Of the hundred and twenty ladies who were present at the "Palace" festivities that evening but eighty, perhaps, were seated round the ballroom for the charity cotillon; and among the eighty only thirty were dancing. Thus even in this that reputation for theatricalism and parade, which everything assumed in the "Palace" Olympus, was maintained: that reputation was maintained, so that there was always a spectacle and a public which at times changed sides, passing from the stage to the stalls, and vice versa. There were not many couples, then, to dance in the long and undulating whirls of the "Boston," in the rapid if rarer twirls of the waltz—so much the fashion now the "Boston," so out of fashion the waltz! There were not many couples, hence those who danced had plenty of room in which to turn round, now languidly, now more resolutely, in the difficult modern art of the "Boston." There was no bumping of each other; trains gyrated in their silken softness without being trod upon; voile and tulle skirts seemed like revolving clouds. Thus the dancers could display all their mastery of the dance if they possessed it, and those who did not possess it dared not expose themselves on the stage, since all around the curious, attentive public followed such a dance spectacle as if they were at the theatre; observing, criticising, approving, and scoffing. On that stage there were some of the dancers of the first flight: the slender Principessa di Castelforte in her white dress and with her string of pearls, worth half a million; another Italian, the Marchesa di Althan, a reed of a woman with an attractive, ugly face; Signorina de Aguilar, a Brazilian, dressed in red, with a vigour quite Spanish, dancing like a lost soul, like an insatiable flame. Madame Lawrence danced like a Grecian bas-relief; Miss Mabel Clarke with perfect harmony, in the grace and ardour of the dance; Miss Miriam Jenkyns glided as if she were a shadow or a nymph on the meadows. And there were other celebrated dancers, celebrated in all cosmopolitan salons, at Biarritz, at Nice, and at Cairo.
In the first flight among the men were Count Buchner, the diplomat, who had danced in all the capitals of the world for thirty years on end, and at sixty, dried and withered as he was, was still a beautiful dancer; the beau of beaux, the Hungarian, the Comte de Hencke, the famous dancer of the majourka to the music of Liszt; Don Vittorio Lante della Scala, one of the most graceful and vigorous dancers of Italy; the young Comte de Roy, the little Frenchman; Edward Crozes, the twenty-year-old son of Lady Crozes. People came and went from the hall, the saloon, and other rooms, and the audience at the performance changed and was renewed around the famous dancers. The performance continued, each performing his or her part with artistic zeal, amidst the approval or adverse criticisms of the audience. In a dress of tenderest pink crêpe, surrounded by a silver girdle, with a small wreath of little roses around her riotous chestnut hair, Mabel Clarke, one of the chief characters of this worldly comedy, was dancing the beginning of the cotillon with another of the chief dancer-actors, Vittorio Lante della Scala; but seized by the truth and the force of their feelings, they forgot to be actors. They had no thought of pleasing others, of being admired by others. They forgot altogether their surroundings, with their artifices and pretences and obligatory masks; and only the perfect, tranquil joy of being together held them in its beautiful frankness, of not leaving each other, of being able to let themselves go to the rhythm of the music in harmonious turns, where they seemed to depart and vanish afar in a dream of well-being led on by the languid murmur of the music. In their sentimental absorption they seemed even more to suit each other, and the public of the boxes and stalls around them wondered at them, then with a sneer the fashionable gossiping, calumny, and back-biting began again, subduedly.
"... Lante has hit it off."
"... The girl has lost her head."
"... Of course, he has done his best to compromise her."
"... In any case, he won't be the first."
"... St. Moritz is a great marriage mart."
"... There are plenty of men, too."
Every now and then the music was silent, and the dancers promenaded arm in arm or sat down for a moment, the girls with their hands full of flowers and their figures crossed with ribbons of brilliant colours, the cotillon gifts. Then matron and maid would approach Mabel and Vittorio with a smile of satisfaction on their lips, asking in French, in English, in German:
"May I congratulate you?"