“Your wife! you don’t say so? You are joking! Is that really Lady Fairfax? She looks so preposterously young, I could easily imagine this to be her first ball.”
“Nevertheless, she has been married for more than three years.”
“She is uncommonly pretty,” returned the young lady, gazing at her with all her eyes. “Several people have asked me who she was, but I did not know. She is quite the belle of the evening. Don’t you think so?”
“I always agree with a lady, especially when it is a question of taste,” was his evasive answer. “Shall we take another turn?”
“Not very enthusiastic about his wife,” was his partner’s mental observation as they once more joined the dancers.
“Who is the lovely girl in white?” was a question that half the room were asking each other. Alice is at last obtaining a social success, dozens of partners vainly beg for dances. She is turning the heads of all the young men, and filling the breasts of her own sex with the devouring flame of envy.
Supper was served at round tables accommodating ten or twelve. Sir Reginald and his partner had taken their places at one at which he was a stranger to all the other guests. A fat red-faced man, who was voraciously gobbling down lobster-salad, remarked to his neighbours:
“Capital ball! capital supper!”
“Yes,” replied a bored-looking youth, with a patronising drawl, “good floor, lots of pretty girls.”
“Ah!” added a third, helping himself to ham, “but there is no one that comes within the length of a street of that girl in white, Lady Fairfax.”