This behaviour appeared so ridiculous, and probably so absurdly condescending to the Duchess, that she could not forbear speaking of it to the Queen, the next time she saw her Majesty. To her surprise and consternation, the Queen defended Mrs. Masham; she looked grave, and answered that Mrs. Masham was “mightily in the right not to go near her grace.” Upon this reply, a sharp altercation ensued. The Duchess returned with spirit, “that she did not understand _that_, since a clearing up of a mutual misunderstanding had been left until a meeting took place between her and her cousin.” To this Anne, who had gained an unwonted supply of resolution, returned, that “it was very natural that Mrs. Masham should be afraid of going near the Duchess, when she saw that she was angry with her.” The Duchess retaliated by saying, “that her cousin could have no reason to be afraid, unless she knew herself guilty of some crime.” But she could elicit no further explanation from the Queen; for Anne was not fertile in argument, and had besides a practice, when she was obstinately bent upon any point, of repeating over and over again the same words. This provoking custom of substituting repetition instead of argument, which, according to the Duke of Marlborough, the Queen inherited from King James, she now called into requisition, to repel the fierce interrogatories of her exasperated and awful friend. “So she continued,” relates the Duchess, “to say it was very natural, and she was very much in the right.” And all that her mortified but unsubdued listener could glean from this conversation was, that the new favourite was deeply rooted in her Majesty’s heart, and that it would be more advisable to come to open hostilities with her ungrateful cousin, than to take any measures to mend the breach between them. It was on one of these occasions that the Duchess closed the door of the closet in which she and the Queen sat, with such violence, that the noise echoed through the whole apartment.[119] Incensed as she was, a visit from Mrs. Masham, two days afterwards, failed to soothe the offended Duchess. She was abroad when the lowly Abigail called; but she took care, on her return, to give a general order to her servants, to say, whenever Mrs. Masham came, that she “was not at home.” But, after some time, an interview took place by mutual appointment. The scene was such as might have been expected. The conversation began by the Duchess reproaching Mrs. Masham with the change in the Queen’s sentiments towards her, which she could not fail to attribute entirely to Mrs. Masham’s secret influence over her Majesty. She upbraided her cousin for her concealment of that intimacy and confidence with which the Queen honoured her; and told her that she considered such artifice as a very bad sign of the motives which dictated such conduct. “It was certain,” the Duchess added, “that no good intentions towards herself could influence her actions.”