Anne looked down rather embarrassed when the boy laughed at her. "I've never done this before," muttered in defense of herself, though she knew he wouldn't understand.

Her heart skipped a beat when he stepped towards her, and she drew in a short quiet breath. His nonverbal instructions were a good excuse not to look at his face. "Oh," she said, and she nodded to show she understood and was ready to try again. She risked a glance up at his face. Surely to a rich boy who had traveled to many places, she had to seem very dull and silly.

Chéri tried to smile in encouragement. Anne was obviously not feeling very secure, but almost no one ever had when they had first tried to dance. Learning was hard. They wished they could have told her.

Chéri kept smiling luminously at Anne, as they tried, once again, to step back, to invite her to execute the step. If they had a bad impression of Anne, they didn’t let her know. In fact, Chéri found it somewhat relaxing to be doing something, for them, so low stakes with someone who seemed to have so little idea of who they could be, who didn’t attach immorality to them the second they appeared. They were going to be very patient with Anne because of that, which was very unlike them.

This time, Anne followed him. Her movement was far from elegant, like Chéri's, but at least she understood what she was supposed to do with her feet. Well, one foot. She looked up at the young stranger and gave him a shy smile, waiting for further instructions.

She understood the step. That was good. Chéri nodded with a big, luminous smile that extended to their eyes, then made a hand gesture towards themselves. No repeat, just back and rose their foot, to do it in slow-motion.

Anne smiled back, though less freely. She was still rather nervous and shy. Yet she was enjoying herself. That was, until...

She copied the step once again, but froze when she looked over Chéri's shoulder and saw a woman from her yard looking at them. Oh no! Oh no! She was dead.

The woman turned and made her way down the steps. Anne looked at Chéri with a look of utter horror on her face. "I have to go," she said. She let go of him and ran after the woman.

Her knitting lay forgotten on the bench.