"David Drake - The Way to Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

"Thank you, Colonel," Adele said, miming a curtsey by spreading her hands with a bare dip of her head.
"The pleasure was mutual."

Which was more or less true: he hadn't trodden on her, always a possibility when Adele danced with
out-of-condition men who were determined to show off. It was a worse problem off-planet, of course.
Here in Xenos she was Mundy of Chatsworth, a person of rank but no particular importance. On the
distant worlds where thePrincess Cecile might land, Adele Mundy was a sophisticate from the capital, a
personage of greater status than any other woman present . . . even in the minds of those women.

The latest style for the sarabande was to keep the toes of the forward foot straight down while executing
the steps in slow motion. Adele filed the information as she filed all information. She'd be called on to
demonstrate Xenos fashion soon enough, she was sure, in a ballroom of unpainted wood or on an open
pavement under unfamiliar stars.

"Mistress Mundy?" said an attractive woman somewhat older than Adele's own thirty-two
standard—that is, Earth—years. "I was told . . . well,are you Mundy of Chatsworth? I don't mean to
intrude, but . . . ?"

The woman, a complete stranger to Adele, was dressed at the height of current style: her neck and wrist
ruffs would make it impossible for her to feed herself. That was probably the point, of course, rather like
the shoes you couldn't walk in that had been a fad among the nobility when Adele was a child.

"Yes," said Adele, knowing her voice held a hint of challenge. She didn't intend that—whoever this
woman was, she clearly wasn't an enemy in the sense that Adele would need the small pistol in the
side-pocket of her tunic.

But therehad been enemies of that sort in Adele's life, even before she joined the RCN and became part
of the Republic's most powerful instrument of policy. Reflexes you've gained on battlefields don't go
away because you're standing in a ballroom now. "I'm Adele Mundy."

"I'm Lira Kearnes, Mistress Mundy," the woman said, obviously embarrassed. "I'd hoped to talk with
you because you're a naval officer. Ah . . . I expected you to be in uniform, so though you were pointed
out to me I wasn't sure. . . ."

"Oh!" said Adele in considerably greater embarrassment than Mistress Kearnes and for better reason.
Here she was treating her hostess like a potential enemy, simply because the woman had wanted to talk
with her. Though why had she mentioned the RCN? "I'm very sorry, I was thinking of other things."

And so she had been, thinking about things that had no business in polite society. Even without the
hardships that resulted from her family's ruin, Adele Mundy wouldn't have grown into a person whom
acquaintances would've described as cheerful and outgoing. She regarded courtesy as the most important
social virtue, however, and she'd just been discourteous to her hostess.
 Quickly she went on before Lira Kearnes could resume speaking, "I received an invitation as Mundy of
Chatsworth, mistress. The invitation to the officers of thePrincess Cecile was limited to the
commissioned officers. Or in the case of the midshipmen, those who willbe commissioned. I'm a
technician; a warrant officer, in RCN terms."

The orchestra was playing a rigadoon. It was more sprightly than most of the guests cared to attempt,
but Midshipman Dorst of thePrincess Cecile danced with the athletic grace with which he'd carried out
any task requiring physical strength and dexterity. His partner was a red-haired civilian, strikingly