As it seemed to her that in California everybody shook hands with everybody else on the slightest occasions, sometimes to save further conversation, she gave him her own.

He shook it, less forcibly than she had feared, and abruptly left her.

For a moment she was piqued at this superior and somewhat brusque way of ignoring her request, but reflecting that it might be the awkwardness of an untrained man, she dismissed it from her mind.

The voices of her friends in the already resounding passages also recalled her to the fact that she had been wandering about the house with a stranger, and she rejoined them a little self-consciously.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs.Leyton, gayly, "it seems we are to stay.
Leyton says Rushbrook won't hear of our going." "Does that mean that your husband takes the whole opera troupe over to your house in exchange ?" "Don't be satirical, but congratulate yourself on your opportunity of seeing an awfully funny gathering.

I wouldn't have you miss it for the world.