The old libertine gazed with a bewildered air at the flushed, disfigured face, the disordered headdress and the limp form of Madame Volenville; he tried to retreat; but she took both his hands, whirled him about and made him jump into the air.
“Madame, I don’t know this!” cried the attorney, struggling to free himself.
“Come on, all the same, monsieur! I must have a partner!”
“Stop this, madame; I never waltzed in my life!”
“This isn’t a waltz, monsieur; it’s a jig.”
“Stop, madame, I beg! I am dizzy; I shall fall!”
“You dance like an angel!”
Madame Volenville was a very devil; she considered herself still as fascinating as at twenty; she was persuaded that her steps, her graces, her vivacity and her little mincing ways were calculated to fascinate everybody; she did not realize that years entirely change the aspect of things. That which is charming at twenty becomes affectation at forty; the frivolity natural to youth seems folly in maturer years, and the little simpering expressions which we forgive on a childish face, later are mere absurdities and sometimes downright grimaces.
It is possible, nevertheless, for a woman of mature years to please; but she does not succeed in so doing by aping the manners of youth. Nothing can be more agreeable to the eye, more calculated to attract favorable notice, than a mother dancing without any affectation of youthful graces, opposite her daughter; nothing more absurd than an old coquette, with her hair dressed as if she were sixteen, trying to rival girls of that age in agility.
Madame Volenville was, as you see, an indefatigable dancer; she strove to infect her partner with the ardor that animated her; but the old attorney, red as a cherry, rolled his eyes wildly, unable to distinguish objects; everything about him was going round and round; the jig, the heat and his wrath combined to make him helplessly dizzy. He held his face as far from his partner’s as possible; but, to put the finishing touch to his discomfiture, his wig came off, fell to the floor, where it was trampled under foot by the dancers, and the attorney’s head was revealed to the eyes of the guests, as bare as one’s hand.