"The visit...?"
"The visit you paid me, on Tuesday."
"Is Van Naghel put out by a visit which I paid you on Tuesday?" asked Constance, very contemptuously, in surprise.
"You ought not to have come on my day."
"I ought not to have...?"
"Don't be angry, Constance: I have had such a scene with my husband as it is! Don't be angry, for Heaven's sake! Don't misunderstand me. I am full of sympathy for you: you are my sister and I am fond of you; but that doesn't alter the fact that you were wrong, that you ought not to have come on my day. Why did you do it? I am so glad to see you at any other time. But just on an at-home day, when you risked meeting, well, just the people whom you did meet: Mrs. van Eilenburgh, the Van den Heuvel Steyns! Why did you do it? What made you do it?"
"So I am not fit to appear at my sister's at-home day?"
"Please, Constance, don't take it like that. I am not unsympathetic. We even had a talk once...."
Constance laughed aloud:
"Once!" she said. "Once!"