“Don’t you be too sure of that,” said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice. “Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it.”

“And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been one of them?”

Miss Podsnap nodded significantly.

“Then you don’t enjoy it now?”

“How is it possible?” said Miss Podsnap. “Oh it is such a dreadful thing! If I was wicked enough⁠—and strong enough⁠—to kill anybody, it should be my partner.”

This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as socially practised, that Mrs. Lammle looked at her young friend in some astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in a pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great inoffensive aim of her existence.