"Who in the world is that lovely creature dancing with the Prince?" I heard a middle-aged dame behind me ask. "She has a foreign appearance, and I think she is the most exquisitely beautiful woman I ever saw in my life. What a figure, too! How she smiles, what teeth, what eyes! Is there any news of a migration of angels? Such strange things happen nowadays on account of electricity and all that. Who and what is she, Mary Kingston, again I ask you?"
"My dear Arabella!" answered the other dame, evidently one of the aristocracy of the land, "you are so enthusiastic! She came with the Frankston party. That's her husband quite close to us, dancing with Mrs. Neuchamp. He's the son of Captain Telfer of North Shore, and has been away among the islands and nobody knows where for ever so long. He married her at Norfolk Island. I believe she is one of those wonderful Pitcairn people that we hear such good accounts of."
"H'm; he's a young man of distinctly good taste, I must say. I wish my Cavendish had gone to the islands too, if that is the sort of girl they grow there. Mrs. Percival seems to be a great chum of hers. How did that come about?"
"I believe they came back in the Florentia together. Captain Carryall touched at Norfolk Island on the way from Honolulu, and it seems that Mrs. Percival's little boy fell overboard on the voyage, and the girl was into the sea after him like a shot, and swam with him in her arms till the boats came. There was something about a shark too. Mrs. Percival tells everybody she saved his life. No wonder she raves about her."
"What a pearl of a girl! No wonder, indeed! And to think of her having a world of courage and fire in her with all that delicacy and beauty. I can't take my eyes off her. The Prince admires her, apparently, too; and she smiles like a pleased child, with as little thought of vanity or harm, I dare swear, as a baby. She ought to be a princess, no doubt of it. So I see it's the last figure. I must go and look up my old friend, Paul Frankston, and make him tell me all about her."
After the dance and the usual promenade, Mrs. Neuchamp and I recovered our respective spouses, and took the opportunity to make a detour of the ball-room, and even to go through the next apartment, where refreshments were procurable, into the ample gardens. The night was superbly beautiful. The full moon lit up the grove of tropical foliage and richly-flowering plants, the glades carpeted with velvet lawn, the wide sea-plain traversed by shimmering pathways of silver. Below, in the sleeping bay, lay several men-of-war, half in shadow, half illuminated with coloured lamps hanging from their rigging. Gay and mirthful, grave or earnest, the frequent partners passed to and fro like shadows of revellers beneath the moon, or turned to the lower paths to gaze at the motionless vessels, the silver sea, the whispering wave. It was an ecstatic experience, a fairy pageant, a supernal revelation of an enchanted landscape.
Miranda pressed my arm. "Oh, Hilary! how lovely all this is! But you must not laugh at me. Now that I have seen it, I do not think I shall be anxious to follow it up. There is something almost intoxicating about it all. I can imagine it unfitting people for their everyday life."
We had hardly returned to the ball-room when the glorious strains of the "Tausend und einer nacht" waltz pealed forth from the band, and hurrying and anxious swains in search of their partners, not always easy to discover in such a crush, were seen in every direction. Instant request was preferred to Miranda by a naval officer high in command, but to my surprise, as we had not spoken on the subject, she graciously, but firmly, declined the honour. He protested, but she quietly repeated her negative: "I only dance round dances with my husband, Captain Harley! and, indeed, these not very often."
He was inclined to be persistent, though most courteous. "I am sure you used to dance them once. Indeed, I heard such an account of your waltzing, Mrs. Telfer."
"That was before I was married, Captain Harley!" she replied, with such evident belief that this explanation fully answered every objection that neither the captain nor I could help smiling.