"In the first place, eh? And what does he mean in the second?" "Presumably to Poynton."!

"I'm thinking," Fleda continued, "of the simple question of his keeping faith on an important clause of his contract: it doesn't matter whether it's with a stupid girl or with a monster of cleverness. I'm thinking of his honor and his good name." "Well," said Mrs. Gereth profoundly, "it will be clear enough that Mona has."

Fleda thought an instant. "You mean makes her hesitate to keep you—not hesitate to renounce you?" "To you, of course—to enjoy, to keep for yourself." "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!"