"I do whenever I want to. What does it matter?"
They were walking towards the house as they spoke, and Diana ran upstairs to get their gloves and scarves that they had taken off before tea.
When she had got them and was coming downstairs again, she heard a great noise in the hall.
It was Inez struggling and fighting with Julia.
She had inveigled Chris and Noel into the big library, and then had run out and turned the key of the door.
"Now I've got you!" she cried, dancing up and down. "And you'll have to be late going home, for I shan't let you go."
Chris and Noel battered at the door, and Julia appeared. Then ensued a struggle for the key. Inez fought and screamed and kicked, and even tried to bite, when Julia wrenched the key out of her grasp and unlocked the door. Diana looked on in horror. Inez seemed to have turned into a little tiger.
"Come on," she said to the boys, "let us get out of this." And then they hastily went out of the hall door.
Inez left Julia and darted after them.
"You are all milksops, and I don't care for one of you! You might have backed me up against that beast of a Julia!"