The ball to which Paul and Etta were going was managed by some titled ladies who knew their business well. The price of the tickets was fabulous. The lady patronesses of the great Charity Ball were tactful and unabashed. They drew the necessary line (never more necessary than it is to-day) with a firm hand.
The success of the ball was therefore a foregone conclusion. In French fiction there is invariably a murmur of applause when the heroine enters a room full of people, which fact serves, at all events, to show the breeding and social status of persons with whom French novelists are in the habit of associating. There was therefore no applause when Paul and Etta made their appearance, but that lady had, nevertheless, the satisfaction of perceiving glances, not only of admiration, but of interest and even of disapproval, among her own sex. Her dress she knew to be perfect, and when she perceived the craning pale face of the inevitable lady-journalist, peering between the balusters of a gallery, she thoughtfully took up a prominent position immediately beneath that gallery, and slowly turned round like a beautifully garnished joint before the fire of cheap publicity.
To Paul this ball was much like others. There were a number of the friends of his youth—tall, clean-featured, clean-limbed men, with a tendency toward length and spareness—who greeted him almost affectionately. Some of them introduced him to their wives and sisters, which ladies duly set him down as nice but dull—a form of faint praise which failed to damn. There were a number of ladies to whom it was necessary for him to bow in acknowledgment of past favors which had missed their mark. From the gallery the washed-out female journalists poked out their eager faces—for they were women still, and liked to look upon a man when he was strong.
And all the while Karl Steinmetz was storming in his guttural English at the door, upbraiding hired waiters for their stupidity in accepting two literal facts literally. The one fact was that they were forbidden to admit any one without a ticket; the second fact being that tickets were not to be obtained at the price of either one or the other of the two great motives of man—Love or Money.
Steinmetz was Teutonic and imposing, with the ribbon of a great Order on his breast. He mentioned the names of several ladies who might have been, but were not, of the committee. Finally, however, he mentioned the historic name of one whose husband had braved more than one Russian emperor successfully for England.
“Yes, me lord, her ladyship’s here,” answered the man.
Steinmetz wrote on a card, “In memory of ‘56, let me in,” and sent in the missive.
A few minutes later a stout, smiling lady came toward him with outstretched hand.
“What mischief are you about?” she enquired, “you stormy petrel! This is no place for your deep-laid machinations. We are here to enjoy ourselves and found a hospital. Come in, however. I am delighted to see you. You used to be a famous dancer—well, some little time ago.”
“Yes, my dear countess, let us say some little time ago. Ach, those were days! those were days! You do not mind the liberty I have taken?”