"Don't quarrel with Jack, then," she said. "He would tell the footman to show you the door. You would have to fight the footman. Jack would not speak to you."
Dodo felt strongly the necessity of putting an end to this conversation, which was effectually done by this somewhat uncourteous speech. The fencing had become rather too serious to please her, and she did not wish to be serious. But she felt oppressively conscious of this man's personality, and saw that he was stronger than she was herself. She decided to retreat, and made a desperate effort to be entirely flippant.
"I hope the Princess has profited by the advice I gave her," she said. "I told her how to be happy though married, and how not to be bored though a Russian. But she's a very bad case."
"She said to me dreamily as I left," said the Prince, "'You'll hear of my death on the Matterhorn. Tell Lady Chesterford it was her fault.'"
Dodo laughed.
"Poor dear thing," she said, "I really am sorry for her. It's a great pity she didn't marry a day labourer and have to cook the dinner and slap the children. It would have been the making of her."
"It would have been a different sort of making," remarked the Prince.
"I believe you can even get blasé of being bored," said Miss Grantham, "and then, of course, you don't get bored any longer, because you are bored with it."
This remarkable statement was instantly contradicted by Edith.
"Being bored is a bottomless pit," she remarked. "You never get to the end, and the deeper you go the longer it takes to get out. I was never bored in my life. I like listening to what the dullest people say."