OCTAVIUS. [awkwardly] I beg your pardon, Violet. I can say no more.
MISS RAMSDEN. [still loth to surrender] Of course what you say puts a very different complexion on the matter. All the same, I owe it to myself—
VIOLET. [cutting her short] You owe me an apology, Miss Ramsden: that's what you owe both to yourself and to me. If you were a married woman you would not like sitting in the housekeeper's room and being treated like a naughty child by young girls and old ladies without any serious duties and responsibilities.
TANNER. Don't hit us when we're down, Violet. We seem to have made fools of ourselves; but really it was you who made fools of us.
VIOLET. It was no business of yours, Jack, in any case.
TANNER. No business of mine! Why, Ramsden as good as accused me of being the unknown gentleman.
Ramsden makes a frantic demonstration; but Violet's cool keen anger extinguishes it.
VIOLET. You! Oh, how infamous! how abominable! How disgracefully you have all been talking about me! If my husband knew it he would never let me speak to any of you again. [To Ramsden] I think you might have spared me, at least.
RAMSDEN. But I assure you I never—at least it is a monstrous perversion of something I said that—
MISS RAMSDEN. You needn't apologize, Roebuck. She brought it all on herself. It is for her to apologize for having deceived us.