"Oh!" Fleda cried, with a long wail. Then she controlled herself. "I see." "She may very well not like it; but everything depends. I must see what I shall do. You mustn't worry about me."!

"I see," said Owen, looking at his gloves. "I can give her a day or two, you know. Of course I didn't come down to sleep," he went on. "The inn seems a horrid hole. I know all about the trains—having no idea you were here." Almost as soon as his interlocutress he was struck with the absence of the visible, in this, as between effect and cause. "I mean because in that case I should have felt I could stop over. I should have felt I could talk with you a blessed sight longer than with Mummy." "What I mean to say is, if she's angry at your backing me up—what will you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know."

"Of course you know by this time that your mother's very sharp," said Fleda. "But if he knew that so well, what chance was there in it for her?" He had laughed at his way of putting it, but Fleda remained grave. "Is that what you came to say to her?"