Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/371

 or two, and you interpret worth. My dear girl—that fellow!"

She was silent. I have since learnt why. It seems, if you please, that the very same remark had been made to her by that idiot Chevenix, upon me!

We were close to the door: we passed it, and I flung a glance into the vestibule. There, sure enough, at the head of the stairs, was posted my friend of the moleskin waistcoat, in talk with a confederate by some shades uglier than himself—a red-headed, loose-legged scoundrel in cinder-grey.

I was fairly in the trap. I turned, and between the moving crowd caught Alain's eye and his evil smile. He had found a partner: no less a personage than Lady Frazer of the lilac sarsnet and diamond bandeau.

For some unaccountable reason, in this infernal impasse my spirits began to rise, to soar. I declare it: I led Flora forward to the set with a gaiety which may have been unnatural, but was certainly not factitious. A Scotsman would have called me fey. As the song goes—and it matters not if I had it then, or read it later in my wife's library—

never mind what. The band played the spring and I danced it round, while my cousin eyed me with extorted approval. The quadrille includes an absurd figure—called, I think, La Pastourelle. You take a lady with either hand and jig them to and fro, for all the world like an Englishman of legend parading a couple of wives for sale at Smithfield; while the other male, like a timid purchaser, backs and advances with his arms dangling.