"Then I'll wear the shoes at the drill and from the time I put them on till the drill is over, I'll be full of pain. I'll know that everybody will be just looking at my feet, and I'll not enjoy the dance one bit."
The queen knit her brows. Then her answer came: "Be not honest in the way you describe, neither suffer."
"But, Drusilla," Suzanna objected, "I don't understand."
"And can you not be brave?" asked the queen with a note of scorn in her voice. "Is it left to one who feels the time approaching when she will be deposed from her throne and all she holds dear, alone to have courage?" She looked straight into Suzanna's dark eyes. "Your father knows joy in thinking he has given you your heart's desire. Why, then, hurt him by telling him that the shoes are not your desire? Why not, with head held high, lead the dance you speak of, and forget shoes, and remember only the movement of the dance, the lilt of the music?"
"Is that bravery?" asked Suzanna.
"The greatest bravery," returned the queen, "will be to say to yourself, 'Am I so poor a maid that I cannot by the very beauty of my dancing keep the eyes of the watchers lifted clear above my shoes? For shoes, what are shoes? Leather and wood. Inanimate, unthinking stuff! They are not worth one heart pang, one moment of misery to me or mine. But I, I am alive. I can see and think and understand. I can go so joyously through the mazes of the dance that the watchers may forget their sordid cares.'"
Suzanna, listening, was carried away. She cried with eager response: "Why the night of the Indian Drill I can believe I am a fairy, dancing over snow-topped mountains, and singing, flying clear up into the clouds!"
"You might fall, Suzanna," said Maizie, "you know you haven't wings."
But on this occasion Suzanna was not to be recalled to earth, and besides in her queen's interested, understanding face, she felt a quick fellowship to the spirit that dwelt within her.
And then breaking harshly into the wonder of this moment came the tinkle, tinkle of the electric bell.