"Wouldn't it perhaps after all be better," she asked, "before doing this, to see if we can make his whereabouts certain?" "To you, of course—to enjoy, to keep for yourself."!

"Deuce take you, no! To what we don't, you know, by your wish, ever talk about." "It's too wonderful, what you've done with the house!"—the visitor met her friend's eyes. They lighted up with joy—that friend herself so pleased with what she had done. This was not at all, in its accidental air of enthusiasm, what Fleda wanted to have said: it offered her as stupidly announcing from the first minute on whose side she was. Such was clearly the way Mrs. Gereth took it: she threw herself upon the delightful girl and tenderly embraced her again; so that Fleda soon went on, with a studied difference and a cooler inspection: "Why, you brought away absolutely everything!"

"Well, those things are between yourselves, and you seem to me both poor creatures at best." Mrs. Gereth spoke with a rich humor which tipped with light for an instant a real conviction. "I don't know what you've got in your veins: you absurdly exaggerated the difficulties. But enough is as good as a feast, and when once I get you abroad together—!" She checked herself as if from excess of meaning; what might happen when she should get them abroad together was to be gathered only from the way she slowly rubbed her hands. "You had none," said Mrs. Gereth: "you were completely bewildered." "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."