Hilda had passed the greater part of those two hours upstairs in her bedroom, pondering on her mother's preposterous notion of collecting the rents herself.

Alone, she would invent conversations with her mother, silencing the foolish woman with unanswerable sarcastic phrases that utterly destroyed her illogical arguments.

She would repeat these phrases, repeat even entire conversations, with pleasure; and, dwelling also with pleasure upon her grievances against her mother, would gradually arrive at a state of dull-glowing resentment.

She could, if she chose, easily free her brain from the obsession either by reading or by a sharp jerk of volition; but often she preferred not to do so, saying to herself voluptuously: "No, I _will_ nurse my grievance; I'll nurse it and nurse it and nurse it! It is mine, and it is just, and anybody with any sense at all would admit instantly that I am absolutely right." Thus it was on this afternoon.
When she came to tea her face was formidably expressive, nor would she attempt to modify the rancour of those uncompromising features.

On the contrary, as soon as she saw that her mother had noticed her condition, she deliberately intensified it.
Mrs.Lessways, who was incapable of sustained thought, and who had completely forgotten and recalled the subject of the cottage-rents several times since the departure of Mrs.Grant, nevertheless at once diagnosed the cause of the trouble; and with her usual precipitancy began to repulse an attack which had not even been opened.