"Go on," it seemed to say, "but permit me to remind you that, so far as I am concerned, you do not exist." Old General Rochambeau and old Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin, in worn but carefully-brushed regimentals, patrolled the far end of the room arm-in-arm.

The Admiral seemed in an ill humour; and this was nothing new, he grumbled at everything.

But the General's demeanour, as he trotted up and down beside his friend (doubtless doing his best to pacify him), betrayed an unwonted agitation.

It occurred to Dorothea that he had not yet greeted her and paid his usual compliment.
"Miss Westcote is not dancing tonight ?" The voice was at her elbow, and she looked up with a start--to meet the gaze of M.Raoul.
"Excuse me"-- she wished to explain why she had been startled--"I did not expect--" "To see me here! It appears that they have given the scene-painter a free ticket, and I assume that it carries permission to dance, provided he does not display in an unseemly manner the patch in the rear of his best tunic." He turned his head in a serio-comic effort to stare down his back.
Dorothea admitted to herself that he made a decidedly handsome fellow in his blue uniform with red facings and corded epaulettes; nor does a uniform look any the worse for having seen a moderate amount of service.
"But Mademoiselle was in a--what do you call it ?--a brown study, which I interrupted." "I was wondering why General Rochambeau had, not yet come to speak with me." "I can account for it, perhaps; but first you must answer my question, Mademoiselle.

Are you not dancing tonight ?" "That will depend, sir, on whether I am asked or no." She said it almost archly, on the moment's impulse; and, the words out, felt that they were over-bold.