Fleda hesitated; she felt herself reddening. "I've only said your son wants it. I haven't said I do." "Surely it's the only proper thing for him to do."!

Owen waited a little. "And having done that, you departed?" Her interlocutress was silent a little. "And that he has no feeling on his side?"

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Mrs. Gereth broke out with a change of note that showed how deep a passion underlay everything she had said. The poor woman, catching her companion's hand, however, the next moment, as if to retract something of this harshness, spoke more patiently. "Don't you understand, Fleda, how immensely, how devotedly, I've trusted you?" Her tone was indeed a supplication. Fleda paid this statement the homage of a minute's muteness. "As to that, naturally, she has reason." Her gesture of resignation gave him a pretext for catching at her hand, but before he could take it she had put it behind her. They had been seated together on Maggie's single sofa, and her movement brought her to her feet, while Owen, looking at her reproachfully, leaned back in discouragement. "What good does it do me to be here when I find you only a stone?"