"Well, Charles, and isn't silk a more durable excrement than most? You are still devouring the tender shoots of the mulberry tree; I am already in the cocoon and shall go down to posterity as a very reputable moth vouched for by a cenotaph in St. Simon's Church, Curtain Wells." "Sir, I doubt they will never say of me 'Vive le roi!'" "We shall see, we shall see. By the way, do you know a Miss Phyllida Courteen? Her mother, a widow whose charms are as ample as her dowry, is lodging in the Crescent." Charles was taken aback for a moment. "I believe I have met her once or twice at Assemblies." "At any rate, you know her by sight." "Oh yes!" replied our hero. "Now, I wonder whether you could pick her out from this multitude of masks." Charles at once perceived the subject of the question. "She is standing over there by the second pillar and talking to a mask in porcel--no, in lacker. That's strange." "What is strange?" inquired Mr. Ripple mildly. "Nothing--a lantern effect," Charles explained. Surely he could not be mistaken in those taper fingers. Moreover, they were familiar to him. Where could he have seen them? "So that is Miss Courteen," said the Beau, looking at her very intently. "Yes, now that you have pointed her out, I certainly seem to recognize her. Who is her Vis a Vis?" "That I do not know," said Charles rather gloomily. "Then, pray, be so good-natured as to make an attempt to ascertain and you'll oblige me monstrously. Or stay--perhaps I had better inquire myself." Mr. Ripple, observing that Mr. Lovely looked somewhat melancholy, patted him on the shoulder. "Don't look so full of disapprobation, Charles. Inquisitiveness, with ordinary men and women, is a breach of good manners: with kings, it is a condescension. Dear me! how time runs!" the Beau continued, tripping from an epigram to a truism. "I will leave you to superintend the Country Dances. Let them be as Oriental as possible, I beg." With this admonition the Great little Man threaded his way through the Exquisite Mob. Charles d----d the country dances very devoutly. He was not enjoying the evening at all, and wished he were sitting in the cosy firelight of the _Blue Boar_, lulled by the whispers of playing cards, shuffled and dealt. Where could he raise that two hundred pounds he owed Vernon? Vernon--by G...! now he recognized those taper fingers. Vernon! they belonged to Vernon, he could swear to them. Too often had he watched their delicate harvesting of his guineas. He began to fret more than ever. Suddenly he noticed that everybody was looking in his direction, and became aware that time was indeed running and the moment for the Country Dances had arrived. Meanwhile Mr. Ripple searched in vain for Phyllida and a Vis a Vis in brown and gold. _Chapter the Seventeenth_ THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY