he under-lip
protruded slightly, and bad temper gave it a vicious look. Her teeth
were small, white, and glossy as a cat's. She cast a powerful
enchantment over all the other girls, so that when, from tomboy
loiterings and mischievous escorts, she arrived late for class, they
would all run round for her with shoes and petticoats and stockings,
like little slaves. Laughingly, she would let them wait upon her and
wonder very seldom why she was the only girl so highly favored. She had
a sharp tongue and no patience for the giggles and enlaced arms of
girlhood. She had no whispered secrets to communicate. She never put out
a finger to help her companions, although sometimes she would prompt the
next girl through a difficult step. She was entirely indifferent to
their adoration. As if the blood of queens ran in her veins, she
accepted homage naturally. Perhaps it was some boyish quality of
debonair assurance in Jenny that made the rest of them disinclined to
find any fault in her. She seemed as though she ought to be spoilt, and
if, like most spoilt children, she was unpleasant at home, she was very
charming abroad. Her main idea of amusement was to be "off with the
boys," by whom she was treated as an equal. There was no sentiment about
her, and an attempted kiss would have provoked spitfire rage. There was
something of Atalanta about her, and in Hellas Artemis would have
claimed her, running by the thyme-scented borders of Calydon.

Madame Aldavini, with some disapproval, watched her progress. She was
not satisfied with her pupil and determined to bring her down to the
hard facts of the future. Jenny was called up for a solo lesson. These
solo lessons, when Madame used to show the steps by making her fingers
dance on her knees, were dreaded by everybody.

"Come along now," she said, and hummed an old ballet melody, tapping her
fingers the while.

Jenny started off well enough, but lost herself presently in trying to
follow those quick fingers.

"Again, foolish one," cried the mistress. "Again, I say. Well can you do
it, if you like."

"I can't," declared Jenny sulkily. "It's too difficult."

Madame Aldavini seized her long pole and brandished it fiercely.

"Again, self-willed baby, again."

Jenny, with half a screwed-up eye on the pole, made a second attempt;
the pole promptly swung round and caught her on the right shoulder. She
began to cry and stamp.

"I can't do it; I can't do it."

"You will do it. You sh