'And besides, I want to go to London, and you may be absolutely certain, my child, that he won't let two of us go.'
'I shall speak to him first.'
'Oh no, you won't.'
'Shan't I? You'll see.'
'No, you won't. Because it just happens that I spoke to him the night before last. And he's making inquiries and he'll tell me to-night. So what do you think of that?'
Leonora drew aside the portière.
'My dear girls!' she protested benevolently, standing there.
The feud, always apt thus to leap into a perfectly Corsican fury of bitterness, sank back at once to its ordinary level of passive mutual repudiation. Rose and Millicent were not bereft of the finer feelings which distinguish humanity from the beasts of the jungle; sometimes they could be almost affectionate. There were, however, moments when to all appearance they hated each other with a tigerish and crouching hatred such as may be found only between two opposing feminine temperaments linked together by the family tie.
'What's this about your going to London, Rosie?' Leonora asked in a voice soothing but surprised, when the meal had begun.
'You know, mamma. I mentioned it to you the other day.' The girl's tone implied that what she had said to Leonora perhaps went in at one ear and out at the other.