Mrs. Gereth hesitated. "How do you know what has happened? You don't know what I said to him." He turned about vaguely for his hat.!

"In seven minutes." "I made a point of letting Mona know that I should be here, don't you see? That's exactly what I wrote her this morning."

"There's the chance, of course, that she may be afraid." Mrs. Brigstock, at this, became vivid at once; Fleda thought she looked most peculiar. She stood straight up, with a queer distention of her whole person and of everything in her face but her mouth, which she gathered into a small, tight orifice. Fleda was painfully divided; her joy was deep within, but it was more relevant to the situation that she should not appear to associate herself with the tone of familiarity in which Owen addressed a lady who had been, and was perhaps still, about to become his mother-in-law. She laid on Mrs. Brigstock's arm a repressive hand. Mrs. Brigstock, however, had already exclaimed on her having so wonderful a defender. "He speaks, upon my word, as if I had come here to be rude to you!" "But twice?" Mrs. Gereth still smiled.