Did you ever see a laddie, do this way or that?
After some seconds of consideration Joseph solemnly lifted his left heel from the floor and replaced it. This enthralling diversion occupied the ring for a moment, and then Marantha was summoned. Though plump as a partridge, Marantha was born for the ballet.
“Did you ever see a lassie, a lassie, a lassie,” sang the children as Marantha, arching her little instep and pointing her toe deliciously, kicked out to one side, almost as high as her waist, with a rhythmical precision good to see.
“Marantha was born for the ballet.”
Her eyes sought Philip’s, and with a coy little smile, she took his hand to lead him to the centre. Too many poets and novelists have analyzed the inevitable longing of woman to allure him who scorns her charms, the pathetic passion to attract where she has been brutally repulsed, to make it necessary for me to discuss her attempted endearments as Philip sulkily flung away her hand.
Just then somebody wanted a drink; and as one teacher led the thirsty child away, and the other turned her head to attract the pianist’s attention and propose a new tune, Philip, who had not begun to set his model till the last moment, suddenly lifted his thumb to his nose, contracting and expanding his fingers in strict time.
Her rapid glance had shown the teacher a ring of children apparently tapping their noses, and only a horrified snort from Mrs. R. B. M. Smith and a murmured “Heavens!” from the returning assistant called her attention to the circle of children gravely assuming an attitude prescribed nowhere in Fröbel, nor, indeed, in any system, social or Delsartean.
Philip, now utterly abandoned to the spirit of successful deviltry that intoxicated him beyond control, danced up and down, inviting one, two, and three out of the demoralized ring to share his orgy. They pranced about wildly, shouting snatches of song, pushing each other, deaf to the shocked remonstrance of the teachers, while in their midst, flushed and screaming, Philip and Marantha, satyr and bacchante, leaped high in the air.
