"It would interfere with my cure. The
sitting up late would be bad enough, but I should get very hungry, and I
should eat potato salad and sausages, and drink beer, and do all sorts of
unwholesome things."
"Nonsense! The refreshments will be 'kurgemass', of course."
"You can go yourself," he said.
A ball is not the same thing for a woman after fifty as it is before
twenty, but still it has claims upon the imagination, and the novel
circumstance of a ball in the Kurhaus in Carlsbad enhanced these for Mrs.
March. It was the annual reunion which is given by municipal authority in
the large hall above the bathrooms; it is frequented with safety and
pleasure by curious strangers, and now, upon reflection, it began to have
for Mrs. March the charm of duty; she believed that she could finally
have made March go in her place, but she felt that she ought really to go
in his, and save him from the late hours and the late supper.
"Very well, then," she said at last, "I will go."
It appeared that any civil person might go to the reunion who chose to
pay two florins and a half. There must have been some sort of
restriction, and the ladies of Burnamy's party went with a good deal of
amused curiosity to see what the distinctions were; but they saw none
unless it was the advantages which the military had.
Pages:
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239