"Go on, please."
"There would seem to be no more to say; for surely it is needless to comment upon Mr. Pegram's crowning impertinence in writing directly to you."
"Go on, please. Tell me all about it. You see I don't at all understand."
By this time the good dames began to realise that Agatha was either very angry or very deeply hurt, so they decided to soothe and placate her. This is how they did it.
"No, dear, I suppose you do not understand. How should you, with such bringing up as your grandfather gave you? Of all the strange perversities—"
"Stop!" cried Agatha, rising from her chair with a look upon her face which her aunts did not understand but gravely feared. Their last spoken words had set her free to speak. She had not dared resent their criticism of Baillie Pegram's conduct. That might have been misinterpreted. But the reflection upon her grandfather was a different matter. She stood there livid to the lips and shaking with the indignation which she was struggling to suppress. After that one word, "Stop!" she remained silent for a space, struggling to restrain the angry utterance that was surging to her lips. At last, speaking in a constrained voice, she said:
"I will not hear another word. Neither you nor any other human being is worthy to speak my grandfather's name except with reverence. He was great, and wise, and unspeakably good. He hated lies and shams and false conventionalities."
Here the roused tigress in Agatha was sharply restrained. She found herself about to indulge in a tirade, and that she was resolved not on any account to do. Still speaking in a voice of enforced calm, she added:
"I must go now and write to Captain Pegram. I shall dine with the Misses Blair at The Forest to-day."
To Baillie she wrote: