"Nothing in the world can abash me now," I thought as I wandered
carelessly about the salon. "I am ready for anything."

Just then Seriosha came and requested me to be his vis-a-vis.

"Very well," I said. "I have no partner as yet, but I can soon find
one."

Glancing round the salon with a confident eye, I saw that every lady was
engaged save one--a tall girl standing near the drawing-room door. Yet a
grown-up young man was approaching her-probably for the same purpose as
myself! He was but two steps from her, while I was at the further end
of the salon. Doing a glissade over the polished floor, I covered the
intervening space, and in a brave, firm voice asked the favour of her
hand in the quadrille. Smiling with a protecting air, the young lady
accorded me her hand, and the tall young man was left without a partner.
I felt so conscious of my strength that I paid no attention to his
irritation, though I learnt later that he had asked somebody who the
awkward, untidy boy was who, had taken away his lady from him.




XXII -- THE MAZURKA

AFTERWARDS the same young man formed one of the first couple in a
mazurka. He sprang to his feet, took his partner's hand, and then,
instead of executing the pas de Basques which Mimi had taught us, glided
forward till he arrived at a corner of the room, stopped, divided his
feet, turned on his heels, and, with a spring, glided back again. I, who