Owen gave her a gloomy glance; then he blew a speck off the crown of his hat. "But if you do have a set-to with her?" Fleda gave a faint, stubborn smile. "He cares for her too much."!

Our young lady's spirit was strangely divided; she had a tenderness for Owen which she deeply concealed, yet it left her occasion to marvel at the way a man was made who could care in any relation for a creature like Mona Brigstock when he had known in any relation a creature like Adela Gereth. With such a mother to give him the pitch, how could he take it so low? She wondered that she didn't despise him for this, but there was something that kept her from it. If there had been nothing else it would have sufficed that she really found herself from this moment the medium of communication with him. This was a transaction that Fleda, after a moment, had to give up trying to represent to herself. "If she won't do that—?" she went on.

"They've looked very beautiful, and they've been very beautiful. Oh, I've told her the sort you are!" the young man pursued. "Yes, that doesn't happen very often, does it?" Mrs. Brigstock looked round afresh at Fleda's home. Owen's legs, not to mention his voice, had wavered while he spoke, and she felt his possession of her hand loosen so that she was free again. Her stare of perception broke into a lively laugh. "Oh, you're all right, for you will get them. You will; you're quite safe; don't worry!" She fell back into the house with her hand on the door. "Good-bye, good-bye." She repeated it several times, laughing bravely, quite waving him away and, as he didn't move and save that he was on the other side of it, closing the door in his face quite as he had closed that of the drawing-room in hers. Never had a face, never at least had such a handsome one, been so presented to that offense. She even held the door a minute, lest he should try to come in again. At last, as she heard nothing, she made a dash for the stairs and ran up.