lhelm, these strangers to
drawing-room customs, were new to the performance. A smile flitted over
Wilhelm's face, over Paul's came a reverent expression. What he saw
made a distinct impression of wonderment on him. The constraint ceased
immediately the guests had taken their places at the table. The scent
of the flowers vied with the perfumes worn by the women and could not
overcome them. The crystal glasses sparkled in the light of the wax
candles, the jewels, and the bright eyes round the table. The servants
poured out the noble Rhine wine, the celebrated Burgundy, the elegant
Bordeaux, and the mischievous Champagne, whose colored embodiment was
reflected on the white hands of the guests, and carried their
imaginations away in its flight from gray reality to the immortal land
of rosy dreams.

The meal lasted a long time, then a few of the guests rose; the older
ones, who had principally chatted, played, and smoked before midnight,
now withdrew, if they had no daughters to chaperon; the young people,
however, went back to the dancing-room, the musicians fiddled anew as
if they were possessed, and an hour's cotillion was begun, the pretty
quick-moving figures being led by a lieutenant of the Guards, who
seemed as proud of the honor as if he were commanding on a battlefield.
Loulou, who had gone back to the dance, had begged Wilhelm in vain to
take part at least in the cotillion, where he need not dance much. She
had assured him that he would be more decorated than any other man in
the room, and would have more orders, ribbons, and wreaths given him
than all the lieutenants put together; but even the prospect of such a
triumph could not make him ambitious, and for the first time this
evening the beautiful excited girl left him looking out of humor, and
glanced at him in a way which was not merely sorrowful but reproachful.
Paul, on the other hand, was happy. He kept more than ever near the
pretty insignificant girl with whom he had danced so much, and the
good-hearted fellow did not feel in the least jealous when, in the long
pause of the cotillion, his partner went to speak to his friend who had
stood lonely for so long, and had hardly enjoyed himself at all. Paul
was sufficiently decorated; he got a sufficient number of glances from
girls' bright eyes to be quite contented, he paid a sufficient number
of compliments, great and small, for which he was thanked by sweet
smiles, and perhaps with tiny sighs, and he had the