"Yes, please. It's tremendously good of you." CHAPTER XIII!

"She would have had no doubt you would be here, if you had a chance," Mrs. Brigstock returned. "If your letter had arrived it might have prepared me for finding you here at tea. In that case I certainly wouldn't have come." "If she does take it ill of you."

"Well, I am, and I'm the person most concerned. Of course I didn't use just those words: I was perfectly civil, quite as civil as she. But I told her I didn't consider she had a right to put me any such question. I said I wasn't sure that even Mona had, with the extraordinary line, you know, that Mona has taken. At any rate the whole thing, the way I put it, was between Mona and me; and between Mona and me, if she didn't mind, it would just have to remain." Fleda was mystified. "People surely knew at Poynton," she objected, "if, as you say, she's there." Mrs. Gereth took her up with a cold smile that seemed the warning of experience against hyperbole. "As long as what, please?"