"But I'm sure you'll find Hausberg has made everything appear in the worst light," Olive protested. "I'm sure Sylvia would never snatch a man away from any girl."
"I don't understand how you can go on being friends with me and yet defend her," said Dorothy.
Olive begged her dearest Dorothy to wait for Sylvia's explanation before she got angry with herself, and on Monday afternoon Sylvia of her own accord came to the flat.
"I know everything," said Dorothy, frigidly.
"Then for Heaven's sake tell me what Hausberg said when he opened the door and saw the chimpanzee. Did he say, 'Are you there, Lily?' and did the chimpanzee answer with a cocoanut?"
"Chimpanzee," repeated Dorothy, wrathfully. "You who call yourself my friend deliberately set out to ruin my whole life, and when I reproach you with it you talk about chimpanzees!"
"Don't be silly, Dorothy," Sylvia scoffed. "Hausberg wanted a lesson for saying I was living on Lily, and with Arthur Lonsdale's help I gave him one."
"And what about Clarehaven?" asked Dorothy. "Did he help you?"
"Oh, that foolish fellow wanted a lesson, too. So I took him down to Brighton and gave him a jolly good one, though it wasn't so brutal as Hausberg's."
"Thanks very much," said Dorothy, sarcastically. "In future when my—my—"