“That wasn’t bad,” he gasped complacently, as we staggered to a corner and rested there, while he mopped his purple forehead. “You dance like a fairy, Miss Sarsfield. But, upon my soul, I think they get more pace on every year. That woman at the piano—Mrs. What’s-her-name? Whelply, isn’t it?—why, she’s rattling away as if the devil was after her.”
Looking about me, I saw with deep amusement that Willy had selected Miss Mimi Burke as his partner, and was charging with her through the throng at reckless speed. Her face, blazing with heat and excitement, showed no unworthy fears for her own safety; and as, with her chin embedded in Willy’s shoulder, they sped past, she cast an eye of exhilarated recognition at me.
“By Jove!” wheezed O’Neill, still breathless from his exertions; “old Mimi’s got a wonderful kick in her gallop still. She’s getting over the ground like a three-year-old!”
To me the appearance of my cousin and his partner was more suggestive of a large steamer going full speed through smaller craft, Miss Mimi’s rubicund face representing the port light; but I kept this brilliant idea to myself.
“I hope Willy knows how to steer,” I said. “He does not take things so easily as your son appears to do.”
Nugent was performing what was only too evidently a duty dance with one of the Misses Jackson-Croly—a very young lady, with fuzzy hair and a pink frock. They wound sadly along, as much as possible on the outskirts of the darting crowd, Nugent’s expression of melancholy provoking his more agile parent to a laugh of mingled contempt and self-complacency.
“Take things easily!” he repeated; “why, he’s a regular muff. Who’d ever think he was a son of mine? If I were dancing with a spicy little girl like that, I wouldn’t look as if I were at my own funeral. Shall we have another turn?” and before I had time for a counter suggestion we were again hopping and spinning round the room.
I had no reason to complain of lack of attention on the part of my hostess, and I and my card were soon in a state of equal confusion. The generic name of Mrs. Jackson-Croly’s “dancing gentlemen” appeared to be either Beamish or Barrett, and had it not been for Willy’s elucidation of its mysteries, I should have thrown my card away in despair.
“No, not him. That’s Long Tom Beamish! It’s English Tommy you’re to dance with next. They call him English Tommy because, when his militia regiment was ordered to Aldershot, he said he was ‘the first of his ancestors that was ever sent on foreign service.’”
Willy’s dances with me were, during this earlier part of the evening, sandwiched with great regularity between those of the clans Beamish and Barrett, and I found him to be in every way a most satisfactory partner. He was in a state of radiant amiability, and proved himself of inestimable value as a chronicler of interesting facts about the company in general. He was, besides, strong and sure-footed—qualities, as I had reason to know, not to be despised in an assemblage such as this. I carried for several days the bruises which I received during my waltz with English Tommy. It consisted chiefly of a series of short rushes, of so shattering a nature that I at last ventured to suggest a less aggressive mode of progression.