The gay music from the ball-room danced towards him on the air in
sweet, broken echoes,--he heard nothing and saw nothing.

"My God!" he said at last, under his breath. "Can it be possible
that I love this woman?"




CHAPTER III.


Within the ball-room the tide of gayety was rising to its height.
It may be a very trivial matter, yet it is certain that fancy
dress gives a peculiar charm, freedom, and brightness to
festivities of the kind; and men who in the ordinary mournful
black evening-suit would be taciturn of speech and conventional in
bearing, throw off their customary reserve when they find
themselves in the brilliant and becoming attire of some
picturesque period when dress was an art as well as a fashion; and
not only do they look their best, but they somehow manage to put
on "manner" with costume, and to become courteous, witty, and
graceful to a degree that sometimes causes their own relatives to
wonder at them and speculate as to why they have grown so suddenly
interesting. Few have read Sartor Resartus with either
comprehension or profit, and are therefore unaware, as
Teufelsdrockh was, that "Society is founded upon Cloth"--i.e. that
man does adapt his manners very much to suit his clothes; and that
as the costume of the days of Louis Quinze or Louis Seize inspired
graceful deportment and studied courtesy to women, so does the