A ball is not the same thing for a woman after fifty as it is before twenty, but still it has claims upon the imagination, and the novel circumstance of a ball in the Kurhaus in Carlsbad enhanced these for Mrs. March.  It was the annual reunion which is given by municipal authority in the large hall above the bathrooms; it is frequented with safety and pleasure by curious strangers, and now, upon reflection, it began to have for Mrs. March the charm of duty; she believed that she could finally have made March go in her place, but she felt that she ought really to go in his, and save him from the late hours and the late supper.

“Very well, then,” she said at last, “I will go.”

It appeared that any civil person might go to the reunion who chose to pay two florins and a half.  There must have been some sort of restriction, and the ladies of Burnamy’s party went with a good deal of amused curiosity to see what the distinctions were; but they saw none unless it was the advantages which the military had.  The long hall over the bathrooms shaped itself into a space for the dancing at one end, and all the rest of it was filled with tables, which at half past eight were crowded with people, eating, drinking, and smoking.  The military enjoyed the monopoly of a table next the rail dividing the dancing from the dining space.  There the tight-laced Herr Hauptmanns and Herr Lieutenants sat at their sausage and beer and cigars in the intervals of the waltzes, and strengthened themselves for a foray among the gracious Fraus and Frauleins on the benches lining three sides of the dancing-space.  From the gallery above many civilian spectators looked down upon the gayety, and the dress-coats of a few citizens figured among the uniforms.

As the evening wore on some ladies of greater fashion found their way to the dancing-floor, and toward ten o’clock it became rather crowded.  A party of American girls showed their Paris dresses in the transatlantic versions of the waltz.  At first they danced with the young men who came with them; but after a while they yielded to the custom of the place, and danced with any of the officers who asked them.

“I know it’s the custom,” said Mrs. March to Miss Triscoe, who was at her side in one of the waltzes she had decided to sit out, so as not to be dancing all the time with Burnamy, “but I never can like it without an introduction.”

“No,” said the girl, with the air of putting temptation decidedly away, “I don’t believe papa would, either.”

A young officer came up, and drooped in mute supplication before her.  She glanced at Mrs. March, who turned her face away; and she excused herself with the pretence that she had promised the dance, and by good fortune, Burnamy, who had been unscrupulously waltzing with a lady he did not know, came up at the moment.  She rose and put her hand on his arm, and they both bowed to the officer before they whirled away.  The officer looked after them with amiable admiration; then he turned to Mrs. March with a light of banter in his friendly eyes, and was unmistakably asking her to dance.  She liked his ironical daring, she liked it so much that she forgot her objection to partners without introductions; she forgot her fifty-odd years; she forgot that she was a mother of grown children and even a mother-in-law; she remembered only the step of her out-dated waltz.