“You're right, Mac, the substance and the shadow.”
Many of the women seated about the room were covertly staring at Felicity, but so far none had joined her group. This consisted, besides Stefan, of two callow and obviously enthralled youths, a heavy semi-bald man with paunched eyes and a gluttonous mouth, and a tall languid person wearing tufts of hair on unexpected parts of his face, and showing the hands of a musician.
Round Mary stood half a dozen women, their host, the kindly and practical Mr. Elliot, a white-haired man of distinguished bearing, and a gigantic young viking with tawny hair and beard and powerful hands.
“That's Gunther, an A1 sculptor,” said McEwan, indicating the viking, who was looking at Mary as his ancestors might have looked at a vision of Freia.
“They're well matched, eh, James?”
“As well as she could be,” the other answered gravely. McEwan looked at his friend. “Mon,” he said, relapsing to his native speech, “come and hae a drop o' the guid Scotch.”
Constance had determined that Felicity should dance, in spite of her well-known laziness. At this point she crossed the room to attack her, expecting a difficult task, but, to her surprise, Felicity hardly demurred. After a moment of sphinx-like communing, she dropped her cigarette and rose.
“Mr. Byrd is going to paint me as something without a soul—I think I will dance,” she cryptically vouchsafed.
“Shall I play?” offered Constance, delighted.
Miss Berber turned to the languid musician.