"What I mean to say is, if she's angry at your backing me up—what will you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know." She had paused an instant, and Mrs. Gereth took her up. "Well, if she had?"!

"Not in any way?" Mrs. Gereth considered, trying to penetrate, as it seemed; but at last she brought out roundly: "For you, you know, I'd send them back!"

"Mine have not been quite so bad as that," Fleda desperately smiled. Then she added: "His silence, her silence, our hearing nothing at all—what are these but the very things on which, at Poynton and at Ricks, you rested your assurance that everything is at an end between them?" "I think he really believes that if I try hard enough I can make you:" after uttering which words our young lady stopped short and emulated the embrace she had received a few moments before. Fleda stopped in front of her hostess. "I gave him my opinion that you're very logical, very obstinate, and very proud."