Sylvia's eyes fell abruptly from her father's face, but they did
not return to her step-mother. She turned away to the sideboard,
and helped herself from a dish that stood there. In absolute
silence she sat down at the table and began to eat.

Her father sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment or two, then
got up with a non-committal, "Well!" gathered up his letters, and
tramped from the room.

Mrs. Ingleton took up the paper and perused it, humming. Sylvia
ate her breakfast in dead silence.

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----"