Martin had eyes only for the girl’s acrobatic agility, but Elsie blushed.
“I don’t like that,” she said.
“I can stand on my head and walk on my hands,” cried Angèle instantly. “Martin, some day I’ll show you.”
Conscious though she was that these things were said to annoy her, Elsie remembered that Angèle was a guest.
“How did you learn?” she asked. “Were you taught in school?”
“School! Me! I have never been to school. Education is the curse of children’s lives. I never leave mamma. One day in Nice I saw a circus girl doing tricks of that sort. I practiced in my bedroom.”
“Does your mother wish that?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“I wonder you haven’t broken your neck,” said the practical Martin, who felt his bones creaking at the mere notion of such twisting.
Angèle laughed.