“Now, then, shall we try it together?” said M. de la Bourbonais, and placing his arm round Franceline, the two glided round the room, the professor whistling his accompaniment with as much emphasis as possible, while the pupil counted one, two, three, and Angélique kept time by clapping her hands.
“Oh, petit père, I shall do it beautifully!” cried Franceline, suspending the performance to give him an energetic kiss that nearly sent his spectacles flying across the room. “Now if you only could teach me the quadrille!”
But this recent substitute for the art of dancing was beyond the scope of Raymond’s abilities; quadrilles, as he said, had come into fashion long after his time. It was a grand thing, however, to have accomplished so much, and Franceline felt a sense of triumphant security in her newly-acquired possession that cleared away all her tremors. She spent the rest of the afternoon practising the valse à trois temps, so as to be quite perfect in it. Sir Simon found her thus profitably employed when he came down just before his dinner with a newspaper.
“What were we all thinking about not to have remembered that?” was his horrified exclamation. “Why, of course you must know the quadrille; you will have to open the ball, child. You must come up this evening to the Court, and we’ll have a private little dancing lesson, all of us, and put you through the figures.”
And so they did; and the result was so successful that, when the great day came, Franceline felt quite sure of being able to behave like everybody else. Her dress came down with Mrs. de Winton on the eve of the ball, and she was, in accordance with that lady’s desire, to dress at the Court under her supervision.
It was a new era in Franceline’s life, finding herself arrayed in a fairy robe of snow-white tulle, with wild roses creeping up one side of it, and a cluster of wild roses in her hair. Angélique stood by, surveying the process of transformation with arms a-kimbo, too much impressed by the splendors of the whole thing to vindicate her rights as bonne, and quite satisfied to see her natural functions usurped by nimble Croft, Mrs. de Winton’s maid. But when that experienced person whipped up the gossamer garment and shook it like an apple-tree, and tossed it with a sweep over Franceline’s head, it fairly took away her breath, for the pink petals stuck on in spite of the shock, and the soft flounces foamed all round just in the right place, rippling down from the neck and shoulders, and flowing out behind like a sea-wave. Then Croft crowned it all by planting the pink cluster in the hair just as if it grew there. Mrs. de Winton came in at this crisis, however, and suggested that they would be more becoming a little more to the front.
“Well, ma’am, if you’ll take the responsibility,” demurred the abigail with pinched lips, and stepping aside as if to get clear of all participation in the rash act herself, “in course you can; but my maxiom always was and is, as modesty is the most becoming ornament of youth; if you put them roses forwarder, anybody’ll see as how it was meant to be a set-off to the complexion—as you might say, putting a garding rose alongside of a wild one, to see which was the best pink.”
“Oh! indeed, it’s very nicely done; it could not possibly be better,” said Franceline earnestly. She was rather in awe of the fine lady’s maid, and looked up appealingly to Mrs. de Winton not to gainsay her; but that serene lady paid no more heed to the abigail’s protest than she might have done to the snarling of her pet pug. With deft and daring fingers she plucked out the flowers, pushed the rich, bright coils to one side so as to make room for them, and then planted them according to her fancy. If the change were done with a view to the effect foretold by Mrs. Croft, there was no denying it to be a complete success. Angélique, by way of doing something, took up a candle and held it at arm’s length over Franceline’s head, making short chuckling noises to herself which the initiated knew to be expressive of the deepest satisfaction.
“Now, my dear, I think you will do,” said Mrs. de Winton, looking up and down the young girl with a smile of placid assent, while she washed her long, tapering hands with the old Lady-Macbeth movement; “let us go down.”
Sir Simon and the Admiral and M. de la Bourbonais were assembled in the blue drawing-room, where the guests were to be received, when the two ladies entered. Mrs. de Winton, in the mellow splendor of purple velvet, old point, and diamonds, looked like the protecting divinity of the cloud-clad nymph tripping shyly after her. An involuntary murmur of admiration burst from the Admiral and Sir Simon, while M. de la Bourbonais, all smiles and joy, came forward to embrace Franceline.