At this she knew. "Poynton's on fire?" "That he would give his ears to get you?" Mrs. Gereth broke in. "I had a visit from Mrs. Brigstock."!

"I?—" The inquiry seemed to have moved him to stupefaction. "Can you ask me that question when I only wanted to please you? Didn't you seem to show me, in your wonderful way, that that was exactly how? I didn't break off just on purpose to leave it to her. I didn't break off so that there shouldn't be a thing to be said against me." "It's the sharpest thing I ever saw in my life!" They looked at each other with intelligence, in appreciation of the sharpness, and Owen quickly broke into a loud laugh. The laugh was in itself natural, but the occasion of it strange; and stranger still, to Fleda, so that she too almost laughed, the inconsequent charity with which he added: "Poor dear old Mummy! That's one of the reasons I asked for you," he went on—"to see if you'd back her up."

"Oh no, we haven't quarreled a bit!" Then with a smile: "We've only diverged." "Well, at any rate, you don't call her names." "At the West Kensington station—she was going to Victoria. I had walked with her there, and our talk was all on the way."