"About the contents of the house. Aren't you looking after them for him?" "No, I won't receive him here with you. Only where I received him last—only there again." She showed her companion that as to that she was firm.!

"On the occasion, at papa's, that Mrs. Brigstock told you of, and one day, since then, down at Maggie's." "Why must I?" Fleda asked after a moment.

"Never! But she's none the less his wife, and you're not," said Mrs. Gereth, getting up. "Our only chance is the chance she may die." "Am I? Do I strike you so? You know I hate him," Fleda went on. "That would have been the sane, sound, immediate course to adopt. With a grain of gumption you'd both instantly have felt it. I should have found a way to take you, you know, if I'd been what Owen's supposed to be. I should have got the business over first; the rest could come when you liked! Good God, girl, your place was to stand before me as a woman honestly married. One doesn't know what one has hold of in touching you, and you must excuse my saying that you're literally unpleasant to me to meet as you are. Then at least we could have talked, and Owen, if he had the ghost of a sense of humor, could have snapped his fingers at your refinements."