Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/228

244 night, with, my young friends, to Valentino. I wished at once to see all I needed of this side of the Mystères de Paris.

The gas lamps shone dimly from the light arcades of the Valentino saloons. The apartment and the lighting, were very tasteful. The guests were not numerous, but these, evidently, of a higher social class in this grade of society. Many of the ladies were handsome, all wore silk, and were dressed with taste, as well as with more propriety than you often meet with among ladies in saloons of good ton. The orchestra was remarkably good; the supply of refreshments excellent; every thing was elegant, and no agent of the police was to be seen. Three or four quadrilles were arranged. A couple of female dancers soon attracted attention by their dancing, but most, one very lovely young woman, in a long brown, soft silk dress, high in the throat, extremely simple, but which did not prevent her slender, perfectly formed figure, from being seen. Cleopatra herself might have had such a head, with such freely-falling brown locks, a countenance as youthfully rounded, and as perfectly beautiful. She danced with the lightness of a bird, with swan-like motion, she stooped down and again raised herself from the waves of the dance, regardless of every thing but her own pleasure, and then went, with her hands lightly resting on the shoulder of her partner, back to her seat, with the bearing of a queen, whilst, with a half-vailed glance, she, as it were, biologized the bystanders, and seemed to say to them, “I do not trouble myself about you, but I know I can rule you all!”