"Lemonade, please. I never take wine. Once I drank a large glass of champagne, thinking it was ginger-beer; and afterwards——"
"Yes, I know; the floor came up, and hit you in the face!"
"Not quite so bad, but I felt rather dizzy, and very, very miserable."
"Champagne is generally supposed to have the opposite effect, and to make you very, very happy! Will you give me another dance?"
As Miss Miller studied her programme, her mother appeared, decorated with the waving green feather, and leaning on the arm of Colonel Harris. They were both looking alarmingly glum, and the latter said:
"Barbie, this is our dance. Where have you hidden yourself? I've been searching for you all over the place, I've got a vis-à-vis, so come along," and with a scowl at Mallender, he carried her off. Her mother however still lingered, and before he was aware, had "puckaroed" (i.e. captured) her daughter's late partner.
"Oh, Captain Mallender," she simpered, bowing, and coquettishly waving the green feather, "you are related to my dearest friends—the Tallboys. I've known Colonel Tallboys for twenty years, and more, and I feel that I know you. I remember Freddy, a smart handsome young man too," she paused expressively, "and such a flirt! Will you be a dear good Samaritan and get me a glass of champagne?—I feel ready to faint!"
Startled by the threat, Mallender hastened to supply the lady's wants, but as the buffet was crowded, he had, what seemed to him, a long time to wait, and meanwhile she chattered continually; airing the now somewhat faded graces, that had once made her the belle of an up-country station. As Mallender listened to her remarks upon the other guests—chiefly critical and destructive—looked into her face, observed her close-set, reddish-brown eyes, and straight thin-lipped mouth, he felt moved with a sense of profound compassion for her daughter. When at last they re-entered the ball-room after this tedious and wearisome delay, a waltz was being played, and the sprightly matron said:
"I know you are not dancing this, Captain Mallender, so do take a little turn with me?" and before her victim had time to remonstrate, or to realise the situation, he was swimming round the room with the future mother-in-law of Colonel Harris.
Mrs. Miller danced,—as do many Anglo-Indian ladies,—remarkably well. She was slight and supple, and had the advantage of a score of years of incessant practice. The face now resting on her partner's shoulder, wore an indescribable expression of ecstatic triumph, for here was she, a woman with a grown-up daughter (and having to take what she could get, among the rubbish-heap of partners), waltzing "Mon Rêve" with one of the smartest, and most popular young men in Madras! However, her ecstasy proved short-lived; when the music had wailed out the last bars, she gasped: