Many more guests arrived, and as the salon was crowded, Mademoiselle Polymnie and her adversary were obliged to abandon their game, evidently to the intense dissatisfaction of the young lady.
“It’s a pity,” she said; “we were beginning to play so well!”
“How does she succeed, I wonder, when she plays badly!” said Madame Dufournelle laughingly.
But the master of the house, having no pain in his stomach, insisted that they must dance. The bouillotte players were removed to an adjoining room, and an amateur took his place at the piano and played a polka, then a redowa, then a mazurka; for the quadrille is sadly neglected now; it is abandoned for new-fangled dances, which the dancers do not know in most cases, and which, consequently, they dance very poorly. The old-fashioned quadrille ventures to show its head only at long intervals nowadays, and it is treated with a discourtesy which will end by banishing it altogether.
Monsieur Glumeau took possession of a young lady of fourteen, with whom he danced the polka, redowa and mazurka without removing his eyes for a moment from his feet, which, however, was not likely to distress his partner. And Madame Glumeau, proud of the agility displayed by her husband, exclaimed in an outburst of enthusiasm:
“Ah! what a good thing it was that he took it!”
“What? a dancing-master?” queried Monsieur Camuzard. But Madame Glumeau turned away without replying and requested Monsieur Kingerie to leave the piano, as he had already broken several strings.
About eleven o’clock Madame de Grangeville vanished from the salon, after looking about in vain for Monsieur de Merval. But he had departed some time before, and the elegant baroness, who had counted upon a gentleman to escort her home, entered her cab all alone, frowning and muttering:
“Ah! men aren’t so agreeable as they used to be!”