She says
I’ve been upstairs and down for two hours.
That family portrait gallery finished me.
It was so old and gloomy and dead that I felt as if I were dead myself.
I just had to do something. I wanted to jab my parasol through the window-pane.
I understood just how the suffragettes felt.
But I was afraid of shocking the agent.
He is such a meek little man, and he seemed to think so well of me. If I had broken the window I would have shattered his ideals of womanhood, too, I’m afraid.
So I just slipped away quietly and came here. Do you like family portraits?
I hate ’em! They’ve been bequeathed to some museum, I am told.
They’re valuable historically–early colonial governors and all that sort of stuff.
But there is some one with me who–who takes a deep interest in such things.