Fleda gave a bold dramatic laugh. "Thank you, my love—with all the best things at Ricks!" He paused so long for a reply that Fleda said: "I don't think I know what you mean by a set-to."!

"And do you mean, as it is, that she'll prevent him?" Mona Brigstock, between these ladies, was now nothing but "she." Fleda jerked herself up. "Were they saving the things?"

"I mean with the threat of enforcement and that sort of thing." He too hesitated, but he was not checked. "It's just for the reason that I'm free. Don't you know what I mean, Miss Vetch? I want you to marry me." "Only give her time," said Fleda. She had advanced to the threshold of the door thus thrown open to her and, without exactly crossing it, she threw in an appreciative glance. She asked Owen when his marriage would take place, and in the light of his reply read that Mrs. Gereth's wretched attitude would have no influence at all on the event, absolutely fixed when he came down, and distant by only three months. He liked Fleda's seeming to be on his side, though that was a secondary matter, for what really most concerned him now was the line his mother took about Poynton, her declared unwillingness to give it up.