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Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at the supper table.
Harry Bellairs was complaining to me, the other day, that after an exhausting season of cotillons in New York, he had been running his motor-car through immense fatigues in France and Italy, and had returned barely in time to do his duty by his salmon-river in Canada, work his new boat through the annual cruise of the yacht club, finish up a round of house-parties at Bar Harbor and Lenox, and get ready for the partridge-shooting in England with his friend the Duke of Bangham, it was a dog's life, he said, and he had no time to himself at all.
I was Captain Revaliere even up to the time when I lost my feet both of them together from one cannon ball." Now that we knew each other's identity we looked at each other again. I remembered perfectly the handsome, slender youth who led the cotillons with such frenzied agility and gracefulness that he had been nicknamed "the fury."
The gay and various dresses of the company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their ease, observing the cotillons, taking refreshments, and sometimes touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen, the exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic steps of their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and the tabor, seated at the foot of an elm, and the sylvan scenery of woods around were circumstances, that unitedly formed a characteristic and striking picture of French festivity.
The two former, who had just terminated one of the old fashioned cotillons, then peculiar to the Canadas, stood leaning over the chairs of their partners, indulging in no very charitable comments on the unfortunate Raymond, to whose "ugly" presence at that unseasonable hour they ascribed a host of most important momentary evils; as, for example, the early breaking up of the pleasantest ball of the season, the loss of an excellent anticipated supper that had been prepared for a later hour, and, although last not least, the necessity it imposed upon them of an immediate return, that bitter cold night, to Detroit.
I could not but figure to myself the confusion of an English girl, were she even present at a French assembly. Yet so powerful is habit, that not only did the ladies seem insensible, but even the gentlemen, such as did not dance, regarded them with indifference. Cotillons and waltzes were the only dances of the evening. The waltzes were danced in couples, twenty or thirty at a time.
Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a little girl like that, who had always been told what nice, irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."
In the little shadowy room, where sound was deadened by curtains, portieres, cushions, bearskins, and carpets from the Orient, the firelight shone on glittering swords hanging among the faded favors of the cotillons of three winters. The rosewood chiffonier was surmounted by a silver cup, a prize from some sporting club.
Every group is thrown as much as possible into a circle. The tables are all circular, and cotillons are chiefly preferred from having this quality. I did not join the card-players; there were about half a dozen tables, and the several parties appeared to play very high.
The music was always ready, a dozen or more players of the violin and piano relieving each other in rendering sets of cotillons, waltzes and polkas, the latter dance being then just in fashion. Next to the dance, some form of musical diversion was in favor. After the reorganization Mr.
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