'I should call that rude.'
'Very well. Then we differ. But really it does seem to me that you ought to understand these things as well as anybody. I don't find any fault with you for going to the Melmottes,--though I was very sorry to hear it; but when you have done it, I don't think you should complain of people because they won't have the Melmottes crammed down their throats.'
'Nobody has wanted it,' said Georgiana sobbing. At this moment the door was opened, and Sir Damask came in. 'I'm talking to your wife about the Melmottes,' she continued, determined to take the bull by the horns. 'I'm staying there, and--I think it--unkind that Julia--hasn't been--to see me. That's all.'
'How'd you do, Miss Longestaffe? She doesn't know them.' And Sir Damask, folding his hands together, raising his eyebrows, and standing on the rug, looked as though he had solved the whole difficulty.
'She knows me, Sir Damask.'
'Oh yes;--she knows you. That's a matter of course. We're delighted to see you, Miss Longestaffe--I am, always. Wish we could have had you at Ascot. But--.' Then he looked as though he had again explained everything.
'I've told her that you don't want me to go to the Melmottes,' said Lady Monogram.
'Well, no;--not just to go there. Stay and have lunch, Miss Longestaffe.'
'No, thank you.'
'Now you're here, you'd better,' said Lady Monogram.
'No, thank you. I'm sorry that I have not been able to make you understand me. I could not allow our very long friendship to be dropped without a word.'
'Don't say--dropped,' exclaimed the baronet.
'I do say dropped, Sir Damask. I thought we should have understood each other;--your wife and I. But we haven't. Wherever she might have gone, I should have made it my business to see her; but she feels differently. Good-bye.'
'Good-bye, my dear. If you will quarrel, it isn't my doing.' Then Sir Damask led Miss Longestaffe out, and put her into Madame Melmotte's carriage. 'It's the most absurd thing I ever knew in my life,' said the wife as soon as her husband had returned to her. 'She hasn't been able to bear to remain down in the country for one season, when all the world knows that her father can't afford to have a house for them in town. Then she condescends to come and stay with these abominations and pretends to feel surprised that her old friends don't run after her. She is old enough to have known better.'