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Updated: June 14, 2025
The feeling grew stronger as he mounted the wide marble stairway to the broad landing, which was a bower of palms and flowers, with handsome women passing in and out like birds in gorgeous plumage, and gay voices sounding in his ears. It swept over him like a flood when he entered the spacious ball-room and gazed upon the dazzling scene before him.
Captain Tartar left the ball-room and returned to the inn, more indignant than ever. When he rose the next morning he was informed that a gentleman wished to speak with him; he sent up his card as Don Ignatio Verez, colonel commanding the fourth regiment of infantry.
Before midnight he was at the dance, pushing his way through crowds of acquaintances, stumbling over loving couples ensconced on the landings of the stairs, and running against forlorn old ladies, whose mouths were full of ice-cream and their hearts of bitterness against the younger generation; and so, at last, he reached the ball-room, where everything that was youngest and most fresh was assembled, swaying and gliding, and backing and turning in the easy, graceful half-walk, half-slide of the Boston step.
Herr Captain, you will return with me to the ball-room?" "If your excellency will excuse me, no. I am tired. I shall return to the hotel with Herr Grumbach." "As you please. Good night." The three left the cabinet under various emotions. The sub-chief bowed himself off at the gates, and Carmichael and Grumbach crossed the Platz leisurely.
Ruth had not taken the Point Pleasant dances seriously, but as day on day she stifled in a half-darkened flat that summer, she sometimes sobbed at the thought of the moon-path on the sea, the reflection of lights on the ball-room floor, the wavelike swish of music-mad feet. The flat was hot, dead. The summer heat was unrelenting as bedclothes drawn over the head and lashed down.
In a ball-room, she is alone in a multitude, most often wishing heartily she were rolled comfortably in the blankets of her cosy bed, she may be a nice girl, men admire her as a rule, but men are too dependent in Ottawa to declare their opinions openly, when they thereby tread upon society's corns. Although this is naturally a democratic country, social ostracism is not unknown amongst us.
Never had her hair looked so black, her complexion so exquisite, or her large eyes so brilliant. Having greeted the hosts, Madeleine took her aunt's arm, while M. Fauvel wandered through the rooms in search of the card-table, the usual refuge of bored men, when they are enticed to the ball-room by their womankind. The ball was now at its height.
"Very well," said Paul, rather coldly. "When you want me, come to me." Hermione nodded, and moved away, mixing with the crowd under the hundreds of lights in the great ball-room. Paul sighed, and stood by the door, caring little for what went on. He was not a man who really took pleasure in society, though he had cultivated his social faculties to the utmost, as being necessary to his career.
Maria Louisa at the first words of Napoleon withdrew her hands from the pedigree, and stood half sullen and ashamed by the side of her husband. The royal couple of Saxony hastened to roll up the pedigree as quickly as possible, and put it back into the golden box. Napoleon offered his arm to his consort. "Come, madame," he said, "let us go to the ball-room."
Work is absolutely suspended, and the entire population dons its holiday garb. The Puerta del Sol at this season blazing with relentless light is crowded with patient Madrilenos in their best clothes, the brown-cheeked maidens with flowing silks as in a ball-room, and with no protection against the ardent sky but the fluttering fan they hold in their ungloved hands.
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