Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/699

 692 Mrs. Rose looks up with an expression, as much as to ask—is it champagne or lunacy?)

“Ha! ha! What an idea! How original you are. Don’t you take supper yourself?”

“Yes, thank you, I have been supping, on and off, all the evening.” (Mark my delicacy here in showing by inference that it was quite correct to do as she had done.) “Dear! how stupid that fellow is, he has spilt some trifle on your dress—permit me.”

“I see you are quite a lady’s man. T-h-a-n-k you. It can’t hurt, it’s only froth.”

“Venus Anadyomene with the foam of the parent sea still clinging to her!”

“La! what do you mean? Some silly flattery, I suppose? How very warm it is.”

Here I offer my arm, trusting my stilted style of conversation has made her give me up, but the heedless use of the word “Venus” rendered me more bearable than I had hoped. She declines to take the hint, and continues:

“By the way—just a soupçon, if you please,—I observed you dancing with one of the Miss Sheppards; how do you like her?”

“I scarcely know; for, after trying every topic of conversation I could think of, and finding the only response I could gain was, ‘Do you think so?’ ‘Yes, indeed!’ ‘Oh, no!’ I gave up the attempt at a dialogue, subsided into a zoophytic condition, shuffled through a quadrille, and said nothing.”

“Ha I ha! ha! really how droll you are! Do you like Mrs. Sheppard—only half a glass, if you please.”

“I fear I offended Mrs. Sheppard, for upon her asking me if I were not related to the Frogmarsh Greens, one of the oldest Yorkshire families, I replied, innocently enough, ‘No; I can trace my pedigree only as far back as Henry the Eighth’s time, my ancestor, Thomas Horatio Green, having been hanged on Tor Hill, near Glastonbury Tor, for various state crimes committed against that polygamic monarch aforesaid.’ Thereat Mrs. Sheppard incontinently turned her back upon me, though what I stated was a simple fact, in no way intended to wound her feelings.”

“Was he really hanged, though? Poor Mrs. Sheppard must have been dreadfully shocked! Thank you, no more champagne—is that Maraschino? Th—at will do.”

Thinking that a chasse really ought to terminate further proceedings, I again offered my arm, but again the gesture was unheeded. This time, however, I was more decided, and persistently stuck out my elbow to be taken, and taken it was, but the lady added:

“You are really so gallant, perhaps by and by I may ask you to escort me down again for a biscuit, or some little light refreshment.”

“À votre service.”

Whereupon, with a long-drawn sigh and a love-lorn look at the débris of dainties which were being cleared off for a fresh supply, we ascended to the salle de danse, where, of course, by this time there is another tremendous rush and crush and twirl and whirl, and Lord Eversham, an old roué of the worst sort, is dancing with the youngest and prettiest girl in the room. This and a signal with her fan from my rosy friend, which I pretended not to observe, completed my discontent, and I levanted forthwith.

How delicious was the fresh air of night after those heated rooms. The breeze was blowing off the sea, and the stars were winking and blinking because, as the poet says, they had nothing else to do. Possibly, however, on this occasion they had been dancing to the music of the spheres, and had taken their places again after a whirl round in space to a time played by the only celestial band I ever heard of—that of Orion.

little lady, in green spectacles, told us the story, gravely: we will set it down as we heard it.

Little Old Lady loquitur:—

“The scene was a very popular place of amusement and recreation; there is no need to particularise further. You have been there, and so have I. It was not a very grand day at the popular place of amusement; that is to say, no monster attraction had been got up to draw multitudes thither, but there were visitors in plenty, nevertheless, and there was also music. Amongst those visitors I have to bespeak your attention on behalf of a friend of mine:—as she happened to wear on this occasion a blue dress, and I don’t mean to mention names, I shall call her the Lady in Blue. She was walking companionless in the place of public resort, and had left the more frequented spots for one comparatively lonely, where the hum of the human hive was still audible, a sort of accompaniment to the footsteps of the few who were sauntering up and down, probably, like herself, waiting for friends. Looking at these loungers, the Lady in Blue experienced a momentary feeling of wonder at the sight of a policeman in this quiet spot, where people had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves peaceably. It might have formed a fine subject for a ‘fragment’ on the depravity of human nature, but the Lady in Blue was no poet, and could not improve the occasion. She walked on, therefore, and listened to the music, and had just begun to wonder impatiently why her friends were so late at the place of meeting, when, by one of those chances which get such fine names from mental transfer-ists and thought impression-ists, she raised her head suddenly, and caught the glance of a peculiarly gentleman-like stranger fixed in a searching manner upon her. It was averted at once, of course: nevertheless there was a little additional hauteur in the carriage of the Lady in Blue as she continued her walk. Still on her ear came faintly the delightful platitudes of the eternal, never to be worn out, Trovatore; but suddenly there was a step close beside her, a touch, a gentle and most polite

‘Excuse me, madam.’

“And the lady stopped in amazement. It was the gentlemanly stranger.

‘I beg ten thousand pardons, but there is a—in fact a disagreeable insect on your shawl. Might I be allowed to remove it?’