There I paused, and fondled my handkerchief, while the impassible lady relapsed into her magnificent silence, and offered no hope of any conversation in any direction. But I would not be balked of my object, and determined that if the living stream did run "quick below," the glaring polish of ice which these "fine manners" presented, my remark should be an Artesian bore to it.
"How handsome our vis-a-vis is?" said I.
My stately lady said nothing, but tossed her head slightly, without changing her expression, except to make it more pointedly frigid, in a reply which was a most vociferous negative, petrified by politeness into ungracious assent.
"She is what Lucia of Lammermoor might have been before she was unhappy," continued I, plunging directly off into the sea of trouble.
"Ah! I don't know Miss Lammermoor," responded my partner, with sang-froid.
I am conscious that I winced at this. A New York belle, hedged with divinity and awfulness, &c., not know Miss Lammermoor. Such stately naïveté of ignorance drew a smile into my eyes, and I concluded to follow the scent.
"You misunderstand me," said I. "I was speaking of Scott's Lucia—the Waverley novel, you know."
"Waverley, Waverley," replied my Cannibal Queen, who moved her head like Juno, but this time lisping and somewhat confused, as if she knew that, by the mention of books, we were possibly nearing the verge of sentiment. "Waverley—I don't know what you mean: you're too deep for me."
I was silent for that moment, and sat a mirthful Marius, among the ruins of my proud idea of a metropolitan belle. Had she not exquisitely perfected my revenge? Could the contrast of my next dance with Lulu have been pointed with more diamond distinctness than by the unweeting lady, whom I watched afterward, with my eyes swimming in laughter, as she glided, passionlessly, without smiling, without grace, without life—like a statue clad in muslin, over grass-cloth, around the hall. Once again, during the evening, I went to her and said:
"How graceful that Baltimore lady is."