'You had better write to Lady Monogram and say you can't keep your engagement.'
'But why not, papa? We could go up on Wednesday morning.'
'You can't do anything of the kind.'
'But, my dear, we should all like to have a day fixed,' said Lady Pomona. Then there was a pause. Even Georgiana, in her present state of mind, would have accepted some distant, even some undefined time, as a compromise.
'Then you can't have a day fixed,' said Mr Longestaffe.
'How long do you suppose that we shall be kept here?' said Sophia, in a low constrained voice.
'I do not know what you mean by being kept here. This is your home, and this is where you may make up your minds to live.'
'But we are to go back?' demanded Sophia. Georgiana stood by in silence, listening, resolving, and biding her time.
'You'll not return to London this season,' said Mr Longestaffe, turning himself abruptly to a newspaper which he held in his hands.
'Do you mean that that is settled?' said Lady Pomona. 'I mean to say that that is settled,' said Mr Longestaffe. Was there ever treachery like this! The indignation in Georgiana's mind approached almost to virtue as she thought of her father's falseness. She would not have left town at all but for that promise. She would not have contaminated herself with the Melmottes but for that promise. And now she was told that the promise was to be absolutely broken, when it was no longer possible that she could get back to London,--even to the house of the hated Primeros,--without absolutely running away from her father's residence! 'Then, papa,' she said, with affected calmness, 'you have simply and with premeditation broken your word to us.'
'How dare you speak to me in that way, you wicked child!'
'I am not a child, papa, as you know very well. I am my own mistress,-- by law.'
'Then go and be your own mistress. You dare to tell me, your father, that I have premeditated a falsehood! If you tell me that again, you shall eat your meals in your own room or not eat them in this house.'
'Did you not promise that we should go back if we would come down and entertain these people?'
'I will not argue with a child, insolent and disobedient as you are. If I have anything to say about it, I will say it to your mother. It should be enough for you that I, your father, tell you that you have to live here. Now go away, and if you choose to be sullen, go and be sullen where I shan't see you.' Georgiana looked round on her mother and sister and then marched majestically out of the room. She still meditated revenge, but she was partly cowed, and did not dare in her father's presence to go on with her reproaches. She stalked off into the room in which they generally lived, and there she stood panting with anger, breathing indignation through her nostrils.