Mrs. Gereth took her up with a cold smile that seemed the warning of experience against hyperbole. "As long as what, please?" "That's your great feeling about him," Fleda said; "but how, after what has happened, can it be his about you?"!

"Puts you in the situation of expecting that I shall do this thing just simply to oblige you?" "Oh, if you count the ghosts!"

"What bearing have her feelings, pray?" Fleda asked. "That and several other things." The ring of his question made his anger at Mona almost resemble for a minute an anger at Fleda; and this resemblance in turn caused our young lady to observe how handsome he looked when he spoke, for the first time in her hearing, with that degree of heat, and used, also for the first time, such a term as "perpetrated." In addition, his challenge rendered still more vivid to her the mere flimsiness of her own aid. "Yes, you've been perfect," she said. "You've had a most difficult part. You've had to show tact and patience, as well as firmness, with your mother, and you've strikingly shown them. It's I who, quite unintentionally, have deceived you. I haven't helped you at all to your remedy."