Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a sort of cloud of pale blue _tulle_, over which bouquets of geranium were scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her dark shining tresses.
The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful. There was a _soubrette_--provoking enough to have set all the parti-colored world by the ears--who traced her descent from a vavasor of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams.
Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wassail had been deep.
He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman arena--_Morituri te salutant_. Then he passed on; and, after retaining Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily.
Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the _âme damnee_ of Flora Bellasys.