"
Paul could not give an immediate answer, and he had not time to
think of one; as the music stopped the dance ended, and many people
moved toward them, making further conversation impossible. The
gentlemen came out of the drawing-room and smoking-rooms and mingled
with the dancers. Paul made his way neatly through the crowd toward
a fresh, pretty, but otherwise insignificant-looking girl, to whom
he had paid a great deal of attention, and with whom he wished to
dance again. Wilhelm looked for Loulou, whom he found near her
mother. Frau Ellrich spoke to him in a friendly way. "Are you
enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a kind, almost tender expression
on her melancholy face. Wilhelm would not have grieved her for
worlds, so for all answer he took her soft hand and kissed it. To
keep himself from speaking the truth he was silent. From the four
doors of the room servants now appeared bearing large silver trays
covered with glasses of champagne. Loulou stood by the chimney-piece
and gave several forced and absent-minded answers to the young man.
She followed with her eyes the minute-hand on the clock, and at a
slight sign from her little hand a servant came up to her. She took
the glass in which the wine sparkled, and at the same moment, the
hands of the clock pointing to twelve, she cried loudly like a
child, "Health to the New Year! Health to the New Year!" Every guest
took a glass, crying joyfully, "Health to the New Year!" and clinked
his glass against his neighbor's.
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