Paul could not give an immediate answer, and he had not time to think of one; as the music stopped the dance ended, and many people moved toward them, making further conversation impossible.  The gentlemen came out of the drawing-room and smoking-rooms and mingled with the dancers.  Paul made his way neatly through the crowd toward a fresh, pretty, but otherwise insignificant-looking girl, to whom he had paid a great deal of attention, and with whom he wished to dance again.  Wilhelm looked for Loulou, whom he found near her mother.  Frau Ellrich spoke to him in a friendly way.  “Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked, with a kind, almost tender expression on her melancholy face.  Wilhelm would not have grieved her for worlds, so for all answer he took her soft hand and kissed it.  To keep himself from speaking the truth he was silent.  From the four doors of the room servants now appeared bearing large silver trays covered with glasses of champagne.  Loulou stood by the chimney-piece and gave several forced and absent-minded answers to the young man.  She followed with her eyes the minute-hand on the clock, and at a slight sign from her little hand a servant came up to her.  She took the glass in which the wine sparkled, and at the same moment, the hands of the clock pointing to twelve, she cried loudly like a child, “Health to the New Year!  Health to the New Year!” Every guest took a glass, crying joyfully, “Health to the New Year!” and clinked his glass against his neighbor’s.  Loulou went in search of her father to drink with him; after he had given her a friendly kiss on her rosy cheek, he regarded her with fatherly pride.  She went to her mother, taking her in her arms and kissing her on both cheeks.  The third person whom she sought was Wilhelm.  They could not exchange words, but her eyes sought his and they both flashed a mutual and joyous recognition.  Her brown eyes had said to his black ones, “May this be a year of happiness for us,” and the black eyes had understood the brown ones in their flight and thanked them.  The gay tumult lasted for several minutes, the buzz of talking, the clatter of glasses, and the coming and going of servants.  Then suddenly an invisible hand seemed to lay hold of the general disorder, ruling and directing it, dissolving groups who had chanced together, here driving them forward, there arranging them backward.  According to some fixed law, without delaying or waiting, an orderly procession was formed into the dining-room.  The invisible spirit hand which possessed all this power was thrice-holy etiquette; the law which brought order out of confusion, and gave to everyone his place, was that of precedence.  Paul and Wilhelm, these strangers to drawing-room customs, were new to the performance.  A smile flitted over Wilhelm’s face, over Paul’s came a reverent expression.  What he saw made a distinct impression of wonderment on him.  The constraint ceased immediately the guests had taken their places at the table.  The