'And you mean to put up with it, mamma?' she said.
'What can we do, my dear?'
'I will do something. I'm not going to be cheated and swindled and have my life thrown away into the bargain. I have always behaved well to him. I have never run up bills without saying anything about them.' This was a cut at her elder sister, who had once got into some little trouble of that kind. 'I have never got myself talked about with anybody. If there is anything to be done I always do it. I have written his letters for him till I have been sick, and when you were ill I never asked him to stay out with us after two or half-past two at the latest. And now he tells me that I am to eat my meals up in my bedroom because I remind him that he distinctly promised to take us back to London! Did he not promise, mamma?'
'I understood so, my dear.'
'You know he promised, mamma. If I do anything now he must bear the blame of it. I am not going to keep myself straight for the sake of the family, and then be treated in that way.'
'You do that for your own sake, I suppose,' said her sister.
'It is more than you've been able to do for anybody's sake,' said Georgiana, alluding to a very old affair to an ancient flirtation, in the course of which the elder daughter had made a foolish and a futile attempt to run away with an officer of dragoons whose private fortune was very moderate. Ten years had passed since that, and the affair was never alluded to except in moments of great bitterness.
'I've kept myself as straight as you have,' said Sophia. 'It's easy enough to be straight, when a person never cares for anybody, and nobody cares for a person.'
'My dears, if you quarrel what am I to do?' said their mother.
'It is I that have to suffer,' continued Georgiana. 'Does he expect me to find anybody here that I could take? Poor George Whitstable is not much; but there is nobody else at all.'
'You may have him if you like,' said Sophia, with a chuck of her head.
'Thank you, my dear, but I shouldn't like it at all. I haven't come to that quite yet.'
'You were talking of running away with somebody.'
'I shan't run away with George Whitstable; you may be sure of that. I'll tell you what I shall do,--I will write papa a letter. I suppose he'll condescend to read it. If he won't take me up to town himself, he must send me up to the Primeros. What makes me most angry in the whole thing is that we should have condescended to be civil to the Melmottes down in the country. In London one does those things, but to have them here was terrible!'