I worked all the morning at ensmalling the gown (if one can enlarge, why can’t one ensmall?) and by luncheon time it was finished.  I had seen Jack at breakfast, but had no chance for a word with him alone, although he succeeded valiantly in keeping other chauffeurs, and valets, from making my acquaintance.  As I stopped only long enough for a cup of coffee and a roll, I didn’t give him too much trouble; but at luncheon it was different.  Everyone was chattering about the ball in the evening (a privilege promised, it seemed, as a reward for hard work on the occasion of a real ball above stairs), and house servants and visitors alike were all so gay and good-natured that it would have been stupid to snub them.  Jack saw this, and though he protected me as well as he could in an unobtrusive way, he put out no bristles.

The general excitement was contagious, and if it hadn’t been for the panic I was in about the duchess, I should have thrown myself wholly into the spirit of the hive, buzzing like the busiest bee in it.  Even as it was, I couldn’t help entering into the fun of the thing, for it was fun in its queer way.  Something like being on the stage of a third-rate theatre in the midst of a farce, where the actors mistake you for one of themselves, calling upon you to play your part, while you alone know that you are a leading member of the Comedie Francaise, just dropped in at this funny place to look on.

Here, the stage was on a much grander scale, and the play more amusing than in the couriers’ dining-rooms at the hotels where I had been.  At the hotels, the maids and valets scarcely knew each other.  Some were in a hurry, others were tired or in a bad humour.  Here the little company had been together for days.  Meals were a relaxation, a time for flirtation and gossip about their own and each other’s masters and mistresses.  Each servant felt the liveliest interest in the “Monsieur” or “Madame” of his or her neighbour; and the stories that were exchanged, the criticisms that were made, would have caused the hair of those messieurs and those mesdames to curl.

If I was openly approved by the gentlemen’s gentlemen, Mr. Jack Dane had the undisguised admiration of the ladies’ ladies; and he received their advances with tact.  Dances for the evening were asked for and promised right and left, among the assemblage, always dependent upon summons from Above.  It was agreed that, if a Monsieur or Madame wished to dance with you, no previous engagement was to stand, for all the castles and big houses from far and near would be emptied in honour of the ball, from drawing-rooms to servants’ halls, and quality was to mingle with quantity, as on similar occasions in England, whence—­the chef explained—­came the fashion.  It was a feature of l’entente cordiale, and the same agreeable understanding was to level all barriers, for the night, between high and low.