He related to them his woes an unheard of luxury of imaginative style, and for an hour was perfectly dazzling with liveliness and go.

"Alas!" said the painter Marcel, as he listened to the flood of irony pouring from his friend's lips, "Rodolphe is too lively, far too lively." "He is charming," replied a young woman to whom Rodolphe had just offered a bouquet, "and although he is very badly got up I would willingly compromise myself by dancing with him if he would invite me." Two seconds later Rodolphe, who had overheard her, was at her feet, enveloping his invitation in a speech, scented with all the musk and benjamin of a gallantry at eighty degrees Richelieu.

The lady was confounded by the language sparkling with dazzling adjectives and phrases modelled on those in vogue during the Regency, and the invitation was accepted.
Rodolphe was as ignorant of the elements of dancing as of the rule of three.

But he was impelled by an extraordinary audacity.

He did not hesitate, but improvised a dance unknown to all bygone choreography.