Raoul
appears to have made himself agreeable to all," she added.
The old gentleman chuckled and took snuff.
"He loves an audience. At about four in the morning, when all the
elders were in bed--(pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I claim to reckon
myself among _les jeunes_; my poor back tells me at what cost)--at
about four in the morning the young lady who has just left you spoke
of a new dance she had seen performed this season at Bath. Well, it
appears that M. Raoul had also seen it a--valtz they called it, or
some such name. Whereupon nothing would do but they must dance it
together. Such a dance, Mademoiselle! Roll, roll--round and round--
roll, roll--but _perpendicularly_, you understand. By-and-by the
others began to copy them, and someone asked M. Raoul where he had
found this accomplishment. 'Oh, in my travels,' says he, and points
to one of the panels; and there, if you will believe me, the fellow
had actually painted himself as Perseus in the Garden of the
Hesperides."
Poor Dorothea glanced towards the panel.
"Ah, you remember it! But he must have painted in the face after
showing it to us the other day, or I should have recognised it at the
time. You must come and see it; really an excellent portrait!"
He led her towards it. The orange curtain no longer hid the third
nymph. But the blood which had left Dorothea's face rushed back as
she saw that the trinket had been roughly erased.
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