"Are you dancing them?" he asked.
"No."
"Come and sit out again, then; and I'll be as reasonable as you please."
She glanced quickly round the room, as if in search of something.
"Very well," she said: and turning on the threshold, came face to face with her husband.
With a scarcely perceptible start, she acknowledged his grave bow of recognition, and drew back to let him pass. But he remained close enough to catch what followed.
"I'd rather dance than sit out, after all," she announced, with a brisk change of manner.
"But, dear lady, . . . why?"
She laughed. "What a question! I thought you pretended to know something about women? I claim the divine right of whim. Voilà, tout! One can't spend the evening in explanation. The spirit moves me to romp. It's infinitely more wholesome than mooning under the stars. All we want now is a cheery vis-à-vis. Ah . . . there's Michel. The very man!"
She signalled across the room with her fan, and Michael came skidding and slithering towards her, a delighted girl clinging to his arm:—a girl in the glamour of her first season, a-thrill to her white kid finger-tips because these rested on the sleeve of a living artist, who had already paid her one or two chivalry-coated compliments.