CHAPTER XIV
One accomplishment that Allegheny mastered with gratifying ease was dancing. It came naturally to her, for both she and Buddy were full of music. At first she had been extremely self-conscious; Professor Delamater had found her to be as heavy as stone and as awkward as a bear; but later, as her embarrassment became less painful, she relaxed. She regained her power of speech, also, and in time she voiced an eager desire to learn all there was to learn.
Having quickly schooled her in the simpler forms of ballroom dancing,
Delamater suggested a course in the deeper intricacies of fancy dancing.
"You're getting on," he told her, one day. "That last was splendid—top hole, absolutely."
Delamater, who was quite thoroughly American, affected at times an English turn to his conversation, believing that it gave him an air. It went particularly well, he thought, with light trousers, spats, and an afternoon coat cut close at the waist.
"Don't fool me," panted the red-faced Juno. "You must have iron feet."
"My word! Spoof you, indeed! Not for worlds, if you know what I mean? I shall expect to see you in the ballroom every evening."
But Allie's confidence forsook her at this. "I'd—be scared stiff. Folks would laugh. They haven't got—haven't anything to do but laugh at other folks, and I don't like to be laughed at."
"Laugh at you! Fancy that! You're too modest." Delamater adopted the cooing note of a dove. "'Pon my word, you're too modest. If you could hear the things I hear—" He paused, not knowing exactly what to say he had heard, but his vagueness, the very eloquence of his hesitation, caused Allie's face to light up. This was the second compliment paid her since her arrival at the Notch, therefore when the phonograph resumed its melodious measures she yielded herself with abandon to the arms of her partner, and her red lips were parted, her somber eyes were shining. That day she began a course of exhibition dancing.
It was on that afternoon that Delamater had told the clerk of discovering Ma Briskow alone in the woods. There was an open golf tournament at the Notch, prominent amateurs and professionals were competing, and the hotel was crowded to its capacity with players, fashionable followers of the game and a small army of society reporters and sport writers. This being the height of the season, social doings at the resort were featured in all the large Eastern papers, for famous names were on the register and the hotel switch was jammed with private cars.