If any social event can prove the influence of environment, is it not
this? In fact, the Sunday-best mood of some reacts so effectually on
the rest that the men who are most accustomed to wearing full dress
look just like those to whom the party is a high festival, unique in
their life. And think too of the serious old men to whom such things
are so completely a matter of indifference, that they are wearing
their everyday black coats; the long-married men, whose faces betray
their sad experience of the life the young pair are but just entering
on; and the lighter elements, present as carbonic-acid gas is in
champagne; and the envious girls, the women absorbed in wondering if
their dress is a success, the poor relations whose parsimonious
"get-up" contrasts with that of the officials in uniform; and the
greedy ones, thinking only of the supper; and the gamblers, thinking
only of cards.
There are some of every sort, rich and poor, envious and envied,
philosophers and dreamers, all grouped like the plants in a flower-bed
round the rare, choice blossom, the bride. A wedding-ball is an
epitome of the world.
At the liveliest moment of the evening Crevel led the Baron aside, and
said in a whisper, with the most natural manner possible:
"By Jove! that's a pretty woman--the little lady in pink who has
opened a racking fire on you from her eyes.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231