"Oh, that's what I should call it!" Fleda laughed, to her own surprise. "Yes, that doesn't happen very often, does it?" Mrs. Brigstock looked round afresh at Fleda's home.!

"Does Mona?" She was wound up to such a height that there might well be a light in her pale, fine little face—a light that, while, for all return, at first, she simply shone back at him, was intensely reflected in his own. "I'll make her see it—I'll make her see it!" She rang out like a silver bell. She had at that moment a perfect faith that she should succeed; but it passed into something else when, the next instant, she became aware that Owen, quickly getting between her and the door she had opened, was sharply closing it, as might be said, in her face. He had done this before she could stop him, and he stood there with his hand on the knob and smiled at her strangely. Clearer than he could have spoken it was the sense of those seconds of silence.

Mrs. Gereth gave her a long last look, then turned abruptly away. "It's an awful bore you didn't really get it out of him! Well, come to tea," she added rather dryly, passing straight into the house. Fleda hesitated; at last, before her companion's, she lowered her look. "Because I love him. It's because he's weak that he needs me," she added. "I believe you will, if you look at her like that!"