Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/294

286 accompli? Are they placed beyond the region of doubt? Well, I am proud, really proud of the collection my charms brought together! Take me back to Milly, please, before my partner comes to fetch me."

On our way Silvia passes us on Viscount Bingley's arm. His sallow face is alight with admiration.

"He seems to admire her very much," I say.

"He loves every pretty woman he sees," says Paul, with a queer smile, "whether she be white, brown, or black. If the love of woman is really a 'liberal education,' then he reflects great discredit on your sex, child; for the older he gets the worse he grows!"

I am scarcely by Milly's side when Sir William Aldous comes to claim me for the Lancers, and I find myself excellently well-amused, for he turns out to be a fool of the finest quality and most exquisite water. All through these sober, decorous old Lancers (how much longer will they be permitted, I wonder, in this age of break-downs and fast dances? The nineteenth century stands them; but will the twentieth?) he amuses me charmingly; for fools may be divided into two classes—those who know it, and those who do not. My partner is of the latter class; therefore, since his silly remarks are always uttered with a perfect air of good faith, and are neither recalled nor repented of, he is boundlessly fresh, inexhaustibly amusing, as no wise man could be with solid reason, admirable logic, and weighty pro and con. It is tolerably easy to guess at what a sensible man will do, under any given circumstances; but I defy any one to forecast the words and acts of a downright talking fool. He will unconsciously say things that are almost like flashes of genius, his words will be the very inspiration of folly, and he will scale heights and plumb depths before which wise men have stood silent and abashed.

The dance over, we go into the hall, and so to the refreshment