'And you think that Lady Betty Harborough would be a desirable friend for Prue?' says Peggy in bitter interrogation, and unintentionally falling back into her Medea attitude, a fact of which she becomes aware only by perceiving Freddy's hand covertly stealing to his pocket in search of a pencil and notebook to sketch her.
At the sight her exasperation culminates. She snatches the pencil out of his hand and throws it away.
'Cannot you be serious for one moment?' she asks passionately. 'If you knew how sick I am of your eternal froth and flummery!'
'Well, then, I am serious,' returns he, putting his hands in his pockets, and growing grave; 'and if you ask my opinion, I tell you,' with an air as if taking high moral ground, 'that I do not think we have any of us any business to say, "Stand by! I am holier than thou!" It has always been your besetting sin, Peggy, to say, "Stand by! I am holier than thou!"'
'Has it?' very drily.
'Now it is a sort of thing that I never can say' (warming with his theme). 'I do not take any special credit to myself, but I simply cannot. I say, "Tout savoir c'est tout pardonner!"'
'Indeed!'
'And so I naturally cannot see'—growing rather galled against his will by the excessive curtness of his companion's rejoinders—'that you have any right to turn your back upon poor Betty! Poor soul! what chance has she if we all turn our backs upon her?'
'And so Prue is to stay with Lady Betty to bolster up her decayed reputation?' cries Peggy, breaking into an ireful laugh. 'I never heard of a more feasible plan!'
'I think we ought all to stand shoulder to shoulder in the battle of life!' says Freddy loftily, growing rather red.