He sometimes thought that almost everything was
due to education.
In the ballroom, meanwhile, the dancers were being formed into squares
for the lancers. Arthur and Rachel, Susan and Hewet, Miss Allan and
Hughling Elliot found themselves together.
Miss Allan looked at her watch.
"Half-past one," she stated. "And I have to despatch Alexander Pope
to-morrow."
"Pope!" snorted Mr. Elliot. "Who reads Pope, I should like to know?
And as for reading about him--No, no, Miss Allan; be persuaded you will
benefit the world much more by dancing than by writing." It was one of
Mr. Elliot's affectations that nothing in the world could compare
with the delights of dancing--nothing in the world was so tedious as
literature. Thus he sought pathetically enough to ingratiate himself
with the young, and to prove to them beyond a doubt that though married
to a ninny of a wife, and rather pale and bent and careworn by his
weight of learning, he was as much alive as the youngest of them all.
"It's a question of bread and butter," said Miss Allan calmly. "However,
they seem to expect me." She took up her position and pointed a square
black toe.
"Mr. Hewet, you bow to me." It was evident at once that Miss Allan was
the only one of them who had a thoroughly sound knowledge of the figures
of the dance.
After the lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka; and then
a terrible thing happened; the music, which had been sounding regularly
with five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly.
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