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.
Then he called a waiter, and said to him, in a hectoring voice:
"Bring me a Kummel and make haste about it.
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