Shortly afterwards, she met Lucian at a cinderella, or dancing-party
concluding at midnight. He came at eleven, and, as usual, gravely
asked whether he might have the pleasure of dancing with her. This
form of address he never varied. To his surprise, she made some
difficulty about granting the favor, and eventually offered him "the
second extra." He bowed. Before he could resume a vertical position
a young man came up, remarked that he thought this was his turn, and
bore Alice away. Lucian smiled indulgently, thinking that though
Alice's manners were wonderfully good, considering her antecedents,
yet she occasionally betrayed a lower tone than that which he sought
to exemplify in his own person.
"I wish you would learn to reverse," said Alice unexpectedly to him,
when they had gone round the room twice to the strains of the second
extra.
"I DO reverse," he said, taken aback, and a little indignant.
"Everybody does--that way."
This silenced him for a moment. Then he said, slowly, "Perhaps I am
rather out of practice. I am not sure that reversing is quite
desirable. Many people consider it bad form."
When they stopped--Alice was always willing to rest during a waltz
with Lucian--he asked her whether she had heard from Lydia.
"You always ask me that," she replied. "Lydia never writes except
when she has something particular to say, and then only a few
lines."
"Precisely. But she might have had something particular to say since
we last met."
"She hasn't had," said Alice, provoked by an almost arch smile from
him.
"She will be glad to hear that I have at last succeeded in
recovering possession of the Warren Lodge from its undesirable
tenants."
"I thought they went long ago," said Alice, indifferently.
"The men have not been there for a month or more. The difficulty was
to get them to remove their property. However, we are rid of them
now. The only relic of their occupation is a Bible with half the
pages torn out, and the rest scrawled with records of bets, recipes
for sudorific and other medicines, and a mass of unintelligible
memoranda. One inscription, in faded ink, runs, 'To Robert Mellish,
from his affectionate mother, with her sincere hope that he may ever
walk in the ways of this book.' I am afraid that hope was not
fulfilled."
"How wicked of him to tear a Bible!" said Alice, seriously. Then she
laughed, and added, "I know I shouldn't; but I can't help it."