"That gives me a pull!" Fleda returned, smiling. "You really pretend," Fleda asked, "to think me capable of transmitting him that news?"!

"Why, letting me tell her a dozen things she can have." "It has lasted long enough for my purpose. There was something I wanted to know, but I think I know it now."

Mrs. Gereth reflected. "Very likely." Then she too hesitated. "The question is if it was worse than yours." "We're together, we're together," Mrs. Gereth lifelessly repeated. "That's all we are now; it's all we have." The words brought to Fleda a sudden vision of the empty little house at Ricks; such a vision might also have been what her companion found in the face of the stopped Dutch clock. Yet with this it was clear that she would now show no bitterness: she had done with that, had given the last drop to those horrible hours in London. No passion even was left to her, and her forbearance only added to the force with which she represented the final vanity of everything. He looked about him and took up his hat: it was as if, in spite of frustration, he had got the essence of what he wanted and could afford to agree with her to the extent of keeping up the forms. He covered her with his fine, simple smile, but made no other approach. "Oh, I'm so awfully happy!" he exclaimed.