"No, please! Only bored with them!" said Kitty. "There are so many other ways now of amusing yourself—that's all."
"Well, this way will die out," said Lady Tranmore. "The cost of it is too scandalous—people's consciences prick them."
Kitty vowed she did not believe there was a conscience in the room; and then, as the music struck up, she carried off her companion to some steps overlooking the great marble gallery, where they had a better view of the two lines of dancers.
It is said that as a nation the English have no gift for pageants. Yet every now and then—as no doubt in the Elizabethan mask—they show a strange felicity in the art. Certainly the dance that followed would have been difficult to surpass even in the ripe days and motherlands of pageantry. To the left, a long line, consisting mainly of young girls in their first bloom, dressed as Gainsborough and his great contemporaries delighted to paint these flowers of England—the folds of plain white muslin crossed over the young breast, a black velvet at the throat, a rose in the hair, the simple skirt showing the small pointed feet, and sometimes a broad sash defining the slender waist. Here were Stanleys, Howards, Percys, Villierses, Butlers, Osbornes—soft slips of girls bearing the names of England's rough and turbulent youth, bearing themselves to-night with a shy or laughing dignity, as though the touch of history and romance were on them. And facing them, the youths of the same families, no less handsome than their sisters and brides—in Romney's blue coats, or the splendid red of Reynolds and Gainsborough.
To and fro swayed the dancers, under the innumerable candles that filled the arched roof and upper walls of the ballroom; and each time the lines parted they disclosed at the farther end another pageant, to which that of the dance was in truth subordinate—a dais hung with blue and silver, and upon it a royal lady whose beauty, then in its first bloom, has been a national possession, since as, the "sea-king's daughter" she brought it in dowry to her adopted country. To-night she blazed in jewels as a Valois queen, with her court around her, and as the dancers receded, each youth and maiden seemed instinctively to turn towards her as roses to the sun.
"Oh, beautiful, beautiful world!" said Kitty to herself, in an ecstasy, pressing her small hands together; "how I love you!—love you!"
Meanwhile Darrell and Harman stood side by side near the doorway of the ballroom, looking in when the crowd allowed.
"A strange sight," said Harman. "Perhaps they take it too seriously."
"Ah! that is our English upper class," said Darrell, with a sneer. "Is there anything they take lightly?—par exemple! It seems to me they carry off this amusement better than most. They may be stupid, but they are good-looking. I say, Ashe"—he turned towards the new-comer who had just sauntered up to them—"on this exceptional occasion, is it allowed to congratulate you on Lady Kitty's gown?"