On certain of these girls the dancing produced a peculiar effect.

The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music, even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain.

These were the girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the girls who could dance until they dropped.
Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.
About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused.

Some of them, however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly, discussing business, politics, and even religion.
In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was concerning something dreadful.

They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and "Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and biting their nether lips.