“Really, Laura,” Page remarked. “Really, you manage very awkwardly, it seems to me.”

Laura caught her riding-crop in her right hand.

“Don’t you⁠—don’t you make me forget myself;” she cried, breathlessly.

“It seems to me,” observed Page, quietly, “that you’ve done that long since, yourself.”

Laura flung the crop down and folded her arms.

“Now,” she cried, her eyes blazing and rivetted upon Page’s. “Now, just what do you mean? Sit down,” she commanded, flinging a hand towards a chair, “sit down, and tell me just what you mean by all this.”

But Page remained standing. She met her sister’s gaze without wavering.