"I!" echoed Celia, in an unmistakable tone.
"You," repeated her brother.
"My dear Philip, you surely very much mistake my position with her. I have no more influence with my Lady Ingram than—than her little pug dog."
"A precious lot, then," retorted Mr. Philip, "for if anybody ruffled the tip of Miss Venus's tail, they would not be asked here again for a twelvemonth. It is you who mistake, Mrs. Celia. The only way to manage my mother is to stand up to her—to let her know that you can take your own way, and you will."
"Neither you nor I have any right to do that, Philip," replied Celia, gravely.
"I have not, that I allow," said Philip. "I don't quite see that as regards you. Her Ladyship is not your mother."
"I think that she takes to me the place both of father and mother, and that I have no more right to argue with or disobey her than them."
"That is your view, is it?" inquired Philip, meditatively. "Well, if you look at it in that way, of course you cannot ask her. So be it, then. I must be contented, I suppose, with my customary and highly useful mode of life."
"I find no lack of occupation," observed Celia.
"No, you are a woman," said Philip. "And as Patient's old rhyme (of which I never can remember the first line) says, 'Woman's work is never done.' Women do seem to possess a marvellous and enviable faculty of finding endless amusement in pushing a needle into a piece of linen, and pulling it out again—can't understand it. Oh! has my mother told you that we are going to St. Germains next week?"