“Is this conduct to continue? Is it?” Lady Mallowe panted.
“Yes,” said Joan, and laid her book on the table near her. There was nothing else to say. Words made things worse.
Lady Mallowe had lost her head, but she still spoke in the suppressed voice.
“You SHALL behave yourself!” she cried, under her breath, and actually made a passionate half-start toward her. “You violent-natured virago! The very look on your face is enough to drive one mad!”
“I know I am violent-natured,” said Joan. “But don't you think it wise to remember that you cannot make the kind of scene here that you can in your own house? We are a bad-tempered pair, and we behave rather like fishwives when we are in a rage. But when we are guests in other people's houses—”
Lady Mallowe's temper was as elemental as any Billingsgate could provide.
“You think you can take advantage of that!” she said. “Don't trust yourself too far. Do you imagine that just when all might go well for me I will allow you to spoil everything?”
“How can I spoil everything?”
“By behaving as you have been behaving since we came here—refusing to make a home for yourself; by hanging round my neck so that it will appear that any one who takes me must take you also.”
“There are servants outside,” Joan warned her.