This is my friend Bob Hely, performing the Cavalier seul in a quadrille.
Remark the good-humored pleasure depicted in his countenance. Has he any
secret grief? Has he a pain anywhere? No, dear Miss Jones, he is dancing
like a true Briton, and with all the charming gayety and abandon of our
race.
When Canaillard performs that Cavalier seul operation, does HE flinch?
No: he puts on his most vainqueur look, he sticks his thumbs into the
armholes of his waistcoat, and advances, retreats, pirouettes, and
otherwise gambadoes, as though to say, "Regarde moi, O monde! Venez, O
femmes, venez voir danser Canaillard!"
When De Bobwitz executes the same measure, he does it with smiling
agility, and graceful ease.
But poor Hely, if he were advancing to a dentist, his face would not be
more cheerful. All the eyes of the room are upon him, he thinks; and he
thinks he looks like a fool.
Upon my word, if you press the point with me, dear Miss Jones, I think
he is not very far from right. I think that while Frenchmen and Germans
may dance, as it is their nature to do, there is a natural dignity about
us Britons, which debars us from that enjoyment. I am rather of the
Turkish opinion, that this should be done for us. I think . . .
"Good-by, you envious old fox-and-the-grapes," says Miss Jones, and the
next moment I see her whirling by in a polka with Tom Tozer, at a pace
which makes me shrink back with terror into the little boudoir.