She held out her arm, imperiously rising from the table, and Leo obeyed. They presented a group full of natural grace, as he led her carefully upstairs, subduing his steps to hers. She, wonderful in all her laces and draperies, a _marquise_, a lady of the old _régime_, exacting every sign of devotion; he, not made of velvet or brocade, as her cavalier ought to have been, but in the spare and reserved costume of modern days, with a manner very grave, very self-controlled, full of care, and attention, and duty. There was nothing in it of that pretty gallantry, so charming from a son to a mother, of which Leo for years of his life had been an example, but a serious care of guidance and protection, which was as different as night from day. They went upstairs thus, she leaning all her weight upon him, he careful above measure to keep her foot from stumbling even upon her own too ample skirts. When he had placed her in her favourite chair, and seen that she had everything she liked near her, he stood gravely by her side. ‘Is this your last word, mother?’ he said. ‘It is quite my last word. Should Artémise come here, I shall expect you to be civil to her. Should she not come, you will be careful to let her alone.’ ‘I must act in that matter according to my own judgment,’ he said. He could hear the tinkle of the laugh as he went away. That laugh!--it had been compared to silver bells _dans les temps_. It was not that now, but an electric jar or vibration that got on the nerves. Mrs. Swinford’s son did not think of this, or feel any pity for the woman who had descended thus from the poetic state of compliment and adulation. Sons, perhaps, rarely consider that downfall with any sympathy. And Leo was too angry to make any sentiment possible for the moment. He was all the more angry because of his own undisclosed motive, which his mother had been so quick to discover. Had he been quite single-minded, desiring only his mother’s comfort and honour, things might perhaps have gone better; but he was not single-minded. And now the question was, not how to justify his mother, but to discover for Lady William the woman she wanted--to secure her, wherever she was, and whatever might be the motive for which she was sought. He did not very clearly know what that was, nor was he sure as to the previous connection of Artémise with Lady William’s history. But his mother’s revelations to Lord Will had helped the vague recollections in his own mind, and he divined something of her possible importance--importance most probably (he thought) more fancied than real, for it would be in the nature of a woman to give weight to a personal witness of the marriage, above all papers and records. Importance or not, however, real or fancied as might be the need of her, it was enough that Lady William wanted her to make Leo’s action certain. She must be found, he said to himself, as he went downstairs.