"Not even the Canon? Oh, I am sure Canon Vrater does.--Now, don't you?"
For the Canon, too, was in the little drawing-room. Small as the house was, our impoverished fashionables had not furnished all of it; but this room was a triumph of taste, in a quiet and inexpensive way. A man and a maid whom they brought to Gleicester with them made up the household. So there was an empty room or two.
"No, Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby," he said; "if I danced I should be tripping indeed, in Gleicester opinion."
"You don't! well, I am surprised. Now confess, Canon, when did you dance last? So long ago that you have forgotten the steps? Years and years ago?" The old gentleman reddened, and fidgeted a little. "Canon, did you ever"--the little woman glanced roguishly round the room, and brought out the last word with a tragic accent positively fascinating, "did you ever--waltz?"
"Well," he answered guardedly, with an eye to his friend Mrs. Anson, who was mightily amused, "I have waltzed."
"Something like this, was it not?" She went to the piano and played a few bars of a dreamy, old-fashioned German dance; played it as it should be played. The Canon's wholesome pink face grew pinker, and he began to sway a little as he sat.
She turned swiftly round upon the music-stool. "Don't you feel at times a desire to do something naughty, Canon--just because it is naughty?"
He nodded.
"And don't you think," continued the fair casuist, with a delicious air of wisdom, "that when it is not very naughty, only a little bad, you know, you should sometimes indulge yourself, as a sort of safety-valve?"
He smiled, of course, a gentle dissent. But at the same time he muttered something which sounded like "desipere in loco."