"Then what I understand," said Owen, "is that, practically, you and Mummy have quarreled. And you've done it—I mean you personally—for me." "You do mean literally everything, to the last little miniature on the last little screen?"!

Fleda vaguely demurred. "His dreadful quarrel?" She was wound up to such a height that there might well be a light in her pale, fine little face—a light that, while, for all return, at first, she simply shone back at him, was intensely reflected in his own. "I'll make her see it—I'll make her see it!" She rang out like a silver bell. She had at that moment a perfect faith that she should succeed; but it passed into something else when, the next instant, she became aware that Owen, quickly getting between her and the door she had opened, was sharply closing it, as might be said, in her face. He had done this before she could stop him, and he stood there with his hand on the knob and smiled at her strangely. Clearer than he could have spoken it was the sense of those seconds of silence.

"Oh, she's all right. Mother must come round." "There's the chance, of course, that she may be afraid." "Oh no, back to town. I'll write to you to-morrow."