Then Dolly, with a gesture, waved me aside; and confronted the serjeant on the threshold.
"You can go," she said. "This is my cousin. I will arrange with them below."
The man hesitated. Over his shoulder I could see a couple more faces, glaring in at me.
Dolly stamped her foot.
"I tell you to go. Do you not hear me?"
"Mistress—" began the man.
"How dare you disobey me!" cried Dolly, all aflame with some emotion.
"This is my own parlour, is it not?"
He still looked doubtfully; and his eyes wandered from her to me, and back again. He was yet just without the room. Then Dolly slammed to the door, in a passion, in his very face.
Then she wheeled on me, like lightning. (I heard the men's footsteps begin to go downstairs.)
"Now you will explain, if you please—" she began, with a furious kind of bitterness.