Fleda hesitated. "Did you see her?" "I think that before I answer you I had better know what you're talking about," Fleda said.!

She showed her amusement. "They've a much better right to say it's none of mine." 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.

"If you do any such thing, you shall never see me again,—absolutely, literally never!" Fleda opened her eyes. "She went down to Ricks?" "No," Mrs. Gereth replied, "but because they belong to the house and the house belongs to Owen. If I should wish to take anything, she would simply say, with that motionless mask: 'It goes with the house.' And day after day, in the face of every argument, of every consideration of generosity, she would repeat, without winking, in that voice like the squeeze of a doll's stomach: 'It goes with the house—it goes with the house.' In that attitude they'll shut themselves up."