"Oh, no! I often keep the floor for hours. It is a healthful and innocent exercise. I had rather dance than spend the evening in gossiping after the fashion of the strait-laced sort, who are conscientiously opposed to 'wordly follies.'" Mr. Lacy smiled, a little queerly. It was evident that he agreed with her, in her estimate of these over-scrupulous worthies. Still, the coveted request did not arrive, and she tossed out a desperate feeler. "You do not think it undignified to dance, do you?" "Perhaps if I were to state why I never participate in the pastime you laud so warmly, you would accuse me of an unmanly fondness for a dish of scandal." What did he say? What did it mean? His amusement increased with her bewilderment, and before an explanation could be asked or given, Mr. Pemberton took her hand. Ida had, thus far, passed the dullest of dull evenings. Lynn and Charley, who never let her suffer for attention when they were by, had a business engagement which would detain them until late; it was even doubtful if they could come at all. She talked at a moustached, be-whiskered, and be-imperialed youth who solicited an introduction, because he had heard that she was "smart," and hoped she could appreciate him; his conversational talents compensating in quality for their deficiency in quantity; anybody could talk, but who could dress, and stand, and look as he did? She tried to draw him out by encouraging smiles, and well put queries--he tugged at his waistcoat--she rallied him upon his abstraction--he stroked his left whisker--she pretended offence at one of his milk-and-water responses--he performed the like kindly office to the right--and she gave up in despair. Mr. De Langue was next. He was "smart" himself, and therefore could appreciate _her_, and to prove this, he rolled forth volume after volume of French compliments, unanswerable, because so highly polished that one could not, as it were, take hold of them;--edified her by disquisitions upon subjects of which she was profoundly ignorant, and information respecting others, of which she knew more than himself. After much manoeuvring she sought refuge in a corner, fatigued, disgusted and misanthropical. "I have thought that I might shine in general company, where feeling never enters, and flaring flippancy passes for wit; it seemed easy to manufacture small-talk, but I was mistaken. This is 'rational recreation!' the pleasure of mingling in 'the best society,' as Josephine says. I envy St. Simon in his twenty years' solitude upon his stone pillar." "Compton, my dear fellow, can you make room for me to pass?" said a voice near her. "If I were a lady, I would faint, and let you extricate me, as I am not, I must fight my way out."