'Then he has been complaining?'
'A little narrative of facts,' said Nelly mildly.
'Facts—facts!' said Cicely, with the air of a disturbed lioness. 'As if a man whose ideas of manners and morals date from about—a million years before the Flood.'
'Dear!—there weren't any manners or morals a million years before the
Flood.'
Cicely drew a breath of exasperation.
'It's all very well to laugh, but if you only knew how impossible that man is!'
'Then why not get a Sunday free from him?'
Cicely flushed against her will, and said nothing. Nelly's black eyes observed her with as much sarcasm in their sweetness as she dared to throw into them. She changed her tone.
'Don't go to the cottage this afternoon, Cicely.'
'Why?' The voice was peremptory.