With the frown still on his forehead, he draws Mona's hand through his arm, and leads her from the room.
Lady Rodney has turned pale. Otherwise she betrays no sign of chagrin, though in her heart she feels deeply the rebuke administered by this, her favorite son. To have Mona be a witness of her defeat is gall and wormwood to her. And silently, without any outward gesture, she registers a vow to be revenged for the insult (as she deems it) that has just been put upon her.
Dorothy Darling, who has been listening anxiously to all that has passed, and who is very grieved thereat, now speaks boldly.
"I am afraid," she says to Lady Rodney, quite calmly, having a little way of her own of introducing questionable topics without giving offence,—"I am afraid you do not like Mona?"
At this Lady Rodney flings down her guard and her work at the same time, and rises to her feet.
"Like her," she says, with suppressed vehemence. "How should I like a woman who has stolen from me my son, and who can teach him to be rude even to his own mother?"
"Oh, Lady Rodney, I am sure she did not mean to do that."
"I don't care what she meant; she has at all events done it. Like her! A person who speaks of 'Jack Robinson,' and talks of the 'long and short of it.' How could you imagine such a thing! As for you, Dorothy, I can only feel regret that you should so far forget yourself as to rush into a friendship with a young woman so thoroughly out of your own sphere."
Having delivered herself of this speech, she sweeps from the room, leaving Violet and Dorothy slightly nonplussed.
"Well, I never heard anything so absurd!" says Doatie, presently, recovering her breath, and opening her big eyes to their widest. "Such a tirade, and all for nothing. If saying 'Jack Robinson' is a social crime, I must be the biggest sinner living, as I say it just when I like. I think Mona adorable, and so does every one else. Don't you?"