"It displeased her fearfully," said Owen, looking very queer. "You don't mind her seeing it?"!

"She can't have gone back," Fleda declared. "Mona would have written on the spot." "Of its opposite?"

"Has let herself go." Mrs. Gereth spoke as if she saw it in every detail. "Oh no, we haven't quarreled a bit!" Then with a smile: "We've only diverged." "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.