For a moment the conspiracy was upon the point of collapsing. There was something in the gentleness of his rebuke, and in his appeal to her mother, which brought the tears to her eyes, and in another instant she would have been kneeling beside him with everything confessed, when the door flew open and her sister Ida came bounding into the room. She wore a short grey skirt, like that of Mrs. Westmacott, and she held it up in each hand and danced about among the furniture.
“I feel quite the Gaiety girl!” she cried. “How delicious it must be to be upon the stage! You can't think how nice this dress is, papa. One feels so free in it. And isn't Clara charming?”
“Go to your room this instant and take it off!” thundered the Doctor. “I call it highly improper, and no daughter of mine shall wear it.”
“Papa! Improper! Why, it is the exact model of Mrs. Westmacott's.”
“I say it is improper. And yours also, Clara! Your conduct is really outrageous. You drive me out of the house. I am going to my club in town. I have no comfort or peace of mind in my own house. I will stand it no longer. I may be late to-night—I shall go to the British Medical meeting. But when I return I shall hope to find that you have reconsidered your conduct, and that you have shaken yourself clear of the pernicious influences which have recently made such an alteration in your conduct.” He seized his hat, slammed the dining-room door, and a few minutes later they heard the crash of the big front gate.
“Victory, Clara, victory!” cried Ida, still pirouetting around the furniture. “Did you hear what he said? Pernicious influences! Don't you understand, Clara? Why do you sit there so pale and glum? Why don't you get up and dance?”
“Oh, I shall be so glad when it is over, Ida. I do hate to give him pain. Surely he has learned now that it is very unpleasant to spend one's life with reformers.”
“He has almost learned it, Clara. Just one more little lesson. We must not risk all at this last moment.”
“What would you do, Ida? Oh, don't do anything too dreadful. I feel that we have gone too far already.”
“Oh, we can do it very nicely. You see we are both engaged and that makes it very easy. Harold will do what you ask him, especially as you have told him the reason why, and my Charles will do it without even wanting to know the reason. Now you know what Mrs. Westmacott thinks about the reserve of young ladies. Mere prudery, affectation, and a relic of the dark ages of the Zenana. Those were her words, were they not?”