Part 6 (2/2)
”Why, you dear girl, I'm not going to dance either, then.”
”Oh, yes, you will, Katherine; you must.”
”I couldn't be so selfish as to leave you here all alone.”
”It isn't selfish at all, Katherine. I shall enjoy myself completely here. I don't really wish to talk to any one, but simply to enjoy my dream, with just a little fear at the bottom of my heart that I shall suddenly wake up, rubbing my eyes, in the sewing room.”
Katherine pinched her.
”Now are you awake?”
Dorothy smiled, still dreaming.
”h.e.l.lo!” cried Katherine, with renewed animation, ”they've got the Secretary safe aboard the lugger, and they seem to be clearing the decks for action. Here is my dear Lieutenant returning; tall even among tall men. Look at him. He's in a great hurry, yet so polite, and doesn't want to b.u.mp against anybody. And now, Dorothy, don't you be afraid. I shall prove a perfect model of diffidence. You will be proud of me when you learn with what timidity I p.r.o.nounce prunes and prism. I think I must languish a little at him. I don't know quite how it's done, but in old English novels the girls always languished, and perhaps an Englishman expects a little languishment in his. I wonder if he comes of a n.o.ble family. If he doesn't, I don't think I'll languish very much. Still, what matters the pomp of pageantry and pride of race--isn't that the way the poem runs? I love our dear little Lieutenant for himself alone, and I think I will have just one dance with him, at least.”
Drummond had captured a camp-stool somewhere, and this he placed at right angles to the settee, so that he might face the two girls, and yet not interrupt their view. The sailor on guard once more faded away, and the band now struck up the music of the dance.
”Well,” cried Drummond cheerfully, ”I've got everything settled. I've received the Secretary of the Navy: our captain is to dance with his wife, and the Secretary is Lady Angela's partner. There they go!”
For a few minutes the young people watched the dance, then the Lieutenant said:
”Ladies, I am disappointed that you have not complimented our electrical display.”
”I am sure it's very nice, indeed, and most ingenious,” declared Dorothy, speaking for the first time that evening to the officer, but Katherine, whose little foot was tapping the deck to the dance music, tossed her head, and declared nonchalantly that it was all very well as a British effort at illumination, but she begged the young man to remember that America was the home of electricity.
”Where would you have been if it were not for Edison?”
”I suppose,” said the Lieutenant cheerfully, ”that we should have been where Moses was when the candle went out--in the dark.”
”You might have had torches,” said Dorothy. ”My friend forgets she was wis.h.i.+ng the sailors held torches on that suspended stairway up the s.h.i.+p's side.”
”I meant electric torches--Edison torches, of course.”
Katherine was displeased at the outlook. She was extremely fond of dancing, and here this complacent young man had planted himself down on a camp stool to talk of electricity.
”Miss Kempt, I am sorry that you are disappointed at our display. Your slight upon British electrical engineering leaves us unscathed, because this has been done by a foreign mechanic, whom I wish to present to you.”
”Oh, indeed,” said Katherine, rather in the usual tone of her elder sister. ”I don't dance with mechanics, thank you.”
She emphasized the light fantastic word, but the Lieutenant did not take the hint; he merely laughed again in an exasperatingly good-natured way, and said:
”Lady Angela is going to be Jack Lamont's partner for the next waltz.”
”Oh,” said Katherine loftily, ”Lady Angela may dance with any blacksmith that pleases her, but I don't. I'm taking it for granted that Jack Lamont is your electrical tinsmith.”
”Yes, he is, and I think him by all odds the finest fellow aboard this s.h.i.+p. It's quite likely you have read about his sister. She is a year older than Jack, very beautiful, cultured, everything that a grande dame should be, yet she has given away her huge estate to the peasantry, and works with them in the fields, living as they do, and faring as they do. There was an article about her in one of the French reviews not long ago. She is called the Princess Natalia.”
”The Princess Natalia!” echoed Katherine, turning her face toward the young man. ”How can Princess Natalia be a sister of Jack Lamont? Did she marry some old prince, and take to the fields in disgust?”
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