‘You don’t know her.’
‘Too well. You yourself have taught me to know her. Don’t compel me to say what I think of her.’
‘She is beautiful, and high-minded, and warm-hearted. I don’t know a womanly quality that she doesn’t possess. You will offend me most seriously if you speak a word against her.’
‘Then I will be silent. But you must never ask me to meet her.’
‘Never?’
‘Never!’
‘Then we shall quarrel. I haven’t deserved this, Dora. If you refuse to meet my wife on terms of decent friendliness, there’s no more intercourse between your house and mine. You have to choose. Persist in this fatuous obstinacy, and I have done with you!’
‘So be it!’
‘That is your final answer?’
Dora, who was now as angry as he, gave a short affirmative, and Jasper at once left her.