The remainder of her remark was lost in the frou-frou of skirts as the eight women began slowly to thread their way between the tables to the door.
Lady Holme found herself immediately behind Miss Schley, who moved with impressive deliberation and the extreme composure of a well-brought-up child thoroughly accustomed to being shown off to visitors. Her straw-coloured hair was done low in the nape of her snowy neck, and, as she took her little steps, her white skirt trailed over the carpet behind her with a sort of virginal slyness. As she passed Leo Ulford it brushed gently against him, and he drummed the large fingers of his left hand with sudden violence on the tablecloth, at the same time pursing his chubby lips and then opening his mouth as if he were going to say something.
Sir Donald rose and bowed. Mrs. Wolfstein murmured a word to him in passing, and they had not been sipping their coffee for more than two or three minutes before he joined them with his son.
Sir Donald came up at once to Lady Holme.
“May I present my son to you, Lady Holme?” he said.
“Certainly.”
“Leo, I wish to introduce you to Lady Holme.”
Leo Ulford bowed rather ungracefully. Standing up he looked more than ever like a huge boy, and he had much of the expression that is often characteristic of huge boys—an expression in which impudence seems to float forward from a background of surliness.
Lady Holme said nothing. Leo Ulford sat down beside her in an armchair.
“Better weather,” he remarked.