"Yes, with the man in Scotch trousers. This is going to be great fun!"
And all those who were not dancing ran to watch the set in which Cherami and Aunt Merlin were to figure.
"Sapristi! I have lost one of my gloves!" cried Arthur, making a pretence of feeling in his pocket, and looking on the floor. "Will you pardon me, fair lady, for dancing with a single glove?"
"Oh! certainly, monsieur," replied the lady with the turban, in a simpering tone; "you are forgiven; indeed, the same thing happened to Monsieur Courbichon; when he arrived here for the ball, he discovered that he had lost one of his gloves—only it was the left one, in his case."
"Ah! that's very amusing! Then we have the pair between us! I shall laugh a long while over that. It's our turn, fair lady."
The first figure passed off quietly enough, as the English chain and the cat's tail gave Cherami no chance to display his talent; but in the second, in the avant-deux, he began to take steps and attitudes of the cancan in its purest and most unblushing form. The men laughed till they cried, and the women as well, murmuring:
"Why, this is frightful! where does that fellow think he is, for heaven's sake?"
The most amusing feature of the episode was that Cherami's partner, spurred on by the strange evolutions and the eccentric steps of her cavalier, thought that she ought to do as he did, and began to twist and turn, and throw her legs to right and left, with an ardor which kept all the flowers on her turban in commotion.
The laughter became more uproarious.
"I venture to believe that we are producing some effect," said Cherami to his partner; "but I am not surprised; whenever I dance, the people crowd to watch me."