in his most curious searchings into the likely future as he lay that
night for an hour or so upon a wakeful pillow, he did not picture
anything as delightful as, in after years, he was to realise Hilaria
Eliot had been for those boys who at the time so casually and
unthinkingly enjoyed her wayward companionship.




CHAPTER X

HILARIA


"Point the toe, if you please young gentlemen; slide well forward and
bow to your partner from the waist.... Ruan, you have the air of a poker
trying to be graceful. Watch Killigrew and do as he does. Now, all
together please ..."; and the row of self-conscious boys bowed, gloved
hands upon severely jacketed chests, while as many little girls, aware
of doing the thing correctly and of not looking fools in the doing of
it, spread white tarletan skirts in starchy semi-circles by way of
reply.

It was the weekly dancing class, when Mr. Pierre Sebastian Eliot, who on
other days taught French at the Grammar School, undertook to instruct
the boys in what he referred to as "the divine art of Terpsichore," a
habit which had earned for himself the simple nickname of "Terps." The
class was held in a spacious room used for balls, both subscription and
private, at the "George" Inn, and to it came not only those Grammar
School boys whose parents paid for this polite "extra," but also the