"My compliments to you, Elsin; I take no credit that your gown is smooth and the lace unruffled."
"Thank you; but if you mean that I, too, am practised in the art, you are wrong."
The fixed smile trembled a little, but her eyes were wide and bright.
"Would you laugh, Carus, if I said it: what you did to me--is the first--the very first in all my life?"
"Oh, no," I said gravely, "I should not laugh if you commanded otherwise."
She looked at me in silence, the light from the chaise-lamps playing over her flushed face. Presently she turned and surveyed the darkness where, row on row, ruins of burned houses stood, the stars shining down through roofless walls.
Into my head came ringing the song that Walter Butler sang: "Ninon! Ninon! thy sweet life flies! Wasted in hours day follows day. The rose to-night to-morrow dies: Wilt thou disdain to love alway? How canst thou live unconscious of Love's fire, Immune to passion, guiltless of desire?"
Now all around us lamplight glimmered as we entered Bowling Green, where coach and chaise and sedan-chair were jumbled in a confusion increased by the crack of whips, the trample of impatient horses, and the cries of grooms and chairmen. In the lamp's increasing glare I made out a double line of soldiers, through which those invited to the Fort were passing; and as our chaise stopped and I aided Elsin to descend, the fresh sea-wind from the Battery struck us full, blowing her lace scarf across my face.
Through lines of servants and soldiers we passed, her hand nestling closely to my arm, past the new series of outworks and barricades, where bronze field-pieces stood shining in the moonlight, then over a dry moat by a flimsy bridge, and entered the sally-port, thronged with officers, all laughing and chatting, alert to watch the guests arriving, and a little bold, too, with their stares and their quizzing-glasses. There is, at times, something almost German in the British lack of delicacy, which is, so far, rare with us here, though I doubt not the French will taint a few among us. But insolence in stare and smirk is not among our listed sins, though, doubtless, otherwise the list is full as long as that of any nation, and longer, too, for all I know.
Conducting Elsin Grey, I grew impatient at the staring, and made way for her without ceremony, which caused a mutter here and there.
In the great loft-room of the Barracks, held by the naval companies, the ball was to be given. I relinquished my pretty charge to Lady Coleville at the door of the retiring-room, and strolled off to join Sir Peter and the others, gathering in knots throughout the cloak-room, where two sailors, cutlasses bared, stood guard.