'I'll see you through the barrier,' said Mr. Oddie Pratte, 'and then I'll have to leave you. I'll bolt round the other way, and be waiting for you at the off-door, Auntie. I'd come through, only Her Maj. does hate it so. Not at all nice of her, I call it, but she can't bear the most charming of us about on these occasions. We're not good enough.' A large-boned lady in front—red velvet and cream—with a diminutive major in attendance, turned to him at this, and said with unction, 'I am sure, Edwin, that is not the case. I have it on excellent authority that the Queen is pleased when gentlemen come through. Remember, Edwin, I will not face it alone.'
'I think you will do very well, my dear!' Edwin responded. 'Brace up! 'Pon my word, I don't think I ought to go. I'll join you at——'
'If you desert me, Edwin, I shall die!' said the bony lady, in a strong undertone; and at that moment the crowd broke again. Oddie slipped away, and we went on exultantly two places, for the major had basely and swiftly followed Mr. Pratte, and his timid spouse, in a last clutching expostulation, had fallen hopelessly to the rear.
About twenty of us, this time, were let in at once. The last of the preceding twenty were slowly and singly pacing after one another's trains round two sides of this third big room towards a door at the farther corner. There was a most impressive silence. As we got into file I felt that the supreme moment was at hand, and it was not a comfortable feeling. Lady Torquilin, in front of me, put a question to a gentleman in a uniform she ought to have been afraid of—only that nothing ever terrified Lady Torquilin, which made it less comfortable still. 'Oh, Lord Mafferton,' said she—I hadn't recognised him in my nervousness and his gold lace—'How many curtseys are there to make?'
'Nine, dear lady,' replied this peer, with evident enjoyment. 'It's the most brilliant Drawing-Room of the season. Every Royalty who could possibly attend is here. Nine, at the least!'
Lady Torquilin's reply utterly terrified me. It was confidential, and delivered in an undertone, but it was full of severe meaning. 'I'm full of rheumatism,' said she, 'and I shan't do it.'
The question as to what Lady Torquilin would do, if not what was required of her, rose vividly before me, and kept me company at every step of that interminable round. 'Am I all right?' she whispered over her shoulder from the other end of that trailing length of pansy-coloured velvet. 'Perfectly,' I said. But there was nobody to tell me that I was all right—I might have been a thing of shreds and patches. Somebody's roses had dropped; I was walking on pink petals. What a pity! And I had forgotten to take off my glove; would it ever come unbuttoned? How deliberately we were nearing that door at the farther end! And how could I possibly have supposed that my heart would beat like this! It was all very well to allow one's self a little excitement in preparation; but when it came to the actual event I reminded myself that I had not had the slightest intention of being nervous. I called all my democratic principles to my assistance—none of them would come. 'Remember, Mamie Wick,' said I to myself, 'you don't believe in queens.' But at that moment I saw three Gentlemen of the Household bending over, and stretching out Lady Torquilin's train into an illimitable expanse. I looked beyond, and there, in the midst of all her dazzling Court, stood Queen Victoria. And Lady Torquilin was bending over her hand! And in another moment it would be—it was my turn!
