"Would you call dancing an athletic stunt?" Sheila leaned back against a coat that smelled strongly of hay and tobacco and caught up her knees in her two hands so that the small white slippers pointed daintily, clear of the floor.
Dickie looked at them. It seemed to him suddenly that a giant's hand had laid itself upon his heart and turned it backwards as a pilot turns his wheel to change the course of a ship. The contrary movement made him catch his breath. He wanted to put the two white silken feet against his breast, to button them inside his coat, to keep them in his care.
"Ain't it, though?" he managed to say. "Ain't it an athletic stunt?"
"I've always heard it called an accomplishment."
"God!" said Dickie gently. "I'd 'a' never thought of that. I do like ski-ing, though. Have you tried it, Miss Arundel?"
"No. If I call you Dickie, you might call me Sheila, I think."
Dickie lifted his eyes from the feet. "Sheila," he said.
He was curiously eloquent. Again Sheila felt the confusion that had sent her abruptly back to Jim. She smoothed out the tulle on her knee.
"I think I'd love to ski. Is it awfully hard to learn?"
"No, ma'am. It's just dandy. Especially on a moonlight night, like night
before last. And if you'd 'a' had skis on you wouldn't 'a' broke through.
You go along so quiet and easy, pushing yourself a little with your pole.
There's a kind of a swing to it—"