The Westcotes | Page 9

Such a chance had, before now, been looked back upon as the
one bright spot in a long evening's experience. Dorothea loved all
schoolboys for the kindness shown to her by these few.
She went back to her seat, hard by a group to which Endymion was
discoursing at large. Endymion's was a mellow voice, of rich compass,
and he had a knack of compelling the attention of all persons within
range. He preferred this to addressing anyone in particular, and his eye
sought and found, and gathered by instinct, the last loiterer without the
charmed circle.
"Yes," he was saying, "it is tasteful, and something more. It illustrates,
as you well say, the better side of our excitable neighbours across the
Channel. Setting patriotism apart and regarding the question merely in
its--ah--philosophical aspect, it has often occurred to me to wonder how
a nation so expert in the arts of life, so--how shall I put it?--"
"Natty," suggested one of his hearers; but he waved the word aside.
"--of such lightness of touch, as I might describe it,--I say, it has often
occurred to me to wonder how such a nation could so far mistake its
destiny and the designs of Providence (inscrutable though they be) as to
embark on a career of foreign conquest which can only--ah-- have one
end."
"Come to grief," put in Lady Bateson, a dowager in a crimson cap with
military feathers. She was supposed to cherish a hopeless passion for
Endymion. Also, she was supposed to be acting as Dorothea's chaperon
tonight; but having with little exertion found partners for a niece of her

own, a sprightly young lady on a visit from Bath, felt that she deserved
to relax her mind in a little intellectual talk. Endymion accepted her
remark with magnificent tolerance.
"Precisely." He inclined towards her. "You have hit it precisely."
Dorothea stole a glance at her brother. Military and hunt uniforms were
de rigueur at these Axcester balls, and a Major of Yeomanry more
splendid than Endymion Westcote it would have been hard to find in
England. He stood with a hand negligently resting on his left hip-- the
word hip,--his right foot advanced, the toe of his polished boot tapping
the floor. His smile, indulgent as it hovered over Lady Bateson,
descended to this protruded leg and became complacent, as it had a
right to be.
"Well, I've always said so from the start," Lady Bateson announced,
"and now I'm sure of it. I don't mind Frenchmen as Frenchmen; but
what I say is, let them stick to their fal-de-rals."
"That is the side of them which, in my somewhat responsible position, I
endeavour to humour. You see the result." He swept his hand towards
the painted panels. "One thing I must say, in justice to my charges, I
find them docile."
Dorothea had confidence in her brother's tact and his unerring eye for
his audience. Yet she looked about her nervously, to make sure that of
the few prisoners selected for invitation to the ball, none was within
earshot. The Vicomte de Tocqueville, a stoical young patrician, had
chosen a partner for the next dance, and was leading her out with that
air of vacuity with which he revenged himself upon the passing hour of
misfortune. "Go on," it seemed to say, "but permit me to remind you
that, so far as I am concerned, you do not exist." Old General
Rochambeau and old Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin, in worn but
carefully-brushed regimentals, patrolled the far end of the room
arm-in-arm. The Admiral seemed in an ill humour; and this was
nothing new, he grumbled at everything. But the General's demeanour,
as he trotted up and down beside his friend (doubtless doing his best to
pacify him), betrayed an unwonted agitation. It occurred to Dorothea

that he had not yet greeted her and paid his usual compliment.
"Miss Westcote is not dancing tonight?"
The voice was at her elbow, and she looked up with a start--to meet the
gaze of M. Raoul.
"Excuse me"--she wished to explain why she had been startled--"I did
not expect--"
"To see me here! It appears that they have given the scene-painter a
free ticket, and I assume that it carries permission to dance, provided he
does not display in an unseemly manner the patch in the rear of his best
tunic."
He turned his head in a serio-comic effort to stare down his back.
Dorothea admitted to herself that he made a decidedly handsome fellow
in his blue uniform with red facings and corded epaulettes; nor does a
uniform look any the worse for having seen a moderate amount of
service.
"But Mademoiselle was in a--what do you call it?--a brown study,
which I interrupted."
"I was wondering why General Rochambeau had, not yet