Bertha laughed,—a laugh whose faintness might have arisen from her rapid motion.
"He's rather rigorous-looking," she said; "but he always was. Still, I remember I was beginning to like him quite well when he went West. Papa is very fond of him. He turns out to be a persistent, heroic kind of being—with a purpose in life, and the rest of it."
"His size is heroic enough," said Arbuthnot. "He would look better on a pedestal in a public square than in a parlor."
Bertha made no reply, but, after having made the round of the room twice, she stopped.
"I am not dancing well," she said. "I do not think I am in a dancing mood. I will sit down."
Arbuthnot glanced at her, and then looked away.
"Do you want to be quiet?" he asked.
"I want to be quieter than this," she answered; "for a few minutes. I believe I am tired."
"You have been going out too much," he said, as he led her into a small side-room which had been given up to a large, ornate punch-bowl, to do reverence to which occasional devotees wandered in and out.
"I have been going out a great deal," she answered.