“Next to a juvenile party, I don’t know anything better—from a professional point of view—than a public ball,” he said. “Your canvas corridors, decorated with flowers and bunting, are a fortune to a family practitioner.”
Isola danced every dance. She hardly knew who her partners were. She had only a sense of floating in a vortex of light and colour, to some swinging melody. Everything was dream-like—but not horrible, as in her dream by the fireside at home. This was a happy dream, as of a creature with wings, who knew not of care in the present or a soul to be saved in the future. And then came her waltz with Lostwithiel, and that strong arm was round her, bearing her up as a flower is borne upon a rushing tide, so that she had no consciousness of movement on her own part, only of floating, floating, floating, to that languid three-time melody.
It was the last popular waltz they were playing—a waltz that had been last summer’s delight in the arid gardens of South Kensington—“Il n’y a que toi;” a waltz with a chorus which the band trolled out merrily, at intervals, in the French of Stratford atte Bow.
“Il n’y a que toi,” whispered Lostwithiel, with his lips close to the soft brown hair above the white forehead. “Not a bad name for a waltz when one is waltzing with just one person in the world.”
Out in the cool night there was a little knot of people as merry after their homelier fashion as town and county in the ball-room. One of the windows had been opened at the top for ventilation, and this opening had been turned to advantage. A large, substantial kitchen table had been placed in front of the window, and upon this improvised platform stood Tabitha, Susan, the head chamber-maid, and the ostler’s wife—this last on sufferance, and evidently not in society—looking on at the ball. The window was under a verandah, that sloped above these spectators’ heads. They were thus in dense shadow, and unseen by the occupants of the lamp-lit room.
Susan was exuberant in her delight.
“I was never at a ball before,” she said. “Oh, ain’t it lovely? Don’t I wish I could dance like that? Lor, do look at that fat old party, spinning round like a teetotum! Well, I never did! Don’t she perspire!” exclaimed Susan, indulging in a running commentary which left much to be desired in the matter of refinement.
This unsophisticated damsel heartily admired youth and beauty, and the smart frocks and flashing gems; but she was cruelly hard upon those dancers whose charms were on the wane, or whose frocks were inferior or ugly.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” said Susan, “I wouldn’t go to a ball like this if I couldn’t have everythink nice. Look at that tall girl in yeller. Did you ever see such a scarecrow? I’d ever so much rather stay at home, or stand outside, like this. I should feel it better became me.”