French, and how Miss Fletskaya might have found a better match, nevertheless these words had for them a peculiar meaning, and they understood it just as well as Kitty did.
In Kitty's mind, the whole ball, the whole evening, everything, seemed enveloped in mist. Only the stern school of her education, serving her well, sustained her, and enabled her to do what was required of her, that is to say, to dance, to answer questions, to talk, even to smile.
But even before the mazurka began, while they were arranging the chairs and a few couples were already starting to go from the smaller rooms into the great ball-room, a sudden attack of despair and terror seized her. She had refused five invitations, and now she had no partner; and now there was no hope at all that she would be invited again, for the very reason that her social success would make it unlikely to occur to any one that she would be without a partner. She would have to tell her mother that she was not feeling well, and go home, but even this seemed impossible. She felt overwhelmed.
She went into the farthest end of a small parlor, and threw herself into an arm-chair. The airy skirts of her robe enveloped her delicate figure as in a cloud. One bare arm, as yet a little thin, but pretty, fell without energy, and lay in the folds of her rose-colored skirt; with the other she held her fan, and with quick, sharp motions tried to cool her heated face. But while she looked like a lovely butterfly caught amid grasses, and ready to spread its rainbow-tinted wings, a horrible despair oppressed her heart.
"But perhaps I am mistaken: perhaps it is not so."
And again she recalled what she had seen.
"Kitty, what does this mean?" said the Countess Nordstone, coming to her with noiseless steps.
Kitty's lower lip quivered; she hastily arose.
"Kitty, are n't you dancing the mazurka?"
"No .... no," she replied, with trembling voice, almost in tears.
