"What then did she mean to do?" The girl hung fire a few seconds. "Derived from him."!

CHAPTER VIII "What else can I really pretend when you threaten so to cast me off if I speak the word myself?"

Mrs. Brigstock's round eyes grew rounder. "All day long?" "I'm only thinking she'll be impatient—I mean, you know, to learn what will have passed between us." Mrs. Gereth shook her head with slow austerity. "You don't believe a word you're saying. I've frightened you, as you've frightened me: you're whistling in the dark to keep up our courage. I do simplify, doubtless, if to simplify is to fail to comprehend the insanity of a passion that bewilders a young blockhead with bugaboo barriers, with hideous and monstrous sacrifices. I can only repeat that you're beyond me. Your perversity's a thing to howl over. However," the poor woman continued with a break in her voice, a long hesitation and then the dry triumph of her will, "I'll never mention it to you again! Owen I can just make out; for Owen is a blockhead. Owen's a blockhead," she repeated with a quiet, tragic finality, looking straight into Fleda's eyes. "I don't know why you dress up so the fact that he's disgustingly weak."