"Distinctly with the threat of enforcement—what would be called, I suppose, coercion." "What alarm should there have been? Owen left me almost defiantly alone: I had taken a time that I had reason to believe was safe from a descent." Fleda had another wonder, which she hesitated to express: it would scarcely do to ask Mrs. Gereth if she hadn't stood in fear of her servants. She knew, moreover, some of the secrets of her humorous household rule, all made up of shocks to shyness and provocations to curiosity—a diplomacy so artful that several of the maids quite yearned to accompany her to Ricks. Mrs. Gereth, reading sharply the whole of her visitor's thought, caught it up with fine frankness. "You mean that I was watched—that he had his myrmidons, pledged to wire him if they should see what I was 'up to'? Precisely. I know the three persons you have in mind: I had them in mind myself. Well, I took a line with them—I settled them."!

Fleda wondered. "To me, do you mean?" At this our young lady smiled. "Yes, because it was a disappointment. She had been so sure."

She stopped again before the bench, and an inspiration came to her. "I should think you would know," she said with proper dignity. "I think he would if he were free," said Mrs. Gereth. "Precisely. Yours."