“But haven’t you taught Jeannette to have it?” “Indeed I have,” Mrs. Troup sighed. “I’ve told her every day for years that she hadn’t any. I noticed it first when she was thirteen years old. It seemed to break out on her, as it were, that year.” “How did it happen?” “Why, we were staying at a summer hotel, a rather gay place, and I’m afraid I left her too much to her governess—I was feeling pretty blue that summer and I wanted distraction. I liked tangoing——” “‘Tangoing’?” he said inquiringly. “Was it a game?” “No; a dance. They called it ‘the tango’; I don’t know why. And there was ‘turkey-trotting,’ too——” “‘Turkey-trotting’?” he said huskily. “Well, that,” she explained, “was really the _machiche_ that tourists used to see in Paris at the _Bal Bullier_. In fact, you saw it yourself, Charles. A couple danced the _machiche_ that night at the Folies Ber——” She checked herself hastily, bit her lip, and then, recovering, she said: “I got quite fond of all those dances after we imported them.” “You mean you got used to looking at them?” he asked slowly. “You went to see them at places where they were allowed?” At this she laughed. “No, of course not! I danced them myself.” “_What!_” “Why, of course!” “No one——” He faltered. “No one ever _saw_ you do it?” “Why, of course. It’s a little difficult to explain this to you, Charles, but all those dances that used to seem so shocking to us when we went to look on at them in foreign places—well, it turned out that they were _perfectly_ all right and proper when you dance them yourself. Of course I danced them, and enjoyed them very much; and besides, it’s a wholesome exercise and good for the health. _Everybody_ danced them. People who’d given up dancing for years—the oldest _kind_ of people—danced them. It began the greatest revival of dancing the world’s ever seen, Charles, and the——” He interrupted her. “Go a little slower, please,” he said, and applied a handkerchief to his forehead. “About your seeming to lose your authority with Jeannette——” “Yes; I was trying to tell you. She used to sit up watching us dancing in the hotel ballroom that summer, and I just _couldn’t_ make her go to bed! That was the first time she deliberately disobeyed me, but it was a radical change in her; and I’ve never since then seemed to have any weight with her—none at all; she’s just done exactly what she pleased. I’ve often thought perhaps that governess had a bad influence on her.” He wiped his forehead again, and inquired: “You say she’s given dances while you’ve been away with me?” “Oh, she asks plenty of married people, of course.” “And it wouldn’t be any use to telegraph her to postpone this one?” “No. She’d just go ahead, and when we got home, she’d be rather annoyed with me for thinking a dance _could_ be postponed at the last minute. We must make the best of it.” “I suppose so.”