“I wish you would learn to reverse,” said Alice unexpectedly to him, when they had gone round the room twice to the strains of the second extra.
“I DO reverse,” he said, taken aback, and a little indignant.
“Everybody does—that way.”
This silenced him for a moment. Then he said, slowly, “Perhaps I am rather out of practice. I am not sure that reversing is quite desirable. Many people consider it bad form.”
When they stopped—Alice was always willing to rest during a waltz with Lucian—he asked her whether she had heard from Lydia.
“You always ask me that,” she replied. “Lydia never writes except when she has something particular to say, and then only a few lines.”
“Precisely. But she might have had something particular to say since we last met.”
“She hasn’t had,” said Alice, provoked by an almost arch smile from him.
“She will be glad to hear that I have at last succeeded in recovering possession of the Warren Lodge from its undesirable tenants.”
“I thought they went long ago,” said Alice, indifferently.