"I didn't say you should," said Miss Potter.
"What did you say?"
"What I said was that anyone with any pretension to the name of lady would wash her hands before getting into bed," corrected Miss Potter.
"I know you don't think me a lady," broke out Miss Impett. "But ma was quite a lady till she started to let her lodgings in single rooms."
"Don't say any more and let's all go to sleep," urged pacific Miss Allen, who was all the time keeping an anxious eye on her friend Miss Potter.
Miss Impett, perhaps fired by her family reminiscence, was not so easily mollified.
"Of course, if certain people, who're nobodies, try to be'ave as somebodies, one naturally wants to know where they've learned their classy manners," she remarked.
"Was you referring to me?" asked Miss Potter.
"I wasn't speaking to you," replied Miss Impett.
"But I was speaking to you. Was you referring to me?"