The mood shifts throughout the short story as Leila’s initial enthusiasm becomes tempered by her sobering conversation with the old man and her subsequent reaction. Throughout the narrative, the mood shifts from exciting and energetic to sad and heavy. At the beginning of “Her First Ball,” Leila’s exuberant enthusiasm leads the reader to feel Leila’s excitement for the ball. Readers share in her excitement as she enters the dance hall to seemingly magical scenes of the band warming up and the ladies getting ready in the dressing room.
However, the mood becomes rather hesitant and dark as Mansfield points out the flaws of the ball, yet Leila maintains her excitement and idealized vision of it. For example, after her first dance, Leila is elated. Yet, it is clear that her partner is not enjoying himself:
Certainly her partner did not say very much. He coughed, tucked his handkerchief away, pulled down his waistcoat, took a minute thread off his sleeve. But it didn’t matter.
Her first partner clearly ignores Leila after their shared dance, nervously fidgeting with his sleeve instead of talking to her. However, his lack of interest hardly registers for Leila, and she immediately forgets it (“it didn’t matter”) once her next dance partner approaches her. This creates an increasingly unsettling mood for readers because Leila repeatedly ignores signs that the ball is not as grand or amazing as she believes. The juxtaposition of her enthusiasm and the evidence that those around her are not enjoying the ball creates a tense mood.
At the end of the story, the mood becomes depressing and heavy during Leila’s conversation with the old man, in which he harshly says that her youth will soon be over and Leila will become old and unwanted:
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you can’t hope to last anything like as long as that. No-o,’ said the fat man, ‘long before that you’ll be sitting up there on the stage, looking on, in your nice black velvet. And these pretty arms will have turned into little short fat ones…’
The old man’s choice of words is rather harsh, as he says that Leila “can’t hope” for a long period of youthful enjoyment and suggests that her arms will turn into “little short fat ones.” This creates a heavy, sad mood, as readers are struck with this existentialist view about the impermanence of youth and class and are shocked by the old man's harsh language. When Leila ignores this and returns to her romanticized view of the ball—now a delusion because she chooses to forget about the old man—readers are left with a sinking feeling of dread.
