By doing this he kept himself armed against the clever little actress
laughing at him behind the blue eyes of a child. "You must know that
there can't be two opinions of your dancing," said he coolly. "You have
had years and years of flattery, of course; enough to make you sick of
it, if a woman ever----" He stopped, smiling.
"Why, I've been dancing professionally for only a few months!" she
exclaimed. "Didn't you know?"
"I'm ashamed to say I was ignorant," Stephen confessed. "But before the
dancing, there must have been something else equally clever.
Floating--or flying--or----"
She laughed. "Why don't you suggest fainting in coils? I'm certain you
would, if you'd ever read 'Alice.'"
"As a matter of fact, I was brought up on 'Alice,'" said Stephen. "Do
children of the present day still go down the rabbit hole?"
"I'm not sure about children of the _present_ day. Children of my day
went down," she replied with dignity. "I loved Alice dearly. I don't
know much about other children, though, for I never had a chance to make
friends as a child. But then I had my sister when I was a little girl,
so nothing else mattered."
"If you don't think me rude to say so," ventured Stephen, "you would
seem to me a little girl now, if I hadn't found out that you're an
accomplished star of the theatres, admired all over Europe."
"Now you're making fun of me," said the dancer. "Paris was only my third
engagement; and it's going to be my last, anyway for ever so long, I
hope.
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