"What key?"
"The key of her bedchamber, please, my lady."
"Oh! the key of my dressing-room. Tell Lady Jane that I have got the key of the Window dressing-room, and mean to keep it," replied the old lady, firmly.
The maid executed a courtesy, and departed; and Lady Alice sank back again upon her pillow, with her eyes and mouth firmly closed, and the countenance of an old lady who is conscious of having done her duty upon one of her sex.
About two minutes later there came a rustle of a dressing-gown and the patter of a swift-slippered tread through the short passage from the dressing-room, and, without a knock, Lady Jane, with a brilliant flush on her face, ruffled into the room, and, with her head very high, and flashing eyes, demanded—
"Will you be so good, Lady Alice Redcliffe, as to give me the key of my bed-room?"
To which Lady Alice, without opening her eyes, and with her hands mildly clasped, in the fashion of a mediæval monument, over her breast, meekly and firmly made answer—
"If you mean the key of the Window dressing-room, Jane, I have already told your maid that I mean to keep it!"
"And I'll not leave the room till I get it," cried Lady Jane, standing fiercely beside the monument.
"Then you'll not leave the room to-night, Jane," replied the statuesque sufferer on the bed.