Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/171

 enamel, ivory, or elzevir, penning sparkling proverbs in verse, arranging costume quadrilles, preventing duels, and smiling on debutantes, adjusting old quarrels, and hearing new tenors; always in a whirl of engagements, always courted and courteous, always the busiest, the wittiest, the happiest, the most urbane, the most charming, the most serene person in all Floralia. "Tout va bien," said the Duc, and the town with him: the two persons concerned were neither of them quite so sure.

Meanwhile, for a little space the name and fame and ways and wonders of the Lady Hilda which filled Floralia with a blaze as of electric lights, quelling all lesser luminaries, was almost disregarded in a colossal sentiment, a gigantic discussion, a debate which, for endless eloquence and breathless conflict, would require the dithyrambs of Pindar meetly to record:—the grave question of who would, and who would not, go to the Postiche ball,.

"Number One goes to dine with Number Two, only that he may say he did so to Number Three," some cynic has declared; but Floralia improves