From the glimpse I obtained of Mr. Raymond’s countenance, it struck me that there would not be a warm welcome for his wife’s partners, much less any invigorating refreshments.
CHAPTER III.
We were nearing Port Said, and there was a talk of getting up a fancy ball in the Canal, the night the steamer was “tied up;” an energetic lady—there is always one among the passengers—managed it, and cleverly evolved costumes out of almost nothing. There were Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Britannia’s draped with flags; lazy people who were merely poudré, and clowns, playing cards, demons, and witches. The passengers of a P. and O. (anchored close by) came on board, and there—with the silent desert stretching away at either side—was enacted a scene of revelry, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Our ship gave the supper, the men the champagne. Mrs. Raymond was not allowed to dress in costume, or to dance; though it had been suggested that she should go as “Beauty,” and her husband as the “Beast,” or as the “Princess Baldrabadoura,” and her husband as the “Magician.” I fancy she had had a struggle to be present at all, for she looked rather pale, and her eyes were decidedly red, as she came and sat near me. I was only a spectator, a withered old wallflower.
“Can you not dance?” I asked, as she steadily refused partner after partner.
“Oh yes, I can, and I am so fond of it, too; but Mr. Raymond does not think married ladies ought to dance.”
“I go further,” he said—coming nearer as he spoke—“I don’t think any ladies ought to dance; they lower themselves by doing so. They should leave all this display to nautch-girls; it is only fit for such! Look at that lady,” pointing to Mrs. Swift, in a very short dress, “and look at that one,” indicating another in an exceedingly low body, “and you call them civilized and refined? I call them no better than savages! They are on a par with a negro woman, who dances round a fetish.”
“You would shut them up, if you had anything to say to them?” I remarked sarcastically.
“I would—in their graves,” was the startling reply.
“I agree with you, that there is dancing and dancing, and I cannot admire these frantic polkas, or the kitchen lancers.”
“Ah, if you European ladies were not so prejudiced, you would allow that our Zenana system was a sound one.”