Still he justified
his conduct by never tumbling again, and by inventing new devices with
bewildering rapidity.
This pair were not at all sentimental. Indeed, their talk was quite
technical: all about rings and edges, and heel and toe,--what skates are
best, and who best use them. There is an immense amount of sympathy to
be exchanged on such topics, and it was somewhat significant that they
avoided other themes where they might not sympathize so thoroughly. The
negative part of a conversation is often as important as its positive.
So the four entertained themselves finely, sometimes as a quartette,
sometimes as two duos with proper changes of partners, until the clear
west began to grow golden and the clear east pink with sunset.
"It is a pity to go," said Peter Skerrett. "Everything here is
perfection and Fine Art; but we must not be unfaithful to dinner. Dinner
would have a right to punish us, if we did not encourage its efforts to
be Fine Art also."
"Now, Mr. Wade," Fanny commanded, "your most heroic series of exploits,
to close this heroic day."
He nimbly dashed through his list. The ice was traced with a labyrinth
of involuted convolutions.
Wade's last turn brought him to the very spot of his tumble.
"Ah!" said he. "Here is the oar that tripped me, with 'Wade, his
mark,' gashed into it. If I had not this"--he touched Miss Damer's
handkerchief--"for a souvenir, I think I would dig up the oar and carry
it home.
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