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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.
But Mrs. Ingleton took her up swiftly, realizing possibly that a
moment's delay would mean the yielding of the ground she had so
arrogantly claimed.
"I shall manage you exactly as I choose," she said, raising her voice
with abrupt violence. "I know very well your position in this house.
You are absolutely dependent, and--unless you marry--you will remain

so, being quite unqualified to earn your own living. Therefore the
whip-hand is mine, and if I find you insolent or intractable I shall use it
without mercy. How dare you set yourself against me in this way?" She
stamped with sudden fury upon the ground. "No, not a word! Leave the
room instantly--I will have no more of it! Do you hear me, Sylvia? Do
you hear me?"
She raised a menacing hand, but the fearless eyes never flinched.
"I think you must be mad," Sylvia said.
"Mad!" raved Mrs. Ingleton. "Mad because I refuse to be dictated to by
an impertinent girl? Mad because I insist upon being mistress in my
own house? You--you little viper--how dare you stand there defying me?
Do you want to be turned out into the street?"
She had worked herself up into unreasoning rage again. Sylvia saw that
further argument would be worse than useless. Very quietly, without
another word, she turned, gathered up riding-whip and gloves, and went
from the room. She heard Mrs. Ingleton utter a fierce, malignant laugh
as she went.

CHAPTER IV
THE VICTOR
The commencement of the fox-hunting season was always celebrated
by a dance at the Town Hall--a dance which Sylvia had never failed to
attend during the five years that she had been in society and had been a
member of the Hunt.
It was at her first Hunt Ball, on the occasion of her debut, that she had
met young Guy Ranger, and she looked back to that ball with all its
tender reminiscences as the beginning of all things.
How superlatively happy she had been that night! Not for anything that
life could offer would she have parted with that one precious romance

of her girlhood. She clung to the memory of it as to a priceless
possession. And year after year she had gone to the Hunt Ball with that
memory close in her heart.
It was at the last of these that George Preston had asked her to be his
wife. She had made every effort to avoid him, but he had mercilessly
tracked her down; and though she had refused him with great emphasis
she had never really felt that he had taken her seriously. He was always
seeking her out, always making excuses to be alone with her. It was
growing increasingly difficult to evade him. She had never liked the
man, but Fate or his own contrivance was continually throwing him in
her way. If she hunted, he invariably rode home