But he was not to be left in peace. Another hand came to the door, and a voice demanding entrance followed the foiled attempt to open it. He recognized the voice as lady Ann's, and made haste to admit her. But her ladyship stood motionless on the door-mat, erect and cool. Anger itself could not warm her, for that she was angry was plain only from the steely sparkle in her grey eyes. “You forget yourself! You must leave the house!” she said. “I have done nothing, my lady,” answered Richard, “but what it was necessary to do. I did not hurt the child in the least.” “That is not the point. You must leave the house.” “I should at once obey you, my lady,” rejoined Richard, “but I am not at liberty to do so. Sir Wilton has the command of my time till the month of May. I am bound to be at his orders, whether I choose or not, except he tell me to go.” Lady Ann stood speechless, and stared at him with her icicle-eyes. Richard turned away to his work. Lady Ann entered, and shut the door behind her. Richard would have had to search long to discover the cause of her peculiar behaviour. It was this: in his anger, he had flashed on her a look which she knew but could not identify, and which somehow frightened her. She must shape and identify the reminiscence! Familiar enough with the expression of her husband's face when he was out of temper, she had yet failed to identify with it that look on the face of his son. Had she known Richard's mother, she would probably have recognized him at once; for there was more of her as well as of his father in his expression when he was angry: there must have been a good many wrathful passages between the two! In the face of their child the expression of the mother so modified that of the father, that lady Ann could not isolate and verify it. She must therefore go on talking to him, keeping to the point, but not pushing it so as to bring the interview to an end too speedily for her purpose! “Mr.----,--I don't know your name,” she resumed, “--no respectable house could harbour such behaviour. I grant sir Wilton is partly to blame, for he ought not to have allowed the library to be turned into a workshop. That however makes no difference. This kind of thing cannot continue!” Richard went on with his work, and made no reply. Lady Ann looked in vain for a revival of the expression that had struck her. For a moment she thought of summoning Miss Malliver to do what she would not condescend to do herself, namely, enrage him, that she might have another chance with the suggested likeness; but something warned her not to risk--she did not know what. At the same time the resemblance might be to no person at all, but to some animal, or even perhaps, some piece of furniture or china! “You must not imagine yourself of importance in the house,” she resumed, “because a friend of the family happens to be interested in the kind of thing you do--very neatly, I allow, but--”