“You would,” said Sir Isaac after an interval.
His tone was hostile, so hostile that it startled her.
“Don’t you?”
He shook his head. “My idees and your idees—or anyhow the idees you’ve got hold of—somewhere—somehow——I don’t know where you get your idees. We haven’t got the same idees, anyhow. You got to keep order in these places—anyhow....”
She perceived that she was in face of a prepared position. “I don’t think,” she threw out, “that she does keep order. She represses—and irritates. She gets an idea that certain girls are against her....”
“And you get an idea she’s against certain girls....”
“Practically she expels them. She has in fact just turned one out into the street.”
“You got to expel ’em. You got to. You can’t run these places on sugar and water. There’s a sort of girl, a sort of man, who makes trouble. There’s a sort makes strikes, makes mischief, gets up grievances. You got to get rid of ’em somehow. You got to be practical somewhere. You can’t go running these places on a lot of littry idees and all that. It’s no good.”
The phrase “littry idees” held Lady Harman’s attention for a moment. But she could not follow it up to its implications, because she wanted to get on with the issue she had in hand.
“I want to be consulted about these expulsions. Girl after girl has been sent away——”