“Well, well, did you amuse yourself? The Countess wasn’t difficult?”
“She was a duck! (I should no more think of apologizing for Patsy’s English than for her retroussé nose. Both, as my French friend says, intrigue me infinitely.) She danced harder than anyone, and lieber Himmel,” says Patsy with a gusty sigh, “how they do dance! But I’ll begin at the beginning and tell you everything.
“Of course you know it was this club Captain Max belongs to, and that they dance every month in the ball-rooms of the different hotels. There are only thirty or forty members in the club, so it’s nice and small—not one of those herd affairs. Most of the people had arrived before us, and were sitting in the galleries round the ball-room; and before ever the dancing began, Uncle Peter, they all were eating and drinking things. The galleries are raised by just a few steps from the floor of the room itself, and there are lots of tables where continuous supper goes on—really, one is expected to eat something between every two dances.
“Fancy, Uncle Peter, one is busily dissecting a quail when one’s partner appears; one finishes the waltz, and returns to take another bite, only to be interrupted again, and carried off. It is provoking! But the tables are convenient as an anchor to steer for and much more fun for the chaperones, I should think, than those dreary chairs against the wall, at home.
“I haven’t told you the appalling ordeal of actually arriving, however. Every girl with her escort, must walk the length of the ball-room alone, while the lucky ones who are already settled in the gallery pass judgment on one’s frock, coiffure and all the rest. Captain Max hadn’t warned me, and when I found myself under that battery of lorgnettes and monocles I was petrified. I knew that my train was a fright, and every pin in my hair about to fall; but somehow I got across that terrible expanse of slippery floor, and to our table.
“The Countess’s sister was there—the one who called on Sunday you know—and her son and daughter, such a pretty girl, Uncle Peter! Black hair and creamy skin—of course the whole family shows the Hungarian strain—and a delicious frock just to her ankles. It seems all the young girls here wear short dresses for dancing, and so they don’t have that draggled look we get with our trains. Everyone at the table, including the women, rose during introductions; and of course all the men kissed one’s hand. Then they brought dozens of other men. Captain Max says there are always three times as many as there are girls at these dances—and I met such a lot that for the rest of the evening I had no idea whom I knew and whom I didn’t.
“We began to dance directly, and oh, my dear, the Vienna waltz! I’ve seen it on the stage, and it looked easy—just standing in one spot and whirling round; but when one actually attempted it—! At first I was so dizzy, I could only hold up my train and keep my feet going. I know now all the sensations of a top when it’s spun at full speed, and never allowed to die down. But, after a while, I regained sufficient consciousness to catch the little step they take on the second step, and then it was easier. There’s a sort of swing to it, too, that’s rather fascinating; and Captain Max does do it well.”
Patsy, on her cushion, gazed into the fire—then at the roses in her lap. “Ahem!” I coughed, as an uncle will when the clock points to four of the dawn. “You were saying?”
“Oh!—yes. Well, the music of course was heavenly; one could have danced to it all night, as most of them do here. The Frau Gräfin said hardly anyone goes home before six in the morning, and some at eight! That is why the Viennese laugh at their own custom of paying the porter twenty hellers for opening the door after half past ten; they all come home in the morning, after the house is unlocked again!
“But I couldn’t have kept it up any longer, Uncle Peter. In the first place you are never allowed to sit out a dance, not even part of one. The minute you drop into a chair out of sheer weariness, some one comes and clicks his heels together, bows profoundly, and off you have to go with him. Then they have a habit of breaking in, that is convenient at times, and annoying at others. All the men who have no partners stand in the middle of the room, and when you have had a round or two with one person, another very courteously but firmly stops you and claims his turn. In this way, each dance is divided between four or five men. It’s all very well when you don’t like your partner of the moment, but—”