“There's no two meanings to it. There's a cheer!” cried he, running over to the window and flinging it wide. “I wonder who's come now? Oh, it's the fireworks are beginning.”
“I 'll go down,” said I; but out of what process of reasoning came that resolve I am unable to tell.
“Maybe they won't be glad to see you!” cried he, as he helped me on with my jacket and arranged the heron's feathers in my velvet cap. I was half faltering in my resolution, when I bethought me of that charge of feebleness of character Nixon had reported to me, and I determined, come what might, I would show that I had a will and could follow it. In less than five minutes after, I was standing under the trees in the garden, shaking hands with scores of people I never saw before, and receiving the very politest of compliments and good wishes from very pretty lips, aided by very expressive eyes.
“Here's Mademoiselle Pauline Delorme refuses to dance with me,” cried Eccles, “since she has seen the head of the house. Digby, let me present you.” And with this he led me up to a very beautiful girl, who, though only the daughter of a celebrated restaurateur of Brussels, might have been a princess, so far as look and breeding and elegance were concerned.
“This is to be the correct thing,” cried Cleremont “We open with a quadrille; take your partners, gentlemen, and to your places.”
Nothing could be more perfectly proper and decorous than this dance. It is possible, perhaps, that we exceeded a little on the score of reverential observances: we bowed and courtesied at every imaginable opportunity, and with an air of homage that smacked of a court; and if we did raise our eyes to each other, as we recovered from the obeisance, it was with a look of the softest and most subdued deference. I really began to think that the only hoydenish people I had ever seen were ladies and gentlemen. As for Eccles, he wore an air of almost reverential gravity, and Hotham was sternly composed. At last, however, we came to the finish, and Cleremont, clapping his hands thrice, called out “grand rond,” and, taking his partner's arm within his own, led off at a galop; the music striking up one of Strauss's wildest, quickest strains. Away he went down an alley, and we all after him, stamping and laughing like mad. The sudden revulsion from the quiet of the moment before was electric; no longer arm-in-arm, but with arms close clasped around the waist, away we went over the smooth turf with a wild delight to which the music imparted a thrilling ecstasy. Now through the dense shade we broke into a blaze of light, where a great buffet stood; and round this we all swarmed at once, and glasses were filled with champagne, and vivas shouted again and again, and I heard that my health was toasted, and a very sweet voice—the lips were on my ear—whispered I know not what, but it sounded very like wishing me joy and love, while others were deafening me about long life and happiness.
I do not remember—I do not want to remember—all the nonsense I talked, and with a volubility quite new to me; my brain felt on fire with a sort of wild ecstasy, and as homage and deference met me at every step, my every wish acceded to, and each fancy that struck me hailed at once as bright inspiration, no wonder was it if I lost myself in a perfect ocean of bliss. I told Pauline she should be the queen of the fête, and ordered a splendid wreath of flowers to be brought, which I placed upon her brow, and saluted her with her title, amidst the cheering shouts of willing toasters. Except to make a tour of a waltz or a polka with some one I knew, I would not permit her to dance with any but myself; and she, I must say, most graciously submitted to the tyranny, and seemed to delight in the extravagant expressions of my admiration for her.
If I was madly jealous of her, I felt the most overwhelming delight in the praises bestowed upon her beauty and her gracefulness. Perhaps the consciousness that I was a mere boy, and that thus a freedom might be used towards me that would have been reprehensible with one older, led her to treat me with a degree of intimacy that was positively captivating; and before our third waltz was over, I was calling her Pauline, and she calling me Digby, like old friends.