transformed as if by magic into bright, clever, agreeable girls—­capable of fulfilling that only duty which falls to the lot of women:  of amusing men.  But she could not do this, and must, therefore, resign herself to an aimless life of idleness, and be content in a few years to take a place amid the Miss Brennans, the Ladies Cullen, the Miss Duffys, the Honourable Miss Gores, those whom she saw sitting round the walls ‘waiting to be asked,’ as did the women in the old Babylonian Temple.

Such was her criticism of life as she sat wearily answering Mrs. Gould’s tiresome questions, not daring to approach her mother, who was laughing with Olive, Captain Hibbert, and Lord Dungory.  Waltz after waltz had been played, and her ears reeked with their crying strain.  One or two men had asked her ‘if they might have the pleasure’; but she was determined to try dancing no more, and had refused them.  At last, at the earnest request of Mrs. Gould, she had allowed Dr. Reed to take her in to supper.  He was an earnest-eyed, stout, commonplace man, and looked some years over thirty.  Alice, however, found she could talk to him better than with her other partners, and when they left the clattering supper-room, where plates were being broken and champagne was being drunk by the gallon, sitting on the stairs, he talked to her till voices were heard calling for his services.  A dancer had been thrown and had broken his leg.  Alice saw something carried towards her, and, rushing towards May, whom she saw in the doorway, she asked for an explanation.

’Oh, nothing, nothing! he slipped down—­has broken or sprained his ankle—­that’s all.  Why aren’t you dancing?  Greatest fun in the world—­just beginning to get noisy—­and we are going it.  Come on, Fred; come on!’

To the rowdy tune of the Posthorn Polka the different couples were dashing to and fro—­all a little drunk with emotion and champagne; and, as if fascinated, Alice’s eyes followed the shoulders of a tall, florid-faced man.  Doing the deux temps, he traversed the room in two or three prodigious jumps.  His partner, a tiny creature, looked a crushed bird within the circle of his terrible arm.  Like a collier labouring in a heavy sea, a county doctor lurched from side to side, overpowered by the fattest of the Miss Duffys.  A thin, trim youth, with bright eyes glancing hither and thither, executed a complex step, and glided with surprising dexterity in and out, and through this rushing mad mass of light toilettes and flying coat-tails.  Marks, too, of conflict were visible.  Mr. Ryan had lost some portion of his garment in an obscure misunderstanding in the supper-room.  All Mr. Lynch’s studs had gone, and his shirt was in a precarious state; drunken Sir Richard had not been carried out of the room before strewing the floor with his necktie and fragments of his gloves.  But these details were forgotten in the excitement.  The harper twanged still more violently at his strings, the fiddler rasped