She had assured him that he would be
more decorated than any other man in the room, and would have more
orders, ribbons, and wreaths given him than all the lieutenants put
together; but even the prospect of such a triumph could not make him
ambitious, and for the first time this evening the beautiful excited
girl left him looking out of humor, and glanced at him in a way
which was not merely sorrowful but reproachful. Paul, on the other
hand, was happy. He kept more than ever near the pretty
insignificant girl with whom he had danced so much, and the good-
hearted fellow did not feel in the least jealous when, in the long
pause of the cotillion, his partner went to speak to his friend who
had stood lonely for so long, and had hardly enjoyed himself at all.
Paul was sufficiently decorated; he got a sufficient number of
glances from girls' bright eyes to be quite contented, he paid a
sufficient number of compliments, great and small, for which he was
thanked by sweet smiles, and perhaps with tiny sighs, and he had the
feeling that he had lived in every fiber of his being, and that his
time had been marvelously well employed. He could have stayed for
several hours longer, and was quite astonished when toward four
o'clock the tireless young people's parents put an end to the
evening by their departure.
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