eternal consultations. You are the eldest. Why not act according to
your judgement, which is generally sound? You listen to Adela, young as
she is; or a look of Cornelia's leads you. The result is the sort of
scene I saw this afternoon. I confess it has changed my opinion of you;
it has, I grieve to say it. This woman is your father's guest; you can't
hurt her so much as you hurt him, if you misbehave to her. You can't
openly object to her and not cast a slur upon him. There is the whole
case. He has insisted, and you must submit. You should have fought the
battle before she came."

"She is here, owing to a miserable misconception," said Arabella.

"Ah! she is here, however. That is the essential, as your old governess
Madame Timpan would have said."

"Nor can a protest against coarseness be sweepingly interpreted as a
piece of unfilial behaviour," said Arabella.

"She is coarse," Wilfrid nodded his head. "There are some forms of
coarseness which dowagers would call it coarseness to notice.

"Not if you find it locked up in the house with you--not if you suffer
under a constant repulsion. Pray, do not use these phrases to me,
Wilfrid. An accusation of coarseness cannot touch us."

"No, certainly," assented Wilfrid. "And you have a right to protest. I
disapprove the form of your protest nothing more. A schoolgirl's...but
you complain of the use of comparisons."

"I complain, Wilfrid, of your want of sympathy."