"I am coming to that. You have chosen to spend these three months in London without any better reason for it than that everybody else does so. That being so, you ought to behave like everybody else. For instance, when Mrs. Morris wanted to take you to her sister's dance to-night, you ought to have gone; also Lady Wraysbury asked you to go to the concert at the Hamiltons'. Again you refused."
"She wanted you to come too," said Harry, "at least, she asked you," he added, getting in a back-hander.
"I'm an old woman, and I choose to sit by my own fire."
"Won't you have it lit?" asked Harry. "And I chose to sit there too. But I will go away, if you like."
"And will you go to the dance?"
"Not in the least; if you send me away, I shall go to bed."
"You speak as if you were all the six great powers, sending an ultimatum to Heligoland," said Lady Oxted.
"Not in the least; if you send me away, I shall go."
Lady Oxted laughed.