"Is it for me to say?"
"Well, I hardly know. I should be glad, at any rate, if you'd make a suggestion. I can't, for instance, get up and turn the lady out of her own sister's house. Do you want me to do that? Would you like me to—to take her away in a cab?"
There was a long silence, so awful that he forced himself to speak. "I am extremely sorry. It was, of course, outrageous that you should have had to sit in the same room with her for five minutes. But what could I do?"
"You could have taken me away."
"I did, as soon as I got the chance."
"Not before you had"—she paused for her phrase—"condoned her appearance."
"Condoned her appearance? How?"
"By your whole manner to her."
"Would you have had me uncivil?"
"There are degrees," said she, "between incivility and marked attention."