Round and round the girls went, passing in turn out of the arms of an old into those of a young man, and back again.  If they stayed their feet for a moment, Mrs. Barton glided across the floor, and, with insinuating gestures and intonations of voice, would beg of them to continue.  She declared that it was la grace et la beaute, etc.  The merriment did not cease until half-past six.  Some of the company then left, and some few were detained for dinner.  A new pianist and fresh officers arrived about nine o’clock, and dancing was continued until one or two in the morning.  To yawning subalterns the house in Mount Street seemed at first like a little paradise.  The incessant dancing was considered fatiguing, but there were interludes in which claret was drunk, cigarettes smoked, and loose conversation permitted in the dining-room.

Then the dinners!  Mrs. Barton’s dinners are worthy of special study.  Her circle of acquaintances being limited, the same guests were generally found at her table.  Lord Dungory always sat next to her.  He displayed his old-fashioned shirt-front, his cravat, his studs, his urbanity, his French epigram.  Lord Rosshill sat opposite him; he was thin, melancholy, aristocratic, silent, and boring.  There was a captain who, since he had left the army, had grown to the image of a butler, and an ashen-tinted young man who wore his arm in a sling; and an old man, who looked like a dirty and worn-out broom, and who put his arm round the backs of the chairs.  These and three A.D.C.’s made up the party.  There was very little talking, and what there was was generally confined to asking the young ladies if they had been to the Castle, and if they liked dancing.

The Marquis was a constant, although an unwilling guest at all these entertainments.  He would fain have refused Mrs. Barton’s hospitalities, but so pressing was she that this seemed impossible.  There were times when he started at the postman’s knock as at the sound of a Land Leaguer’s rifle.  Too frequently his worst fears were realized. ’Mon cher Marquis, it will give us much pleasure if you will dine with us to-morrow night at half-past seven.’  ’Dear Mrs. Barton, I regret extremely that I am engaged for to-morrow night.’  An hour later, ’Mon cher Marquis, I am very sorry you cannot come to-morrow night, but Thursday will suit us equally well.’  What was to be done?  A second excuse would result only in a proposal to fix a day next week; better accept and get it over.  He must do this or send a rude message to the effect that he was engaged for every day he intended to dine out that season, and he lacked the moral courage to write such a letter.  Mrs. Barton’s formula for receiving the Marquis never varied.  If he arrived early he found Olive waiting to receive him in the drawing-room.  She was always prepared with a buttonhole, which she insisted on arranging and pinning into his coat.  Then allusion was made to the forget-me-nots that the bouquet was sure