He came out on to the terrace, notwithstanding, while I ran upstairs to warn Loring what was afoot. When we returned, it was to find six dutiful but protesting young officers pulling coats and rugs over their evening dress and struggling for corner seats in the car.
"I'm dreadfully sorry to break up your party, Loring," Farwell called out as they glided away amidst a subdued chorus of apologies and adieux.
Loring turned to me interrogatively.
"The Duchess of Richmond's Waterloo Ball," I remarked.
"We must keep things going upstairs," he said, turning back into the house. "On my soul, I can't see what it's all about. What's it got to do with us? If Servia and Austria want to fight, and we aren't strong enough to stop them, why! good heavens! let's keep out of it like gentlemen! Why the deuce are we being so officious with our Fleet?"
It was one o'clock when we re-entered the ballroom, and so successfully did we keep things going that we supped for the last time in broad daylight, and our guests left at five.
O'Rane insisted on a march-past in honour of Loring and Violet, and we ran down a line of sixteen cars with a tray of glasses and five bottles of champagne. As each car passed the door, there was a burst of cheering and the glasses flashed to the toast; from Loring on the top step, standing arm in arm with Violet, came an acknowledging cheer, and the cars swept forward to the turn of the drive, where O'Rane and I were posted. A shower of champagne glasses poured from the windows, to describe a dazzling arc in the morning sunlight and fall with greater or less precision into our hands or on to the flower-beds behind us. Above the cheering and the throb of the engines came the sound of a piano and Valentine Arden's voice:
"Dixie! all abo-o-oard forr Dixie,
Dixie! Tak you-rr tickuts heere forr Dixie!"...