The ball room was decorated as if for a distribution of prizes. The musicians, seated upon raised benches, played false with distressing self-assurance; but when it is a question of dancing, the ladies are always indulgent. Monsieur Robineau opened the ball with Cornélie; Alfred danced opposite them, which aroused a spirit of emulation in Mademoiselle de la Pincerie, who executed her steps with such accuracy that Robineau cried:
Edouard did not care to dance; amid that crowd, that noise, all those remarks exchanged but unheeded, his thoughts wandered far from the château. But one must do like everybody else; the languishing Eudoxie did not dance, as she found that exercise too violent for her nerves; and to her great amazement Edouard left her to invite another lady.
Despite the accuracy of her steps, Mademoiselle Cornélie was not invited by Alfred for the following dance. Indeed she came very near not dancing at all, because Robineau had felt called upon to invite another partner; but Uncle Mignon was always at hand to make himself useful; his niece called him, and they took their places opposite Alfred, before whom Mademoiselle Cornélie executed nothing but pirouettes.
They had reached the fourth dance when the explosion of a bomb announced the fireworks.
"What! already?" said Robineau; "it is much too soon. François, go and tell Monsieur Férulus not to set them off yet."
But Monsieur Férulus, to avenge himself for their refusal to listen to his singing, had vowed that he would not allow the ball to last any longer than the dinner. He had not awaited the message from François to set fire to the suns and the pin-wheels; and when the valet came with his master's orders, the librarian replied:
"I am very sorry, but the fire is lighted and I can't put it out."
When they found that the rockets and suns continued to go off, they decided to leave the ball room and go into the garden where the fireworks were in progress. In the confusion caused by this hurried exit, the gentlemen escorted the first ladies whom they found; Edouard had hurried out among the first, in order to avoid having Madame de Hautmont on his arm. Alfred had led away one of Monsieur Moulinet's nieces, and Mademoiselle Cornélie, compelled to accept Robineau's escort, and convinced at last that all her airs and graces produced no effect upon the young man who possessed a hundred thousand francs a year, concluded that it would be prudent not to allow Robineau also to carry his homage elsewhere; so she took his hand with a forced smile, allowed herself to be led by him into the garden, and pretended not to notice that he was taking her into a path which the rest of the company were not following; and not until they reached a decidedly dark spot did she say to him: