rapturously,
as she sank into a low chair in a corner secure from the traffic of
the kaleidoscopic crowd which had invaded Mrs. Lightmark's
drawing-room, and opened her painted fan with a little sigh intended
to express her beatitude.

Colonel Lightmark, to whom Mrs. Dollond addressed this complimentary
query (which, after all, was more of an assertion or challenge, in
that it took its answer for granted), was arrayed in the brilliant
scarlet and silver of the regiment which had once the honour of
calling him Colonel; his tunic was so tight that sitting down was
almost an impossibility for him, and Mrs. Dollond, who looked
charming in her powder and brocade, could not help wondering whether
any mortal buttons could stand the strain; and, on the other hand,
the dimensions of his patent leather boots were such that standing,
for a man of his weight, involved a torture which it was hard to
conceal. And yet the veteran was happy--he was positively radiant.
He felt that his nephew's success in the world of Art and of Society
considerably enhanced his own importance; he was not ashamed to owe
a portion of his brilliance to borrowed light--and tonight one could
not count the celebrities on the fingers of both hands.

The old hero-worshipper gazed complacently at the little
ever-shifting crowd which surrounded his nephew and his niece (so he
called her) at their post near the doorway, and he listened to Mrs.
Dollond's sparkling sallies with a blissful ignorance of her secret
ambition in the direction of a partner who would make her dance, and
for whose edification she would be able to liken the Colonel's
warlike figure to a newly-boiled lobster, or a ripe tomato.

"Regular flower-show, isn't it?" he suggested, naively reinforcing
his simile. "I don't know what the dickens they're all meant
for, but a good many of them seem to have escaped from the
Lyceum--Juliets, and Portias, and Shylocks, and so forth."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dollond. "I think the Shylocks must be
picture-dealers, you know. But their conversation isn't very
Shakespearian, is it? I heard Hamlet say, just now, that the floor
was too perfect for anything, and Ophelia--she was dancing with a
Pierrot _incroyable_--told her partner that she adored waltzing to a
string band!"

They both laughed, the Colonel shortly and boisterously, Mrs.
Dollond in a manner which suggested careful study before a
looking-glass, with an effect of dimples and of flashing teeth.

"