It was rarely that the sound of a raised voice was heard out of Mrs. Swinford’s room. She had nobody there to excite her to anger, but on this occasion she was no longer the sovereign in her own palace. It was not rebellion that moved her, for Artémise had always retained her independence; nor defiance, for nothing could be more quiet than Mrs. Brown’s tone. It was the impatience of contradiction, the surprise at opposition which a woman to whom everybody has yielded feels at the first check, and the sound was so sharp and keen, and raised to such an unusual pitch of surprised exasperation, that when a knock came immediately after to the door, and Leo’s voice was heard asking ‘May I come in?’ it was impossible for his mother to stop him with the languid, ‘No, I do not wish to be disturbed,’ with which she had often closed the door upon him. Julie, the usual sentinel, had stolen away, believing her mistress to be too much occupied to miss her--unhappy Julie when the moment of retribution came. There was not a word said. Mrs. Swinford had not recovered her composure when her son opened the door. ‘You do not say anything; so I suppose I may come in,’ he said. The man’s intrusion was strange in this chamber never intended for him. A man and a son!--that is something different from a man and a brother. Mrs. Swinford gave her visitor a sharp and meaning look, and then said: ‘What may you want, Leo, coming upon us in such a sudden way?’ ‘Was I sudden? I heard you with some one, and I thought I might venture also, as you were evidently talking. And here I find precisely the person I wanted.’ ‘Leo, you are very ill-bred. When you come to your mother’s room, which is not very often, you might pretend, at least, that it was for her you came.’ ‘That surely goes without saying, mother. I was not aware when I came that there was any one here.’ ‘And you may be very well assured, Cecile, that at all events it was not for the love of me.’ Mrs. Swinford returned to her sofa with an exclamation of impatience. ‘You have all your own objects,’ she said, ‘you are all pursuing your own ends. There is no one who thinks what is best for me. Leo, we were talking on private matters, women’s matters. Now that you have seen Artémise, as you seem to have wished, your good sense will tell you that it is best to go away.’ ‘It was not from any desire to see her,’ said Leo. ‘Madame Artémise knows very well what I should be likely to wish in that respect: nor to talk to her, though she is so entertaining, but to know where I may find her, for the sake of others.’ ‘Oh yes, we all know what you mean. It is Emily Plowden you mean--it is you who have been backing her up all this time against your mother. I know you, Leo--that it should be against your mother, gives it a zest. You make her think--poor thing!--that it is for her, while your real desire is to expose your mother--to build her up in opposition to me.’