"Only give her time," said Fleda. She had advanced to the threshold of the door thus thrown open to her and, without exactly crossing it, she threw in an appreciative glance. She asked Owen when his marriage would take place, and in the light of his reply read that Mrs. Gereth's wretched attitude would have no influence at all on the event, absolutely fixed when he came down, and distant by only three months. He liked Fleda's seeming to be on his side, though that was a secondary matter, for what really most concerned him now was the line his mother took about Poynton, her declared unwillingness to give it up. "Well, was it I, pray, who perpetrated the wrong? Ain't I doing what I can to get the thing arranged?"!

"Of course I mean their marriage!" Fleda hesitated again. "I haven't the least idea." Fleda winced at what he knew; she made a wild gesture which seemed to whirl it out of the room. The mere allusion was like another embrace. "You know nothing—and you must go and wait! You mustn't break down at this point."

Fleda had listened in awe. "And no one at Poynton said anything? There was no alarm?" "You pegged at her so hard?" Owen asked. "At the West Kensington station—she was going to Victoria. I had walked with her there, and our talk was all on the way."