The brazen yelp of it had not torn the air more than three times before people were dancing.
Mrs. Kendal planted herself firmly beside me with her kindest air and began:
“Dancing has changed so much in the last four years. These modern dances don’t look to me like dancing at all.”
“Give me a real old-fashioned waltz,” said General Kendal.
And before I could say it for them—and it was on the tip of my tongue, too—they exclaimed together, “Now, the old Blue Danube—”
“Look at that,” said Mrs. Kendal, and she shook her head and made a sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth that quite adequately conveyed regret and disapproval.
“That” was of course Mrs. Harter, dancing with Bill Patch. They were in their pseudo-oriental dresses, but Bill’s red head was unmistakable and so was Mrs. Harter’s dancing.
They were together the whole evening. So were Chris and Nancy, Martyn and some unidentified young woman in mauve bead shoulder straps and a fragment of crimson chiffon, and Leeds and a very pretty widow who had come with their party. But nobody made distressed sounds about them.
“She dances quite beautifully,” I pointed out firmly to Mrs. Kendal, who replied in a tone of concession:
“If you call it dancing. I must say, I don’t think that either Puppa or I would very much care to see one of our girlies dancing like that.”