“I might,” observed Bob. That was almost as bad as the dog question. He
trusted the matter would end there.
She giggled happily. “Maybe you disapprove of modern dancing, Mr.
Bennett?”
“That depends,” said Bob gloomily. He meant it depended upon who was
“doing the modern” with the object of your fondest affections. If you
yourself were engaged in the arduous pastime with said object, you
would, naturally harbor no particular objections against said modern
tendencies, but if you weren’t?—
Bob tangoed more swiftly. His thoughts were so bitter he wanted to run
away from them. The irony of gliding rhythmically and poetically in
seeming joyous abandon of movement when his heart weighed a ton! If that
heaviness of heart were communicated to his legs, they would in reality
be as heavy as those of a deep-sea diver, weighted down for a ten-fathom
plunge.
And in thus trying to run away from his thoughts Bob whirled the little
dark thing quite madly. He couldn’t dance ungracefully if he tried and
the little dark thing had a soul for rhythm. It was as if he were trying
to run away with her. He fairly took away her breath. She was a panting
little dark thing on his broad breast now, but she didn’t ask him to
stop. The music-box ceased to be musical and that brought them to a
stop. The eyes of the little dark thing—her name was Dolly—sparkled,
and she gazed up at Bob with the respect one of her tender and
impressionable years has for a masculine whirlwind.
“You quite sweep one off one’s feet, Mr. Bennett,” she managed to
ejaculate.
At that moment Miss Gwendoline passed, a divine bud glowing on either
proud cheek. She caught the remark and looked at the maker of it. She
noted the sparkle in the eyes. The little dark thing was a wonder with
the men. She seemed to possess the knack—only second to Miss
Gwendoline, in that line—of converting them into “trailers.” Miss
Gwendoline, though, never tried to attain this result. Men became her
trailers without any effort on her part, while the little dark thing had
to exert herself, but it was agreeable work. She made Bob a trailer now,
temporarily. Miss Gwendoline turned her head slightly, with a gleam of
surprise to watch him trail. She had noticed that Bob had danced with
irresistible and almost pagan abandon. That argued enjoyment.
The little dark thing would “come in” ultimately for hundreds of
belching chimneys and glowing furnaces and noisy factories—quite a snug
if cacophonous legacy!—and Miss Gwendoline had only that day heard
rumors that Bob’s governor had fallen down and hurt himself on the
“street.” She, Miss Gwendoline, had not attached much importance to
those rumors. People were always having little mishaps in the “street,”
and then bobbing up richer than ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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