"Are they right?" She spoke with decision, but Owen seemed still unsatisfied. "You won't go away, I hope?"!

"And leave his house as bare as your hand? There's nothing in it that isn't precious." "Then, upon my honor, it's only you who make it so!" Her perversity was distinctly too much for him. "I mean you make it so by the way you keep me off."

In the full face of what she was keeping back such a hope could only make her wince; but she was prompt with her explanations in proportion as she felt they failed to meet him. The smutty maid came in with tea-things, and Fleda, moving several objects, eagerly accepted the diversion of arranging a place for them on one of the tables. "I've been trying to break your mother down because it has seemed there may be some chance of it. That's why I've let you go on expecting it. She's too proud to veer round all at once, but I think I speak correctly in saying that I've made an impression." "I know I did. I was afraid to show it." CHAPTER XIX