"Lady Vi Dartmouth, with her beautiful hair shingled, etc., etc."
"The Marchioness of Flint came with her girls, etc."
All of which Peter knew by intuition would be vastly interesting to the suburban little madams who read the Talk of the Town in this world of unrealities, and he was willing to leave it at that, well knowing that the puppets named Miss Baby or Lady Vi would not think of being absent from the Five Arts' Ball. It was the acme of smartness, of Bohemian smartness, that is to say: the smartness of Chelsea and fashionable studios, which is so much smarter than the smartness of Mayfair.
And Peter—a kind of disembodied Peter—watched the throng. Ye gods! what a motley and a medley!
Polychromatic and kaleidoscopic, iridescent and prismatic, ceaselessly on the move, mercurial, restless, ever stirring, fluttering fans, fingering clothes, adjusting coiffures, lapels, frills, hair-ornaments and feathers! And talking! Talking incessantly, with voices hard and high-pitched trying to rise above other voices that were harder and higher of pitch. Dazzling to eye and ear; exciting to nerves and sense, the atmosphere a mixture of odours: of powders, cosmetics, perfumes, heat, gas, and a score of other indefinable scents.
The picture quite brilliant; not without touches of unconscious humour: Marie Antoinette flirting with Robespierre, Russian moujik in familiar converse with a jewelled Catherine, Queen Elizabeth condescending to pre-historic man. And then Pierrots, Pierrots everywhere, of every conceivable motley and shape. Blue Pierrots and yellow Pierrots! white or black, purple with orange frills, and orange with purple frills, black skull caps and tall white peaks. Pierrots of satin, and Pierrots of gingham! Cool and active! Ye gods! how active! Bohemian smartness, it seems, demanded that its Pierrots should be bright and amusing and active.
From his point of vantage on the floor of the hall Peter scanned the semicircle of boxes where sat more puppets, hundreds of them, watching the thousands down below.
What was the good of them? Peter thought. Why had God made them? What use were they in this new world which some wanton sprite had fashioned in opposition to the Creator? They fluttered their fans, they laughed, they jabbered, and did not seem to know that they, just like Peter, had become unreal and disembodied at the precise moment when Rosemary Fowkes promised to become Jasper Tarkington's wife.
And then suddenly the puppets all faded away. The new world ceased to be, there was no hall, no dancing, no music, no more puppets, no more Pierrots. There was only Rosemary, and she came up to Peter and said quite gaily, naturally, in a voice that belonged to the old world, not the new:
"Won't you ask me to dance, Peter?"