"And did you convince him, Dundas?"

"It wasn't very difficult, Messiou, because, honestly, I could use my left better than he could."

CHAPTER XV

DANSE MACABRE

"Magical dancing still goes on in Europe to-day."--Sir James Fraser.

"Doctor," said General Bramble, "this morning I received from London two new fox-trots for my gramophone."

Ever since the Armistice sent the Scottish Division into rest on the Norman coast, the Infant Dundas had been running a course of dancing-lessons at the mess, which were patronized by the most distinguished "red-hats."

Aurelle emerged from behind an unfolded copy of the _Times_.

"Things look very rotten," he said. "The Germans are taking heart again; you are demobbing; the Americans are sailing away; and soon only we and the Italians will be left alone to face the European chaos----"

"Aurelle," said Colonel Parker, "take off your coat and come and learn the one-step--that'll be a jolly sight better than sitting moping there all the evening."

"You know I don't dance, sir."

"You're very silly," said Parker. "A man who doesn't dance is an enemy of mankind. The dancer, like the bridge-player, cannot exist without a partner, so he can't help being sociable. But you--why, a book is all the company you want. You're a bad citizen."

The doctor emptied his gla.s.s of brandy at one gulp, removed his coat, and joined the colonel in his attack upon the young Frenchman.

"A distinguished Irish naturalist, Mr. James Stephens," he said, "has noticed that love of dancing varies according to innocence of heart. Thus children, lambs and dogs like dancing. Policemen, lawyers and fish dance very little because they are hard-hearted. Worms and Members of Parliament, who, besides their remarkable all-round culture, have many points in common, dance but rarely owing to the thickness of the atmosphere in which they live. Frogs and high hills, if we are to believe the Bible----"

"Doctor," interrupted the general, "I put you in charge of the gramophone; top speed, please."

The orderlies pushed the table into a corner, and the aide-de-camp, holding his general in a close embrace, piloted him respectfully but rhythmically round the room.

"One, two ... one, two. It's a simple walk, sir, but a sort of glide.

Your feet mustn't leave the ground."

"Why not?" asked the general.

"It's the rule. Now twinkle."

"Twinkle? What's that?" asked the general.

"It's a sort of hesitation, sir; you put out your left foot, then you bring it sharply back against the right, and start again with the right foot. Left, back again, and quickly right. Splendid, sir."

The general, who was a man of precision, asked how many steps he was to count before twinkling again. The rosy-cheeked one explained that it didn't matter, you could change steps whenever you liked.

"But look here," said General Bramble, "how is my partner to know when I'm going to twinkle?"

"Oh," said the aide-de-camp, "you must hold her near enough for her to feel the slightest movement of your body."

"Humph!" grunted the general. And after a moment's thought he added, "Couldn't you get up some mixed dances here?"

From the depths of the arm-chair came Aurelle's joyful approval.

"I've never been able to make out," he said, "what pleasure you men can find in dancing together. Dancing is a sentimental pantomime, a kind of language of the body which allows it to express an understanding which the soul dare not confess. What was dancing for primitive man? Nothing but a barbaric form of love."

"What a really French idea!" exclaimed Colonel Parker. "I should say rather that love is a barbaric form of dancing. Love is animal; dancing is human. It's more than an art; it's a sport."

"Quite right," said Aurelle. "Since the British nation deems worthy of the name of sport any exercise which is at once useless, tiring and dangerous, I am quite ready to admit that dancing answers this definition in every way. Nevertheless, among savages----"

"Aurelle, my boy, don't talk to me about savages!" said Parker.

"You've never been out of your beloved Europe. Now I have lived among the natives of Australia and Malay; and their dances were not sentimental pantomimes, as you call them, at all, but warlike exercises for their young soldiers, that took the place of our Swedish drill and bayonet practice. Besides, it is not so very long since these close embraces were adopted in our own countries. Your minuets and pavanes were respecters of persons, and the ancients, who liked looking at dancing girls, never stooped to twirling them round."

"That's quite easy to understand," put in the doctor. "What did they want with dancing? The directness of their customs made such artificial devices for personal contact quite unnecessary. It's only our Victorian austerity which makes these rhythmical embraces so attractive. Puritan America loves to waggle her hips, and----"

"Doctor," said the general, "turn the record over, will you, and put on speed eighty; it's a jazz."

"What's worrying me," began Aurelle, who had returned once more to his paper, "is that our oracles are taking the theory of nationality so seriously. A nation is a living organism, but a nationality is nothing. Take the Jugo-Slavs, for instance----"

At that moment the doctor produced such an ear-splitting racket from the gramophone that the interpreter let his _Times_ fall to the ground.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "have you broken it, doctor?"

"Broken it?" repeated the doctor in mild surprise.

"You don't mean to tell me that all that noise of broken crockery and foghorns was deliberately put together by a human brain?"

"You know nothing about it," said the doctor. "This negro music is excellent stuff. Negroes are much finer artists than we are; they alone can still feel the holy delirium which ranked the first singers among the G.o.ds...."

His voice was drowned by the sinister racket of the jazz, which made a noise like a barrage of 4.2 howitzers in a thunderstorm.

"Jazz!" shouted the general to his aide-de-camp, bostoning majestically the while. "Jazz--Dundas, what _is_ jazz?"

"Anything you like, sir," replied the rosy-cheeked one. "You've just got to follow the music."

"Humph!" said the general, much astonished.

"Doctor," said Aurelle gravely, "we may now be witnessing the last days of a civilization which with all its faults was not without a certain grace. Don't you think that under the circ.u.mstances there might be something better for us to do than tango awkwardly to this ear-splitting din?"

"My dear boy," said the doctor, "what would you do if some one stuck a pin into your leg? Well, war and peace have driven more than one spike into the hide of humanity; and of course she howls and dances with the pain. It's just a natural reflex action. Why, they had a fox-trot epidemic just like this after the Black Death in the fourteenth century; only then they called it St. Vitus's dance."

CHAPTER XVI