“Yes! Like a little demon! Don’t stare so. The people in the rear are looking. They don’t take me for a Quaker at all. They think I am costumed for the ball. I heard them saying so before you came.”
“Listen!”
Even then a young prince on the other side was saying to one Starlight:
“It was an exquisite idea. And the whole costume is fine!”
“It is fate!” tempted Rem.
“Bell-Bell taught me. That is our secret. Thee must keep it with us. No, after all, Bell-Bell only helped a little. My feet were born to it. For, even when I was a child, to hear a waltz and sit perfectly still was impossible. Often my portion was dry bread for it. Yet I did not care. Does thee think one can inherit such wickedness?”
“Yes, thank God, it is a law of nature.”
“Oh, if I could once dance, dance, dance, till I was dizzy—delirious—and wicked as sin itself—la la la—”
She hummed the music of a waltz—
“—till I dropped in my tracks—” she stopped to laugh a trifle piteously at the pretty bit of slang on her tongue—“I think I should be cured. Similia similibus curantur, thee knows.”