I
“Dear me!” said Stella, wonderingly; “I would never have known you in the world! You’ve grown so fa—I mean, you are so well built. I’ve grown? Nonsense!—and besides, what did you expect me to do in six years?—and moreover, it is abominably rude of you to presume to speak of me in that abstracted and figurative manner—quite as if I were a debt or a taste for drink. It is really only French heels and a pompadour, and, of course, you can’t have this dance. It’s promised, and I hop, you know, frightfully. … Why, naturally, I haven’t forgotten—How could I, when you were the most disagreeable boy I ever knew?”
I ventured a suggestion that caused Stella to turn an attractive pink, and laugh. “No,” said she, demurely, “I shall never never sit out another dance with you.”
So she did remember!
Subsequently: “Our steps suit perfectly—Heavens! you are the fifth man who has said that tonight, and I am sure it would be very silly and very tiresome to dance through life with anybody. Men are so absurd, don’t you think? Oh, yes, I tell them all—every one of them—that our steps suit, even when they have just ripped off a yard or so of flounce in an attempt to walk up the front of my dress. It makes them happy, poor things, and injures nobody. You liked it, you know; you grinned like a pleased cat. I like cats, don’t you?”
Later: “That is absolute nonsense, you know,” said Stella, critically. “Do you always get red in the face when you make love? I wouldn’t if I were you. You really have no idea how queer it makes you look.”
Still later: “No, I don’t think I am going anywhere tomorrow afternoon,” said Stella.