"Will you be mine?"
"With pleasure."
"Take your places for the quadrille!" cried the head fiddler.
I rushed up to Laure and proudly presented my gloved hand.
Fourcade invited her neighbour Vittoria, and we took our places.
Fourcade and I were the only two who wore short breeches at the ball.
We were both making our debut; Fourcade had hardly been a fortnight in Villers-Cotterets, and open-air dances did not begin before Whitsuntide.
This solemn rite, together with the appearance of both of us wearing short breeches, attracted a considerable number of looks. Our Parisians themselves stared as hard at us as anybody present.
The dance began.
I have said I was apt at all physical exercises. I had had a dancing-master just as I had had a fencing-master, by a lucky chance; my dancing-master's name was Brezette, an ex-infantry corporal, uncle of one of the prettiest girls in the town, to whom I had hitherto paid no attention.