"It displeased her fearfully," said Owen, looking very queer. "Because you were closeted with him here so long. You can't pretend at present, you know, not to have any art."!

"Precisely. Yours." Fleda, at this, thought it best also to laugh. "Since I didn't let you know, why did you come?"

Owen looked a trifle bewildered. "She doesn't see the use of hanging on, as I haven't even yet put the matter into legal hands. She's awfully keen about that, and awfully disgusted that I don't. She says it's the only real way, and she thinks I'm afraid to take it. She has given me time and then has given me again more. She says I give Mummy too much. She says I'm a muff to go pottering on. That's why she's drawing off so hard, don't you see?" Mrs. Gereth met that allusion with a prompt firmness that made almost insolently light of any ground of complaint, and Fleda's own sense of responsibility was now so vivid that all resentments turned comparatively pale. She had no heart to produce a grievance; she could only, left as she was with the little mystery on her hands, produce, after a moment, a question. "How then do you come to know that your son has ever thought—" "Am I? Do I strike you so? You know I hate him," Fleda went on.