Perhaps it was because he was used to these _agaceries_ that he bore it so well. What tempests of impatience were in his heart! He did not move. He remained as still as if he had been made in bronze, leaning against the mantelpiece till the laugh ceased. Then he said coldly: ‘I have expressed myself willing to give up what may be my own prejudice on your account, mother. I think it would be more dignified, more fit and becoming for you that your visitor did not come by stealth. What motive you credit me with I can’t tell. If you do not think fit to adopt my suggestion, so be it; but at least let her come openly, not by stealth.’ The tinkling began again with that supreme power of exasperation, and she said amid her laughing, every word coming tinkling out: ‘That you may have her at hand and within reach when she is wanted, eh? I divine you, my Leo. What is becoming for the mother who is so little capable of understanding that for herself, is a beautiful pretext--what is convenient for some one else----’ ‘Who is the person,’ he said, suddenly lifting his eyes, ‘to whom it will be so convenient to know where this woman is?’ He did not shrink or show any consciousness as he thus carried the war into the enemy’s country. Leo, after all, was a man of the world, and his mother’s son. ‘Ah!’ she cried, stopping in her laugh, which was always a gain. ‘I congratulate you, my son, upon your _aplomb_. But don’t you know you take away all grace from your offer, if there were any in it, when you say _this woman_? How dare you speak of your mother’s dear friend and relation as _this woman_? It is an affront I will not bear.’ ‘Mother, this is a subterfuge,’ said Leo indignantly. ‘And is not your proposal a subterfuge? Understand that I will manage things in my own way, Leo. Artémise shall come to me how she and I please. She shall stay with me if I wish it, and she consents to it, as would have been the case whatever you had felt on the subject. I am not here, you understand, as your housekeeper,’ she laughed scornfully, ‘or your dependent; I am, while I am here, the mistress of the house: and shall invite whom I please. If you think your order to shut her out affected me, any more than your order to admit her does now--I think we have said enough on this subject. You can give me your arm upstairs.’