e the
girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
girls who could dance until they dropped.

Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.

About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
discussing business, politics, and even religion.

In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was
concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and
"Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
the first landing.

The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
tired musicians heroically recommenced.

As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade
and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
"Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_
times I've seen you here."

A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.

Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get
together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
o