d from a sense of the
guilt of heaviness.

"I am a Pandora," Laura smilingly said.

"To whom?" Tracy Runningbrook's shout was heard.

"With champagne in the heads of the men, and classics in the heads of
the women, we shall come; to something," remarked Lady Gosstre half to
herself and Georgiana near her.

An observer of Mr. Pole might have seen that he was fretting at a
restriction on his tongue. Occasionally he would sit forward erect in
his chair, shake his coat-collar, frown, and sound a preparatory 'hem;
but it ended in his rubbing his hair away on the back of his head. Mrs.
Chump, who was herself perceiving new virtues in champagne with every
glass, took the movements as indicative of a companion exploration of
the spiritual resources of this vintage. She no longer called for
it, but lifted a majestic finger (a Siddons or tenth-Muse finger, as
Freshfield named it) behind the row of heads; upon which champagne
speedily bubbled in the glasses. Laughter at the performance had fairly
set in. Arabella glanced nervously round for Mr. Pericles, who looked
at his watch and spread the fingers of one hand open thrice--an act that
telegraphed fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes an opera troupe, with
three famous chiefs and a renowned prima-donna were to arrive. The fact
was known solely to Arabella and Mr. Pericles. It was the Surprise of
the evening. But within fifteen minutes, what might not happen, with
heads going at champagne-pace?

Arabella proposed to Freshfield to rise. "Don't the ladies go first?"
the wit turned sensualist stammered; and incurred that worse than
frown, a cold look of half-comprehension, which reduces indefinitely
the proportions of the object gazed at. There were probably a dozen very
young men in the room waiting to rise with their partners at a
signal for dancing; and these could not be calculated upon to take an
initiative, or follow one--as ladies, poor slaves! will do when the
electric hostess rustles. The men present were non-conductors. Arabella
knew that she could carry off the women, but such a proceeding
would leave her father at the mercy of the wine; and, moreover, the
probability was that Mrs. Chump would remain by him, and, sole in a
company of males, explode her sex with ridicule, Brookfield in the
bargain. So Arabella, under a prophetic sense of evil, waited; and this
came of it. Mr. Pole patted Mrs. Chump's hand publicly. In spite of the
steady hum of small-talk--in spite of F