"Oh, it's splendid," she said. "Dodo, listen to this."
She ran her hands over the piano, and then broke out into a quick, rippling scherzo. The music flew on, as if all the winds of heaven were blowing it; then it slowed down, halted a moment, and repeated itself till Dodo burst out: "Oh, Edith, it's lovely! I want to dance." She wheeled a table out of the way, kicked a chair across the room, and began turning and twisting with breathless rapidity. Her graceful figure looked admirable in the quick movements of her impromptu dance. Bertie thought he had never seen anything so deliciously fresh. Dodo danced with peculiar abandon. Every inch of her moved in perfect time and harmony to the music.
She had caught up a thin, Indian shawl from one of the sofas, and passed it behind her back, round her head, this way and that, bending, till at one moment it swept the ground in front of her, at another flew in beautiful curves high above her head, till at last the music stopped, and she threw herself down exhausted in an arm-chair.
"Oh, that was glorious," she panted. "Edith, you are a genius. I never felt like that before. I didn't dance at all, it was the music that danced, and pulled me along with it."
"That was the best compliment my music has ever received," said Edith. "That scherzo was meant to make you want to dance. Now, Dodo, could I have done that after eating two poached eggs?"
"You may have grilled bones seven times a day," said Dodo, "if you'll compose another scherzo."
"I wanted a name for the symphony," said Edith, "and I shall call it the 'Dodo.' That's a great honour, Dodo. Now, if you only feel miserable during the 'Andante,' I shall be satisfied. But you came about something else, I forget what."
"Oh, about Bertie. Is he coming shooting?".
"I wish it was right for women to shoot," said Edith. "I do shoot when I'm at home, and there's no one there. Anyhow I couldn't to-day. I must finish this. Dodo, if you are going to take lunch with them, I'll come with you, if you don't go too early. You know this music makes me perfectly wild, but it can't be done on poached eggs. Now set me down at the Handel Festival, and I'll be content with high tea, cold meat and muffins, you know. Handel always reminds me of high tea, particularly the muffins. He must have written the 'Messiah' between tea and dinner on Sunday evening, after an afternoon service in summer. I've often thought of taking the Salvation Army hymn-book and working the tunes up into fugual choruses, and publishing them as a lost work of Handel's, Noah, or Zebedee's children, or the Five Foolish Virgins. I don't believe anyone would know the difference."
Dodo was turning over the leaves of Edith's score book.