She had neither the courage to persuade her to stay, nor to encourage her to go.
"I shan't stay," said Doris obstinately.
Nicholas frowned, looked at his wife appealingly and then at Miss Dickenson with evident concern.
It came to Lily, with a slight sense of shock, that Nicholas could not be depended upon in a crisis. He was uncertain.
Doris was staring at him with smouldering eyes, and both were silent.
It was Aunt Clotilde, high-handed to the last, who carried off the situation.
She uncrossed her amazing length of limb, rose to her feet with a swinging movement, and flicked the ash off her cigarette with considerable elegance of gesture.
"You have said well, my Dickenson," observed Aunt Clo. "You will remain here no longer. Go, then; and on no account forget what I have said to you. Speak less, eschew slang, learn to place your words correctly, avoid clichés that mean nothing, and above all, cast from your mind for ever the delusion that the art of conversation consists in the dropping of detached pieces of information concerning yourself."
XIX