"I don't know," answered Lawrence, his face unbending a little. "You began by telling me that you despised me because I'm such a duffer at out-of-door things, then you told me I was a spoilt baby, and now you're proving to me that I'm a bore."
"Duffer, baby, and bore!" Fanny laughed. "What an appalling combination!"
"It is, indeed. But that's what you said—"
"Oh, nonsense! I wasn't as rude as that, was I? But I never said anything of the sort, you know."
"You really did say that I was a spoilt baby—"
"No. I told you not to be, by way of a general warning—"
"Well, it's the same thing—"
"Is it? If I tell you not to go out of the room, for instance, and if you sit still—is it the same thing as though you got up and went out?"
"Why no—of course not! How absurd!"
"Well, the other is absurd too."