The suggested test of Puppa and Mumma’s sensibilities appeared to me to be a very remote contingency indeed.
At rather infrequent intervals one or other of the Miss Kendals lolloped cheerfully round the room with a stray partner, but, as Mrs. Kendal said:
“This modern way of dancing with one man the whole evening seems to me very odd. I shouldn’t care about it for any of my own flock.”
“But you know, Mumma, we don’t know any men who are in the least likely to ask us to dance with them for the whole evening,” observed Dolly Kendal very honestly.
“And one never does go to any dance, except perhaps at Christmas—struggling along down here,” added Aileen.
I thought Mumma looked rather disconcerted at so much candor, but she only said, “Well, well,” and put up her glasses to scrutinize Bill and Mrs. Harter more effectively.
Their performance was well worth watching, artistically speaking, although it was undoubtedly not that aspect of the case which presented itself to those people who appeared unable to take their eyes off them.
Harter himself was among these. He stood near one of the windows and never stirred. Claire asked if he cared to dance and he said, “No thanks, Lady Flower. I am not a dancing man.”
Later on I saw Sallie go up to him. I think that she actually asked him to dance, probably out of pure curiosity, but if so, he declined the privilege.
Sallie, looking very pretty, stayed beside him, talking and laughing, for a few moments, but I did not once see Harter smile or make any response except of the shortest and most formal kind.