"Of course not," he said pleasantly. He dropped her hand from the dance and waved graciously in the direction she had indicated her friend was waiting, though didn't bother to actually see who she meant. He didn't tend to get invested in social circles outside of his own, and it wouldn't have hurt his feelings in the slightest if the friend had been only an imagined interruption — that was the same thing he'd done in the first place, after all, that had started their dance off.

"I'm most grateful to you, Mrs. Pettigrew — do let me know if you ever need the favor returned," he said merrily as he departed back to the crowd, with a mind to discover where his wife had gotten off to.