Lord Squib put one on.
'Do I look superb, sentimental, or only pretty?' asked his Lordship. The
example was contagious, and most of the caps were appropriated. No one
laughed more than their mistress, who, not having the slightest idea of
the value of money, would have given them all away on the spot; not from
any good-natured feeling, but from the remembrance that tomorrow she
might amuse half an hour in buying others.
Whilst some were stealing, and she remonstrating, the Duke clapped
his hands like a caliph. The curtain at the end of the apartment was
immediately withdrawn, and the ball-room stood revealed.
It was the same size as the banqueting-hall. Its walls exhibited a long
perspective of golden pilasters, the frequent piers of which were of
looking-glass, save where, occasionally, a picture had been, as it were,
inlaid in its rich frame. Here was the Titian Venus of the Tribune,
deliciously copied by a French artist: there, the Roman Fornarina, with
her delicate grace, beamed like the personification of Raf-faelle's
genius. Here, Zuleikha, living in the light and shade of that magician
Guercino, in vain summoned the passions of the blooming Hebrew: and
there, Cleopatra, preparing for her last immortal hour, proved by what
we saw that Guido had been a lover.
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