"That," Curly remarked sententiously, "is acting."
* * * * *
It was gala day at the dancing-class, and Mr. Wycherly sat on the raised daïs reserved for parents and onlookers. He had come to watch Jane-Anne as a pupil for the last time.
There were many "fancy dances" performed by fresh-faced girls who manipulated their accordion-pleated skirts with a certain pretty pride in their achievement—all but Jane-Anne.
She, slender and dark, with little oval face and shadowy heavy hair, drawn back from her forehead, with the upward sweep of Botticelli's angels—she danced!
She wore a plain little frock of black chiffon, caught in round her slender waist by a narrow black cord.
Mrs. Methuen had chosen the dress, and it was full of distinction in its dainty severity; such a plain little dress among its rainbow-hued, fresh-millinered companions.
And how she danced!
Floating to and fro on the waves of sound like an autumn leaf blown by the wind.
Suddenly, by one of those flashes of telepathy that on occasion lighten across the path of all of us, Mr. Wycherly became acutely conscious that his was not the only soul stirred by this perfect dancing. And the knowledge that his enthusiastic appreciation was shared stirred in him no feeling save that of uncomfortable foreboding.