be me for a bit—that ’ud be Mrs. Courage—and let me sit there and be ’er, I could show ’er––”
The places were reversed. It was Letty who came in as Mrs. Courage, while Steptoe, seated in the chair, lowered the paper to the degree which he thought dignified. Letty mumbled something like the words the hypothetical Mrs. Courage was presumed to use, while Steptoe slowly threw back his head for 84 the purchase, bringing it forward in condescending grace. Language could not have given Mrs. Courage so effective a retort courteous.
Letty was enchanted. “Oh, Steptoe, let me have another try. I believe I could swing the cat.”
Again the places were reversed. Steptoe having repeated the rôle of Mrs. Courage, Letty imitated him as best she could in getting the purchase for her bow and catching his air of high-bred condescension.
“Better,” he approved, “if madam wouldn’t lower ’er ’ead quite so far back’ard. You see, madam, a lydy don’t know she’s throwin’ back ’er ’ead so as to get a grip on it. She does it unconscious like, because bein’ of a ’aughty sperrit she ’olds it ’igh natural. If madam’ll only stiffen ’er neck like, as if sperrit ’ad made ’er about two inches taller than she is––”
Having seized this idea, Letty tried again, with such success that Mrs. Courage was disposed of. Jane Cakebread followed next, with Nettie last of all. Unaware of his possession of histrionic ability, Steptoe gave to each character its outstanding traits, fluttering like Jane, and giggling like Nettie, not in zeal for a newly discovered interpretative art, but in order that Letty might be nowhere caught at a disadvantage. He was delighted with her quickness in imitation.
“Couldn’t ’ave done that better myself,” he declared after Nettie had been dismissed for the third or fourth time. “When it comes to the inclinin’ of the ’ead I should sye as madam was about letter-perfect, as they sye on the styge. If Mr. Rash was to see it, ’e’d swear as ’is ma ’ad come back again.”
A muffled sound proceeded from the back part of 85 the hallway, with some whispering and once or twice Nettie’s stifled cackle of a laugh.
“’Ere they are,” he warned her. “Madam must be firm and control ’erself. There’s nothink for ’er to be afryde of. Just let ’er think of the lyte Queen Victoria, called to the throne when younger even than madam is––”
A shuffling developed into one lone step, heavy, stately, and funereal. Doing her best to emulate the historic example held up to her, Letty lengthened her neck and stiffened it. A haughty spirit seemed to rise in her by the mere process of the elongation. She was so nervous that the paper shook in her hand, but she knew that if the Celestial City was to be won, she could shrink from no tests which might lead her on to victory.