"Yes," he answered, briefly; for the remembrance of what he had lost watching it out was not agreeable to him.
"There was a musical party here," continued Valérie, "but I got away from it, for I like to be alone when the past and the future meet—do not you?"
"No; your past is pure, your future is bright. Mine are not so; I don't want to be stopped to contemplate them."
"Nor are mine, indeed; but the death of an Old Year is sad and solemn to me as the death of a friend, and I like to be alone in its last hour. I wonder," she continued, suddenly, "what this year will bring. I wonder where you and I shall be next New Year's-night?"
Falkenstein laughed, not merrily.
"I shall be in Kensal Green or the Queen's Bench, very likely. Why do you look astonished Miss L'Estrange; one is the destination of everybody in these rooms, and the other probably of one-half of them."
"Don't speak so bitterly—don't give me sad thoughts on my birthday. Oh, how tiresome!" cried Valérie, interrupting herself, "there comes Major D'Orwood."
"To claim you?"
"Yes; I'd forgotten him entirely. I promised to waltz with him an hour ago."
"What the devil brought you here to interrupt us?" thought Falkenstein, as the Guardsman lisped a reproof at Valérie's cruelty, and gave her his arm back to the ball-room. Waldemar stopped her, however, engaged her for the next, and sauntered through the room on her other side. He waltzed a good deal with her, paying her that sort of attention which Falkenstein knew how to make the softest and subtlest homage a woman could have. Amused himself, he amused her with his brilliant and pointed wit, so well, that Valérie L'Estrange told him, when he bid her good night, that she had never enjoyed any birthday so much.