These preliminary suggestions were cheerfully complied with, as indeed is invariably the case, the cheapest of all compliments being, surely, to drink another glass of wine at the expense of your entertainer. Then, with one hand in the breast of his ample waistcoat, Mr. Selmore smilingly confronted the expectant throng, and with the readiness of a born talker and something of the ease of a trained orator, thus delivered himself:—
Ladies and Gentlemen—One of the first observations that we shall make when we leave this hall will assuredly be that we never spent a pleasanter night in our lives, never saw any festivity more perfect in the arrangement of every detail, never had the good fortune to accept more lavish and splendid yet delicate and graceful hospitality. Then why not say it now? (Cheers and approbation.) Frankly, then, even in the presence of the noble and distinguished personage who has honoured this colony, this city, this society, with his presence, I venture to avow the sentiment of my heart, of every heart, let me say, now beating responsively to these humble expressions of the general feeling. (Loud cheering.) Some of us may have been struck with the wonderful perfection which has accompanied every detail, however small, even to the novel arrangement of the matchless feast we have just arisen from; but who does not know that the master mind, which is capable of conceptions the most vast and varied with regard to the welfare of nations or the march of armies, disdains not to stoop to the peasant’s farm, to the soldier’s shoe-buckle.
When I lead your minds, ladies and gentlemen, to the idea of the characteristics of great generals, of reigning princes, of the blood-royal of one of the most ancient sovereignties of the universe, am I violating any confidence when I state, in corroboration of that half involuntary disclosure, that no one who, like myself, has had the privilege of beholding those royal personages, of marking their prevailing type of feature, can doubt, by comparison with the countenance of our noble entertainer, the Count von Schätterheims, of his near and intimate relationship with that royal house. (Tremendous and enthusiastic cheering, with direction of all eyes upon the Count, whose presumably princely lineaments were as immovably unconscious as if he had been a statue of Kaiser Fritz.)
I may be indiscreet, ladies and gentlemen; I may, carried away by my natural feelings of friendship and by the contagion of your enthusiastic assent to my simple and straightforward statements, have spoken with more frankness than prudence, but my heart forgives me; my noble friend, I feel assured, forgives me; and you, ladies and gentlemen, will, under the circumstances, forgive me also. I have the liveliest pleasure in proposing the health of the Count von Schätterheims.
When the storm of cheering, the volleys of applause, the waving of handkerchiefs, had subsided, the noble Count himself, rather pale, but collected and calm as of custom, rose in his place to return thanks, which feat he performed as follows:—
Latees and Gendlemens—Many very danks.
The return speech had the merit of brevity—perhaps in excess; but as the Count placed his hand on his heart and bowed low thrice, throwing all the expression (and that was a considerable allowance) that he could manage into his eyes, so directed that not only Miss Folleton, but at least six other young ladies, imagined that she alone was the object of those tender and pleading glances, it suddenly struck the assembled crowd that it was an intentional and masterly stroke of mingled humour and consideration. As the band, by preconcerted signal, struck up the glorious and entrancing galop which had been kept in reserve for the after-supper dance, the ladies and the younger men saw another instance of the Count’s marvellous foresight—for them in particular—and once more they joined in general and unmeasured applause.
The Count, who had by this time secured the radiant Miss Folleton, bowed low and led the way to the freshly decorated ballroom, all the approaches to which were filled with the choicest exotics.
Was not it an utterly perfect galop, such as that entrancing after-supper dream-dance with the ‘dear new angel,’ or our favourite friend that used to be, ‘Consule Planco’? Oh, the dances of our lost youth, realising in every gliding sweep and trancing whirl the most exalted conceptions of music, poetry, choregraphic grace, and intoxicating proximity to female loveliness, when, if at any time possible, a fold or two of the jealous marble of reserve is thrown back. Within a fast fleeting hour from this dance of dances did Mr. Neuchamp put Miss Frankston into the carriage attended by her grateful parent, who was truly tired of his life under circumstances of festivity, and dying to get to bed.
‘Ha! Neuchamp,’ said Croker, as he returned to the disenchanted ballroom, ‘you look exhausted. Come and have a parting glass of the Count’s Roederer. I stick to that; we shall never see any more of it, I feel sure.’
‘Why?’ demanded Ernest; ‘you’re rather hard upon our noble entertainer. You allow that his wine is very good.’
‘Good wine costs no more than bad under certain circumstances,’ replied Croker sardonically.