The band struck up a waltz.
"Do you dance?" he said, looking down from her face to her feet.
"Not in the afternoon," she answered.
The dance had begun, and a pair came whirling down toward them.
Evadne moved back to be out of the way, and Menteith, looking round for a partner, saw Mrs. Guthrie Brimston opposite smiling at him.
He went over to her.
"Well, what do you make of the bride?" she asked.
"Her conversation is not exactly animated," he answered, looking into Mrs.
Guthrie Brimston's face intently.
She was a round, flat-faced, high-hipped, high-shouldered woman, short in the body, and tight-laced; and she had a trick of wagging her skirts and perking at a man when talking to him.
She did so now, nodding and smiling in a way that made her speech piquant with the suggestion that she thought or knew a great deal more than she meant to say.