[T]he Duchess, and the dandies, and the member's wife and all the rest of their tribulations, were happily hidden from the view by the towering bouquets of the gold plateau vases at the head of the room. … A contra-dance after supper was felt to be a national duty; but behind those fatal vases a plot had already been concocted by the recondites for rewarding their previous self-denial, not by a quadrille, but a galoppe.