"I don't know," Elma generally answered. "She just lies and sickens. As though she didn't care."
She raised her hand to her head at the time.
"Dr. Smith says it's the spring weather which everybody feels specially trying this year."
Cuthbert grunted.
George Maclean came to Elma for the first dance. He seemed in very good spirits. Elma found herself wondering if it were about Mabel. Well, one would see. Mabel had always been tied in a kind of a way, and now she was free! Mr. Maclean anyhow was the best, above all the best. Even Mr. Symington! When she thought of him, her mind always ran off to wondering what now might happen to Mr. Symington.
She had a long, rollicking waltz with Mr. Maclean. They rollicked, because children were on the floor and steering seemed out of fashion. Yet he carried her round in a gentle way, because Elma, with her desire to be the best of dancers, invariably got knocked out with a robust partner. He carried her round in the most gentle way until the music stopped with the bang, bang of an energetic amateur. Elma found the floor suddenly hit her on the cheek in what seemed to her a most impossible manner.
"Now what could make it do that?" she asked Mr. Maclean. He was bending over her with rather a white face.
Cuthbert came up.
"Why didn't you tell Maclean that you were giddy?" he said. "He would have held you up."
"But I wasn't giddy," said Elma. "I'm not giddy now."