As he stood pale and quiet in the background, Mary was accepting
invitations to dance; for now Mrs. Collis and Lottie had arrived,
bringing three American girls and a youthful American mother from the
Hotel Metropole, where they had gone to stay. Counting the hostess and
her daughter, the number of women had been swelled to a dozen by these
last arrivals, and dancing was to begin. The younger men, entering into
the spirit of the occasion, struggled with each other to engage
partners, and the smiling ladies were promising to split each dance
between four partners.
Mary, being the prettiest girl as well as something of a celebrity, was
almost alarmingly in request. She was besieged by men who begged her
bodyguard to introduce them quickly, and laughing like a child she was
busily giving away dances when Vanno came forward. For a moment he stood
silently behind the other men, taller than any, dark and grave, and as
always mysteriously reproachful, as if for some sin of Mary's which she
had committed unconsciously.
She looked up, struck almost with fear by the contrast between his
gravity and the frivolous gayety of the others. But he made all the rest
look puerile, and even common.
"Will you dance with me?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, forgetting to add the polite "with pleasure," which
years ago had been taught at the convent as the suitable reply for a
debutante to a prospective partner.
"The third waltz?"
"Very well--the third waltz," she echoed.
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