"Of course I refuse."

"I think you are extremely foolish."

"Indeed!"

Mr. Pett cowed in his chair. He was feeling rather like a nervous
and peace-loving patron of a wild western saloon who observes two
cowboys reach for their hip-pockets. Neither his wife nor his
sister-in-law paid any attention to him. The concluding exercises
of a duel of the eyes was in progress between them. After some
silent, age-long moments, Mrs. Crocker laughed a light laugh.

"Most extraordinary!" she murmured.

Mrs. Pett was in no mood for Anglicisms.

"You know perfectly well, Eugenia," she said heatedly, "that
James Crocker is being ruined here. For his sake, if not for
mine--"

Mrs. Crocker laughed another light laugh, one of those offensive
rippling things which cause so much annoyance.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Nesta! Ruined! Really! It is quite true
that, a long while ago, when he was much younger and not quite used
to the ways of London Society, James was a little wild, but all
that sort of thing is over now. He knows"--she paused, setting
herself as it were for the punch--"he knows that at any moment