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Then, at the queen's command, each gentleman elf offered his arm to a lady fairy, and each gentleman fairy offered his arm to a lady elf, and so, all being provided with partners, these little people took their places for a waltz. The fairy queen and the elf prince were the only ones that did not dance; they sat side by side on the violet leaf and watched the others.
"You are misinformed," answered Alfred, and was on the point of beginning a story, when the good-natured Sophia came tripping up, to remind him that he had engaged her for the next quadrille. The Baron in the mean while drank, and promised Miss Erhard to dance the next Polish Waltz, or at all events the merry "Turn Out" with her.
The earth had become their footstool; the old life had come to an end. A sigh of regret escaped the company as the dance ceased. Blanch turned to speak to Don Felipe, but he was no longer by her side he had vanished. The musicians struck up a waltz. It was now the turn of the guests to dance if they chose; a privilege of which they were not slow to avail themselves.
A punchinello jarred against him with: "Pardonnez moi, pardie!" On the perfumed air the music swelled rapturously; a waltz, warm with the national life of Vienna; the swan song of Lanner! Softly, sweetly, breathed "Die Schönbrunner;" faster whirled the moving forms. Eyes flashed more brightly; little feet seemed born for dancing; cheeks, pale at midday, were flushed with excitement!
"Frankly, I can't say," was the reply. "He read the message," she explained hastily, "and now he has gone to decipher it." She gathered up her trailing skirts over one arm, and together they glided away through the crowd to the strains of a Strauss waltz. "I'm going to faint in a moment," she said quite calmly to Mr. Rankin. "Please have me sent to the ladies' dressing-room."
The strains of the waltz had come to him with a queer note of familiarity, a familiarity which at first he found elusive. Then, as the movement progressed, he remembered. Once more he was sitting in that distant corner of the winter garden, hearing every now and then the faint sound of the orchestra from the ballroom. It was the same waltz; alas, the same music was warming his blood!
Then he returned to the spot where she was standing in a sort of open pool, which was growing wider and deeper with her every motion. "Please take hold of my hand," he said, with the same quiet courtesy which he might have shown in asking her for a waltz, though he pressed his lips firmly together, to keep back the smile which was trembling there. "Now, can you step up on the end of this board?"
All at once, in one of the great mirrors in the hall door, she saw the reflection of the two footmen who stood there motionless, near the oak table in the hall. Bettina heard bursts of laughter and the strains of the waltz; she stopped.
Nadiboff's bright, gentle smile most alluring. So, when the music for the waltz sounded the submarine captain led her forth on to the floor. At the finish, after Jack had led his partner to a seat, Lieutenant Featherstone joined them.
And, snatching up her violin, the girl broke into a Strauss waltz, dancing to it the while, her cotton skirts flying, her pretty feet twinkling, till her eyes glowed, and her cheeks blazed with a double intoxication the intoxication of movement, and the intoxication of sound the cat meanwhile following her with little mincing perplexed steps, as though not knowing what to make of her.
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