"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.
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