'You know exactly what I mean,' answered Mrs. Rushmore angrily. 'Don't take me up at every word! Contradicting isn't reasoning. Anybody can contradict.'
'And besides,' continued Margaret, growing cooler as the other grew warm, 'one cannot be divorced till one has been married.'
'Oh, you'll marry soon enough!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, infuriated by her calm. 'You'll marry an adventurer with dyed moustaches and a sham title, who'll steal your money and beat you! And though I am your dear mother's best friend, Margaret, I'm bound to say that it will serve you right. It's useless to deny it. It will serve you right.'
'It would certainly serve me right if I married the individual with the dyed moustaches,' said Margaret, smiling in spite of herself.
'I'm glad you agree with me at last. It shows that you're not so perfectly mad as you seemed. If you had gone on as you were talking at first I should certainly have had a mad doctor to examine you. As it is, I don't believe you're fit to have all that money. You mean well, I daresay. But you have no sense. None at all.'
Margaret laughed and took the opportunity of the lull in the battle to escape to her own room. A moment later Mrs. Rushmore followed her and knocked at the door.
'I'm sure you've had nothing to eat all day,' she called out anxiously, before Margaret could answer.
Margaret opened and put her head out, to explain that she had lunched, but she did not say where.
'Oh, very well!' answered Mrs. Rushmore, unwilling to show that her anger had subsided so soon. 'That's all I wanted to know.'
Like most Anglo-Saxons, she vaguely connected regular meals with morality.