‘Because they’re mad—stark, staring mad.’
‘Now really, Mr. Croker, don’t you believe about the Count’s great wealth and estates? his charming manner at any rate can’t be put on.’
‘I believe in him. I?’ demanded Croker, with an air of intense and reproachful amazement ludicrous to witness. ‘Do you know what my opinion of the fellow is?’
‘Can’t say, really; something very complimentary to him and diffident on your part, judging from Mr. Croker’s well-known character,’ said Antonia coolly.
‘Well, then, if you will have it,’ said that satirist wrathfully, and as if all necessity for social dissimulation had been obviated, ‘I believe the fellow is an impostor and a swindler; very likely a valet, or a courier, who has bolted with his master’s cash, clothes, and papers. As for his manners, everybody in the country he comes from has the same manner, from the kellner to the kaiser. His accent ought to betray him; but no one here knows German well enough to find it out.’
‘Really, Mr. Croker, you can take away a man’s, a horse’s, or a country’s reputation more completely in less time than any one I ever met. You’re so delightfully bitter that I must dance with you. Come along!’
Left to himself for a while, Mr. Neuchamp devoted his leisure to a survey of the room and the company. He was astonished at the beauty and grace of the lady portion of the guests, and he thought he had never seen anything more graceful than the ease and celerity with which the greater part of the crowd glided in the dance over the polished floor.
The occasional squatter, lounging, but stalwart and dignified, together with the gay uniforms of the soldiers and blue-jackets, gave novelty and contrast to the scene; but the majority of the younger men who belonged to Sydney proper were pale, slight, and rather undignified youngsters, by no means worthy the handsome, stately girls who were fain to accept them as partners. For the rest, the ordinary ballroom routine was not departed from; and Ernest, after another dance or two, was not sorry when the move to supper reminded him to possess himself of Antonia, who had promised him the first following dance.
Nothing in its way could have been more complete than the dangerous and superfluous but fascinating meal. The wines were chosen with a studious care, which reflected the greatest honour upon the Count’s taste and foresight.
The champagne and chicken had been succeeded by fruit and flirtation. The ladies were in expectation of the accustomed signal, when Mr. Hartley Selmore rose, ‘with the permission of his friends, to make a few observations and to propose a toast. Would gentlemen—ay, and ladies too—fill their glasses, and prepare themselves for a toast to which his poor powers were miserably inadequate?’