hite, like
a vaporous fairy, danced with an officer in a blue uniform, a slim,
distinguished person with languid eyes and rosy cheeks, who caused a
veritable sensation among the ladies.

The other San Martino, in pale pink, was on a sofa chatting with a man
of the cut-throat type, of jaundiced complexion, with bright eyes and a
moustache so long as almost to touch his eyebrows.

"He is a Sicilian," Mlle. Cadet told Caesar; "behind us here they are
saying rather curious things about the two of them."

The Countess Brenda's daughter was magnificent, with her milk-white
skin, and her arms visible through gauze. Despite her beauty she didn't
count many admirers; she was too insipid, and the majority of the young
men turned with greater enthusiasm to the married women and to those of
a very provocative type.

Mlle. de Sandoval, the most sought after of all, didn't wish to dance.

"My daughter is really very stiff," Mme. Dawson remarked. "Spanish women
are like that."

"Yes, they often are," said Caesar.

Among all these Italians, who were rather theatrical and ridiculous,
insincere and exaggerated, but who had great pliancy and great agility
in their movements and their expression, there was one German family,
consisting of several persons: a married couple with sons and daughters
who seemed to be all made from one piece, cut from the same block. While
the rest were busy with the little incidents of the ball, they were
talking about the Baths of Caracalla, the aqueducts, the Colosseum. The
father, the mother, and the children repeated their lesson in Roman
archeology, which they had learned splendidly.

"What very absurd people they are," murmured Caesar, watching them.

"Why?" said Mlle. de Sandoval.

"It appeals to these Germans as their duty to make one parcel of
everything artistic there is in a country and swallow it whole; which
seems to an ignoramus like me, a stupid piece of pretentiousness. The
French, on the contrary, are on more solid ground; they don't understand
anything that is not French, and they travel to have the pleasure of
saying that Paris is the finest thing on earth."

"It's great luck to be so perfect as you are," retorted Mlle. de
Sandoval, violently, "you can see other people's faults so clearly."

"You mistake," replied Caesar, coldly, "I do not rely on my own good
qualities to enable me to speak badly of others."

"Then what do you rely on?"

"On my defects."

"Ah, have you defe