Then beckoned by Oliver Marsham, she moved toward Diana.
"How do you do?
I suppose you've had a long drive?
Don't you hate driving ?" And without waiting for an answer, she turned affectedly away, and took a place at the tea-table where room had been made for her by two young men.

Reaching out a white hand, she chose a cake, and began to nibble it slowly, her elbows resting on the table, the ruffles of white lace falling back from her bare and rounded arms.

Her look meanwhile, half absent, half audacious, seemed to wander round the persons near, as though she saw them, without taking any real account of them.
"What have you been doing, Alicia, all this time ?" said Marsham, as he handed her a cup of tea.
"Dressing." An incredulous shout from the table.
"Since lunch!" Miss Drake nodded.

Lady Lucy put in an explanatory remark about a "dressmaker from town," but was not heard.

The table was engaged in watching the new-comer.
"May we congratulate you on the result ?" said Mr.Ferrier, putting up his eye-glass.
"If you like," said Miss Drake, indifferently, still gently munching at her cake.