"I should have taken it as a little harmless fun," said Raymond.
"Depend on it, it was so intended."

"What, when Mrs. Tallboys had a padlock and key? I see you are
determined to laugh at it all. Most likely they consulted you
beforehand."

"Cecil, I cannot have you talk such nonsense. Is this all you have
to complain of?"

"No. There was a charade on the word Blockhead, where your brother
Charles and the two De Lanceys caricatured what they supposed to be
Mrs. Tallboys' doctrines."

"How did she receive it?"

"Most good-humouredly; but that made it no better on their part."

"Are you sure it was not a mere ordinary piece of pleasantry, with
perhaps a spice of personality, but nothing worth resenting?"

"You did not see it. Or perhaps you think no indignity towards me
worth resentment?"

"I do not answer that, Cecil; you will think better of those words
another time," said Raymond, sternly. "But when you want your cause
taken up, you have to remember that whatever the annoyance, you
brought it upon yourself and her, by your own extraordinary
proceeding towards my mother--I will not say towards myself. I will