drawing-room and smoking-rooms and mingled with the dancers.
Paul made his way neatly through the crowd toward a fresh, pretty, but
otherwise insignificant-looking girl, to whom he had paid a great deal
of attention, and with whom he wished to dance again. Wilhelm looked
for Loulou, whom he found near her mother. Frau Ellrich spoke to him in
a friendly way. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a kind,
almost tender expression on her melancholy face. Wilhelm would not have
grieved her for worlds, so for all answer he took her soft hand and
kissed it. To keep himself from speaking the truth he was silent. From
the four doors of the room servants now appeared bearing large silver
trays covered with glasses of champagne. Loulou stood by the
chimney-piece and gave several forced and absent-minded answers to the
young man. She followed with her eyes the minute-hand on the clock, and
at a slight sign from her little hand a servant came up to her. She
took the glass in which the wine sparkled, and at the same moment, the
hands of the clock pointing to twelve, she cried loudly like a child,
"Health to the New Year! Health to the New Year!" Every guest took a
glass, crying joyfully, "Health to the New Year!" and clinked his glass
against his neighbor's. Loulou went in search of her father to drink
with him; after he had given her a friendly kiss on her rosy cheek, he
regarded her with fatherly pride. She went to her mother, taking her in
her arms and kissing her on both cheeks. The third person whom she
sought was Wilhelm. They could not exchange words, but her eyes sought
his and they both flashed a mutual and joyous recognition. Her brown
eyes had said to his black ones, "May this be a year of happiness for
us," and the black eyes had understood the brown ones in their flight
and thanked them. The gay tumult lasted for several minutes, the buzz
of talking, the clatter of glasses, and the coming and going of
servants. Then suddenly an invisible hand seemed to lay hold of the
general disorder, ruling and directing it, dissolving groups who had
chanced together, here driving them forward, there arranging them
backward. According to some fixed law, without delaying or waiting, an
orderly procession was formed into the dining-room. The invisible
spirit hand which possessed all this power was thrice-holy etiquette;
the law which brought order out of confusion, and gave to everyone his
place, was that of precedence. Paul and Wi