to try and be sensible, my dear," she said, "for I assure you
high-flown sentiment does not appeal to me in the very least. As
head of your father's house, I must insist upon being treated with
due respect. Let me warn you at the outset, though quite willing
to befriend you, I am not a very patient woman. I am not prepared
to put up with any slights."

Her voice lifted gradually as she proceeded till she ended upon a
note that was almost shrill.

Sylvia sat very still. Her hands were clasped tightly about her
knee. Her face was pale, and the red-brown eyes glittered a
little, but she betrayed no other signs of emotion,

"I quite understand," she said after a moment. "But that doesn't
solve the present difficulty, does it? I cannot possibly call you
by a name that is sacred to someone else."

She spoke very quietly, but there was indomitable resolution in her
very calm--a resolution that exasperated Mrs. Ingleton almost
beyond endurance.

She arose with a sweeping gesture. "Oh, very well then," she said.
"You shall call me Madam!"

Sylvia looked up at her. "I think that is quite a good idea," she
said in a tone that somehow stung her hearer, unbearably. "I will
do that."

"And don't be impertinent!" she said, beginning to pace to and fro