The hours that followed my entry into the ballroom in the Mansion of the exalted Gouverneur Faulkner were like minutes of time that dropped from a golden clock of joy.  I danced on feet that were strong wings to glide over a floor that was a many colored cloud from the reflection of the soft lights and the silken skirts which ruffled over it.  And, what was most enjoyable to me in this case, I glided in whatever direction pleased me and took with me the armful of cloud, which was the girl with whom I was dancing, on long swoops of my own will, instead of being led in my flights by another as had always before been the case with my dancing.  It was the most of a joy that I had ever experienced.  And as I so enjoyed that freedom I did not know how it was that I should have such a feeling of dissatisfaction when I beheld that beautiful Madam Whitworth dancing within the arms of the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner.  I blushed that I should be so unworthy, with such an unreasonable fury in my heart, and I looked away so that I seemed not to see the smile that he sent to me over the head of the very sweet Belle girl in blue ruffles and silver slippers I was guiding past him in the trot of a fox.

“Yes, Sue Tomlinson is as lovely as a ripe peach, isn’t she?” asked Mademoiselle Blue Cloud of me as I lowered her almost to the floor over my arm, slid her four steps to the left then trotted her two back and two forward; and her tone had a very sweet demand of wistfulness in it as she looked up into my eyes and pressed very close to that protecting towel of the bath.

For an instant I could not think of one single bonbon of compliment to offer the lady and I wished I had sat up all of the night to talk to that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit in the railroad train and had had my nice gray lady friend in the Ritz-Carlton there with her notebook to transcribe the many pleasing things he reported himself to have said to the ladies whom he called “skirts.”  Then nice Lord Chisholm came all the way from England into my memory to assist me in my difficulty.  I translated from him freely in this manner: 

“Aw, on me word, you are a ripping good sort and I could take you on for the whole evening if you’d let me.  What?”

“I wish I could,” she answered and by that time I had thought out a nice little squeeze for her very pretty waist in its silver girdle under my arm.  Then I had to put her into the arms of a nice young man named Miles Menefee.  To get my breath and to think up some more of the compliments that had been given to me for my pleasure in the past, I made my retreat behind a very large palm that was in the corner of the room, and out upon a wide balcony which hung over a moonlit garden across which I could see dim hills in the moonlight.

“Girls of all nations are granddaughters of the same Monsieur Satan, I suspect,” I made remark to myself as I inhaled the perfume of the flower garments of the spring garden below.  “I must take a great care that I do not—­”