"Strive against a whirlpool," sarcastically responded Selina.
"You are getting deeper into it: by your own admission, you are having new things every day. It is adding fuel to fire."
"I can't go naked."
"But you must have a large stock of dresses by you."
"Do you think I would appear in last year's things? I can't and I won't. You do not understand these matters, Alice."
"Then you ought not to 'appear' at all. You should have stopped at the Grange."
"As good be in a nunnery. Once you have been initiated into the delights of a London season, you can only come back to it. Fancy my stopping at that mouldy old Grange."
"What is to be the end of all this?" lamented Alice.
"Ah, that's it! The End. One does not know, you see, how soon it may come. I'd not so much mind if I could get all the season first. The torment of it is, that Damereau is pressing for payment. She is throwing out hints that she can't supply me any longer on credit—and what on earth am I to do if she won't? What a shame it is that there should be so much worry in the world!"
"The greatest portion of it is of our own creating, Selina. And no worry ought to have the power very seriously to disturb our peace," the younger sister continued, in a whisper.