A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 2 (of 3)

A COLONIAL REFORMER
BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD AUTHOR OF ‘ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,’ ‘THE SQUATTER’S DREAM,’ ‘THE MINER’S RIGHT,’ ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II
London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1890
Mr. Neuchamp was disposed to be wroth with himself when he discovered that he was looking forward with considerable interest to a much-talked-of ball, by which the Count von Schätterheims had resolved to mark his appreciation of the kindness which he had received at the hands of the Sydney ‘upper ten.’ Why should he feel gratified, Ernest asked himself, at the prospect of joining in an entertainment at best but a réchauffé of numberless affairs of the class which he had assisted at and despised in England? A ball—a mere ball—a stale repetition of the meaningless crust—the saltatory, amatory, and gustatory simulacra of pleasure, which he had long since renounced and abandoned. An entertainment chiefly composed of people he didn’t know, and given by a man whom he did not like.
He finally disposed of the affair in his own mind by the summary, if illogical, decision, that he must regard himself, in respect of his late banishment from the world, in the light of a sailor after a protracted cruise, gifted with abnormal powers of assimilation and digestion, mental and physical.
Even in moments of sternest self-analysis men are not infrequently insincere and evasive. Perchance not consciously. Were the moral processes incapable of such inflections, Ernest Neuchamp could never have concealed the fact from himself that he chiefly wished to attend this much-abused festivity, to which he had received a formal and ornate card, inclusive of the arms and crest of the noble family of Von Schätterheims, because it would be graced by the presence of Antonia Frankston.
Ernest did not find the very excellent dinner of which he partook at the club on the evening of the ball in any degree less palatable because of this mental conflict. He arrayed himself in the wampum and warpaint proper for such engagements as manufactured by Mr. Poole, of Saville Row, which decorations indeed had narrowly escaped being left behind as a superfluous part of his outfit at Neuchampstead. After a careful toilet he awaited in a slightly unphilosophical state of mind the arrival of the Frankston carriage, which was to call for him.