_Miss Ramsey_: "And have some more tea. There is nothing like _fresh_ tea for clearing the brain, and we certainly need clear brains for this." She pushes a button in the wall beside her, and is silent till the maid appears. "More tea, Nora." She is silent again while the maid reappears with the tea and disappears. "I don't know that he has been coming here so _very_ much. But he has no right to be coming at all, if he is engaged. That is, in that _way_." _Miss Garnett_: "No. Not unless--he wishes he wasn't." _Miss Ramsey_: "That would give him _less_ than no right." _Miss Garnett_: "That is true. I didn't think of it in that light." _Miss Ramsey_: "I'm trying to decide what I ought to do if he does want to get off. She said herself that they were engaged?" _Miss Garnett_: "As much as that. Conny understood her to say so. And Conny never makes a mistake in what people say. Emily didn't say _whom_ she was engaged to, but Conny felt that that was to come later, and she did not quite feel like asking, don't you know." _Miss Ramsey_: "Of course. And how came she to decide that it was Mr. Ashley?" _Miss Garnett_: "Simply by putting two and two together. They two were together the whole time last summer." _Miss Ramsey_: "I see. Then there is only one thing for me to do." _Miss Garnett_, admiringly: "I knew you would say that." _Miss Ramsey_, dreamily: "The question is what the thing is." _Miss Garnett_: "Yes!" _Miss Ramsey_: "That is what I wish to think over. Chocolates?" She offers a box, catching it with her left hand from the mantel at her shoulder, without rising. _Miss Garnett_: "Thank you; do you think they go well with tea?" _Miss Ramsey_: "They go well with anything. But we mustn't allow our minds to be distracted. The case is simply this: If Mr. Ashley is engaged to Emily Fray, he has no right to go round calling on other girls--well, as if he wasn't--and he has been calling here a great deal. That is perfectly evident. He must be made to feel that girls are not to be trifled with--that they are not mere toys." _Miss Garnett_: "How splendidly you do reason! And he ought to understand that Emily has a right--" _Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I don't know that I care about _her_--or not _pri_marily. Or do you say pri_mar_ily?" _Miss Garnett_: "I never know. I only use it in writing." _Miss Ramsey_: "It's a clumsy word; I don't know that I shall. But what I mean is that I must act from a general principle, and that principle is that when a man is engaged, it doesn't matter whether the girl has thrown herself at him, or not--" _Miss Garnett_: "She certainly did, from what Conny says." _Miss Ramsey_: "He must be shown that other girls won't tolerate his behaving as if he were _not_ engaged. It is wrong." _Miss Garnett_: "We must stand together." _Miss Ramsey_: "Yes. Though I don't infer that he has been attentive to other girls generally."