PETER: "Do you call that old?"
MARGOT: "I don't know! How old are you, Peter?"
PETER: "I shan't tell you."
One day I rode back from hunting, having got wet to the skin. I had left the Bunbury brougham in Peter's stables but I did not like to go back in wet clothes; so, after seeing my horse comfortably gruelled, I walked up to the charming lady's house to borrow dry clothes. She was out, but her maid gave me a coat and skirt, which—though much too big—served my purpose.
After having tea with Peter, who was ill in bed, I drove up to thank the lady for her clothes. She was lying on a long, thickly pillowed couch, smoking a cigarette in a boudoir that smelt of violets. She greeted me coldly; and I was just going away when she threw her cigarette into the fire and, suddenly sitting very erect, said:
"Wait! I have something to say to you."
I saw by the expression on her face that I had no chance of getting away, though I was tired and felt at a strange disadvantage in my flowing skirts.
MRS. BO: "Does it not strike you that going to tea with a man who is in bed is a thing no one can do?"
MARGOT: "Going to see a man who is ill? No, certainly not!"
MRS. BO: "Well, then let me tell you for your own information how it will strike other people. I am a much older woman than you and I warn you, you can't go on doing this sort of thing! Why should you come down here among all of us who are friends and make mischief and create talk?"