“You had no right whatsoever to make any promises on my behalf,” she now said harshly. “You have acted foolishly and officiously. This is no business of yours.”
“I’ll gladly make it my business if you’ll let me, Aunt de Tracy!” pleaded Robinette. “If you don’t feel inclined to provide for Mrs. Prettyman, mayn’t I? She is my mother’s old nurse and she shan’t want for anything as long as I have a penny to call my own!” Robinette’s eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. de Tracy was not a whit moved by this show of emotion, which appeared to her unnecessary and theatrical.
“You are forgetting yourself a good deal in your way of speaking to me on this subject,” she said coldly. “When I behaved unbecomingly in my youth, my mother always recommended me to go upstairs, shut myself up alone in my room, and collect my thoughts. The process had invariably a calming effect. I advise you to try it.”
Robinette did not need to be proffered the 242 hint twice. She rushed out of the room like a whirlwind, not looking where she went. In the hall, she came face to face with Lavendar, who had just left the dining room.
“Mr. Lavendar!” she cried. “Do go into the drawing room and speak to my aunt. Preach to her! Argue with her! Convince her that she can’t and mustn’t act in this way; can’t go and turn Mrs. Prettyman out, and rob her of the plum tree, and leave her with hardly a penny in the world or a roof over her head!”
“It’s not a very pretty or a very pleasant business, Mrs. Loring, I admit,” said Lavendar quietly.
“Is it English law?” cried Robinette with indignation. “If it is, I call it mean and unjust!”
“Sometimes the laws seem very hard,” said Lavendar. “I’d like to discuss this affair with you quietly another time.”
As he spoke, Carnaby appeared and wanted to be told what the matter was, but Robinette 243 discovered that it is not very easy to criticise a grandmother to her youthful grandson, more especially when the lady in question is your hostess.