"Or into them," laughed her partner, as entering the ball-room they went careering at full speed down the small spaces.
"Beg pardon, Lord Lisleville," cried Sir Tilton, as he dashed against an ancient beau with a long rent-roll, who with his fiancee, a pretty little French girl, who had been trying to put him out of step in order to dance with her young Lochinvar. Sir Tilton, knowing the circumstances, pitied the little Parisienne who had been dolefully doing her duty all the evening; so determined to come to her aid, hence the collision, which throwing the noble lord almost on his back, sent his wig flying several yards off which the dancers swept with their trains. The gay petite was wicked enough to put her handkerchief, not to her eyes, but to her mouth, to veil her smiles as she gave herself up to her young lover who had been eating his heart out all the evening. Lord Lisleville, with inward curses on Everly and his own temerity in attempting to dance on a waxed floor, with his gouty leg and bought curls, was a droll figure, as with his handkerchief tied over his head and his face a whirlpool of wrath, he was knocked hither and thither by the dancers in the vain attempt to recover his gay tresses.
Vaura and her partner laughed heartily over the amusing scene.
"How innocent Sir Tilton looked, and one could see it was intentional," laughed Vaura; "no more dinners at the ancestral home of Lord Lisleville; no more shooting for the culprit," she continued.
"How happy the betrothed looks now," said Del Castello, "Cupid's bow is powerful."
"I know myself," said Vaura, "of several cases where young girls have been persuaded to marry old men from the fact being pointed out to them of the happy marriage of M. Thiers. Madame Dosme, poor little Emily's mother, was the woman born for him, only she, unfortunately, was encumbered with a husband."
"It was a most singular household," said Del Castello. "Thiers, though undoubtedly a superior man, had no claims to divinity or to be enshrined on the Dosme altar with three adoring women ever worshipping, while there are many men, could they gain one woman, would be to her alone as constant as the sun. Pardon, Mlle., but I am Spanish and cannot be cold with you. I ever think of Venus and my breast is bare for Cupid's dart."
"The boy is blind," said Vaura, archly.
"I feel him an unerring marksman, though," he said passionately.
Here Sir Tilton, with Mrs. Wingfield, passed them, when Vaura called out gaily: