"Why not to Waterbath at once?" Fleda asked. "Wouldn't it perhaps after all be better," she asked, "before doing this, to see if we can make his whereabouts certain?"!

CHAPTER XVII Fleda thought. "You don't, then?"

"They've looked very beautiful, and they've been very beautiful. Oh, I've told her the sort you are!" the young man pursued. "Oh, I don't mean with all the things here," he explained in regard to the opinion he had just expressed. "I mean I could put up with it just as it was; it had a lot of good things, don't you think? I mean if everything was back at Poynton, if everything was all right." He brought out these last words with a sort of smothered sigh. Fleda didn't understand his explanation unless it had reference to another and more wonderful exchange—the restoration to the great house not only of its tables and chairs, but of its alienated mistress. This would imply the installation of his own life at Ricks, and obviously that of another person. Such another person could scarcely be Mona Brigstock. He put out his hand now; and once more she heard his unsounded words: "With everything patched up at the other place, I could live here with you. Don't you see what I mean?" "Oh, I came back from Ricks last week. I shall be here now till I don't know when."