"In the first place, eh? And what does he mean in the second?" "Oh no, back to town. I'll write to you to-morrow."!

She hesitated: she would only be impeccable even though she should have to be sententious. "You'll be happy if you're perfect!" she risked. "Not even to have Poynton."

"Didn't he answer the note in which you let him know that I was in town?" Fleda asked. To Fleda, in the face of the event, it appeared that this was exactly what they were not: the last inch of common ground, the ground of their past intercourse, had fallen from under them. Yet what was still there was the grand style of her companion's treatment of her. Mrs. Gereth couldn't stand upon small questions, couldn't, in conduct, make small differences. "You're magnificent!" her young friend exclaimed. "There's a rare greatness in your generosity." Her hostess, without taking up her ejaculation, gave a violent poke at the fire and then faced her again. "You've done two things, then, to-day—haven't you?—that you've never done before. One has been asking me the service, or favor, or concession—whatever you call it—that you just mentioned; the other has been telling me—certainly too for the first time—an immense little fib."