"I shall do nothing of the sort."
"My dear fellow, that's all very well, but when everybody knows your wife hasn't called on her—"
"There was no need for Fanny to call on her. My relations with Mrs.
Levitt were on a purely business footing—"
"Well, I'd leave them there, and not too much footing either."
"What can I do? Here she is, a war widow with nobody but me to look after her interests. She's got into the way of coming to me, and I'm not going back on the poor woman, Corbett, because of your absurd insinuations."
"Not my insinuations."
"Anybody's insinuations then. Nobody has a right to insinuate anything about me. As for Fanny, she'll make a point of calling on her now. We were talking about it not long ago."
"A bit hard on Mrs. Waddington to be let in for that."
"You needn't worry. Fanny can afford to do pretty well what she likes."
He had him there. Sir John knew that this was true of Fanny Waddington, as it was not true of Lady Corbett. He could remember the time when nobody called on his father and mother; and Lady Corbett could not, yet, afford to call on Mrs. Levitt before anybody else did.