She rose finally to pour herself out some coffee, and at the movement her step-mother looked up. There was a glitter in her hard grey eyes that somewhat belied the smile she sought to assume. "Now, my dear," she said, in the tone of one lecturing a refractory child, "you were a very wilful and impertinent girl last night. I told you I should punish you, and I have kept my word. I do not advise you to aggravate the offence by sulking."
"Will you tell me what you mean?" said Sylvia, standing stiff and straight before her.
Mrs. Ingleton slightly shrugged her shoulders. "You are behaving like a child of six, and really, if you go on, you will provoke me into treating you as such. The attitude you have chosen to adopt is neither sensible nor dignified, let me tell you. You resent my presence here. Very well; but you cannot prevent it. Would it not be much wiser of you either to submit to my authority or——"
"Or?" repeated Sylvia icily.
"Or take the obvious course of providing yourself with a home elsewhere," said Mrs. Ingleton.
Sylvia put up a quick hand to her throat. She was breathing very quickly. "You wish to force me to marry that horrible Preston man?" she said.
"By no means, my dear," smiled Mrs. Ingleton. "But you might do a good deal worse. I tell you frankly, you will be very much underdog as long as you elect to remain in this establishment. Oh yes!" She suddenly rose to her full majestic height, dwarfing the girl before her with conscious triumph. "I may have some trouble with you, but conquer you I will. Your father will not interfere between us. You have seen that for yourself. In fact, he has just told me that he leaves the management of you entirely to me. He has given me an absolutely free hand—very wisely. If I choose to lock you in your room for the rest of the day he will not interfere. And as I am quite capable of doing so, I warn you to be very careful."
Sylvia stood as if turned to stone. She was white to the lips, but she confronted her step-mother wholly without fear.
"Do you really think I would submit to that?" she said. "I am not a child, I assure you, whatever I may appear to you. You will certainly never manage me by that sort of means."
Her clear, emphatic voice fell without agitation. Now that the first shock of the encounter was past she had herself quite firmly in hand.