“Would you really? That’s awfully kind. But I ought to tell you that I really don’t think I’m teachable.”
“You must let me judge of that. We might begin at Eaton Square one night, in a small way. Gordon and Noel and I often ask a few friends in for dancing, and there’s a little anteroom reserved for practicing. There will only be a few, and it won’t be at all alarming even for hermits.”
Chip looked pleased and dubious at the same time.
“There won’t be any flappers, will there? I’m terrified of flappers.”
“Nothing more flapperish than myself,” laughed Judy. “Was I ever a flapper, Madame Claire?”
“Never. Millie kept you out of sight until you were able to fly. I didn’t altogether approve. After all, we must all try our wings some time. You see, I like the present day, Major Crosby. I like it far better than what people call my own day, though why this one isn’t just as much mine as it is anybody’s, I really don’t know.”
“You’re very greedy,” Judy told her. “You had Disraeli and Gladstone and Jenny Lind, and now you want Lloyd George and Charlie Chaplin. All the same, I don’t wonder you like our age best. That one was so full of hypocrisy and sentiment.”
Madame Claire agreed with this.
“We were always pretending things. Men were always gentlemen or monsters. Young girls were always innocent as flowers. We even tried to believe that wars and poverty were picturesque and romantic.”
“And you talked too much about love,” said Judy. “That sort of golden, sticky, picture-book love that even we were taught to expect. And a gigantic hoax it is!”