What are we to do, I.should like to know ?' Adela was struck with consternation.

She had been prepared for petulant bewailing, but a vehement outburst of this kind was the last thing she could have foreseen, above all to have it directed against herself.
'What do you mean, Alice ?' she said with pained surprise.
'Why, it's all your doing, I suppose,' the other pursued, in the same voice.

'What right had you to let him go off in that way without saying a word to us?
If the truth was known, I expect you were at the bottom of it; he wouldn't have been such a fool, whatever he says.

What right had you, I'd like to know ?' Adela calmed herself as she listened.

Her surprise at the attack was modified and turned into another channel by Alice's words.
'Has Richard told you what passed between us ?' she inquired.