Petrea joyfully thanked him; but suddenly reddening to the resemblance of a peony with her mania of participation, she added, "Might I accept your invitation for another person? Do me the great pleasure to ask that young girl that sits there in the window at our left."
"But why?" asked Jacobi; "why will not you?"
"I earnestly beseech you to do it!" said Petrea. "It would give me greater pleasure to see her dancing than if I danced myself."
Jacobi made some friendly objections, but did in the end as she requested.
It was a great pleasure to Petrea to perceive the influence of this engagement on her young friend. But Fate and the Candidate seemed determined to make Petrea dance this quadrille; and a young officer presented himself before her in splendid uniform, with dark eyes, dark hair, large dark moustache, martial size, and very martial mien. Petrea had no occasion, and no disposition either, to return anything but a "yes" to this son of Mars. In fact, she never expected to receive a more honourable invitation; and a few minutes later she found herself standing close beside the chair of the Countess Solenstråle, dancing in the same quadrille with the Aftonstjernas, and vis-à-vis with the Candidate. Petrea felt herself highly exalted, and would have been perfectly prosperous had it not been for her restless demon, which incessantly spurred her with the desire of coming in closer contact with the beautiful, magnificent lady to whom she stood so near. To tread upon her foot or her dress, might, it is true, have furnished an easy occasion for many fine and reverential excuses; but, at the same time, this would be neither polite nor agreeable. To fall in some kind of way before her feet, and then, when graciously raised by the Countess, to thank her in a verse, in which the sun played a conspicuous part, would have been incontestibly better; but now—Petrea must dance on!
Was it that our Petrea really was so addled (if people will graciously allow us such an expression) that she had no right power over her limbs, or did it happen from want of ballast, in consequence of the slender dinner she had eaten, or was it the result of her usual distraction—we know not; but this much is certain, that she in chassée-ing on the right hand, on which she had to pass her vis-à-vis, made an error, and came directly up to him. He withdrew to the other side, but Petrea was already there: and as the Candidate again withdrew to the right, there was she again; and amid all this chassée-ing her feet got so entangled with his, that as he made a despairing attempt to pass her, it so happened that both fell down in the middle of the quadrille!
When Petrea, with tears in her eyes, again stood upright, she saw before her the eye-glass gentlemen, the two brothers B., who were nearly dying with laughter. A hasty glance convinced Petrea that her mother saw nothing of it; and a second glance, that she had now attracted the attention of the Countess Solenstråle, who was smiling behind her fan. The first observation consoled her for the last; and she fervently assured Jacobi, who was heartily distressed on her account, that she had not hurt herself; that it signified nothing; that it was her fault, etc., etc.; cast a tranquil glance on the yet laughing gentlemen, and chasséed boldly back again. But what, however, made the deepest impression on Petrea, was the conduct of her partner, and his suddenly altered behaviour. He brought the continued and unbecoming merriment of the brothers B. to an end by one determined glance; and he who hitherto had been parsimonious of words, and who had only answered all her attempts at being entertaining by a yes or a no, now became quite conversable, polite, and agreeable, and endeavoured in every possible way to divert her attention from the unpleasant accident which had just occurred, engaging her moreover for the anglaise after supper.
Petrea understood his kindness; tears came into her eyes, and her heart beat for joy at the thought of hastening to her mother after the quadrille, and saying, "Mamma, I am engaged for the anglaise after supper."
But no thought, no feeling, could remain in tranquillity with the poor little "Chaos;" so many others came rushing in, that the first were quite effaced. Her first impression of the kindness of Lieutenant Y. was, "how good he is!" the second was, "perhaps he may endure me!" And hereupon a flood of imagined courtesy and courtship poured in, which almost turned her head. But she would not marry, heaven forbid! yet still it would be a divine thing to have a lover, and to be oneself "an object" of passion, like Sara and Louise. Perhaps the young Lieutenant Y. might be related to the Countess Solenstråle, and, oh heavens! how well it would sound when it was said, "A nephew of the Countess Solenstråle is a passionate admirer of Petrea Frank!" What a coming forth that would be! A less thing than that might make one dizzy. Petrea was highly excited by these imaginings, and was suddenly changed by them into an actual coquette, who set herself at work by all possible means to enslave "her object;" in which a little, and for the moment very white, hand (for even hands have their moments), figuring about the head, played a conspicuous part. Petrea's amazing animation and talkativeness directed the eye-glass of her mother—for her mother was somewhat short-sighted—often in this direction, and called forth glances besides from Louise, which positively would have operated with a very subduing effect, had not Petrea been too much excited to remark them. The observations and smiles of her neighbours Petrea mistook for tokens of applause; but she deceived herself, for they only amused themselves with the little coquetting, but not very dangerous lady. Lieutenant Y., nevertheless, seemed to find pleasure in her liveliness, for when the quadrille was ended, he continued a dispute which had commenced during it, and for this purpose conducted her into one of the little side rooms, which strengthened her in the idea of having made a conquest. Isabella Aftonstjerna was singing there a little French song, the refrain of which was—
Hommage à la plus belle,
Honneur au plus vaillant!