“I am not going out either,” says she, smiling gently at him.  To go now will be to betray fear, and she—­no, she will not give in, any way, she will never show the white feather.  She will finish this hour with Lady Rylton, whatever it may cost her.

“Really?” asks Gower.  He looks as if he would have persuaded her to come with him, but something in her manner convinces him of the folly of persistence.

“Yes, really,” returns she, after which he goes down the steps again.  They can hear him going, slowly this time, as if reluctantly, and step by step.  There doesn’t seem to be a run left in him.

“How absurd it is, this confusion of titles!” says Lady Rylton, as the last unsatisfactory step is lost to them in the distance.  “Lady Rylton here and Lady Rylton there.  Absurd, I call it.”  She makes a pretence at laughter, but it is a sorry one—­her laugh is only angry.

“I suppose it can’t be helped,” says Tita indifferently.  Her eyes are still downcast, her young mouth a little scornful.

“But if you are to be Lady Rylton as well as I, how are we to distinguish?  What am I to be?”

“The dowager, I suppose,” says Tita, with a little flash of malice.  She has been rubbed the wrong way a trifle too much for one afternoon.

"The dowager!" Lady Rylton springs to her feet.  “I—­do you think that I shall follow you out of a room?”

“Follow me!  I’d hate you to follow me anywhere!” says Tita, who does not certainly follow her as to her meaning.

“That is meant to be a smart speech, I presume,” says Lady Rylton, sinking back into her seat once more.  “But do not for a moment imagine that I dread you.  You know very little of Society if you think you will be tolerated there."

“I know nothing of Society,” returns Tita, now very pale, “and perhaps you will understand me when I say that I never want to know anything.  If Society means people who tell hateful, unkind stories of a husband to his wife, I think I am very well out of it.”

“That is a little censure upon poor me, I suppose,” says Lady Rylton with a difficult smile.  She looks at Tita.  Evidently she expects Tita to sink into the ground beneath that austere regard, but Tita comes up smiling.

“Well, yes.  After all, I suppose so,” says she slowly, thoughtfully.  “You shouldn’t have told me that story about Maurice and——­” She stops.

“I shall not permit you to dictate to me what I should or should not do,” interrupts Lady Rylton coldly.  “You forget yourself!  You forget what is due to the head of the house.”

“I do not, indeed; Maurice will tell you so!”

“Maurice!  What has he to do with it?”

“Why, he is the head,” slowly.

“True, you are right so far,” says Lady Rylton bitterly.  “But I was not alluding to the actual head; I was alluding to the—­the mistress of this house.”  She pauses, and looks with open hatred at the little girl before her.  Tita could have answered her, have told her that her authority was at an end for ever, but by a violent effort she restrains herself.  Tita’s naturally warm temper is now at boiling-point.  Still, she puts a restraint upon herself.