"I don't see very clearly. Of course you must give her what you offered her; of course you must keep your word. There must be no mistake about that!" the girl declared. Fleda turned pale, but she faced her companion and smiled. "You confound, Mrs. Gereth, you mix things up. You've only had it from my own mouth that I care for him!"!

"Whatever we hear, I must go." As the cab went on she added: "But I needn't drag you to the station." All the girl's effort tended for the time to a single aim—that of taking the thing with outward detachment, speaking of it as having happened to Owen and to his mother and not in any degree to herself. Something at least of this was in the encouraging way she said: "Yesterday morning?"

He was sensible of it, he achieved his performance. "Why, that if I don't get the things back—every blessed one of them except a few she'll pick out—she won't have anything more to say to me." "Puts you in the situation of expecting that I shall do this thing just simply to oblige you?" "Misses them—rather! She was awfully sweet on them." Fleda remembered how sweet Mona had been, and reflected that if that was the sort of plea he had prepared it was indeed as well he shouldn't see his mother. This was not all she wanted to know, but it came over her that it was all she needed. "You see it puts me in the position of not carrying out what I promised," Owen said. "As she says herself"—he hesitated an instant—"it's just as if I had obtained her under false pretenses." Just before, when he spoke with more drollery than he knew, it had left Fleda serious; but now his own clear gravity had the effect of exciting her mirth. She laughed out, and he looked surprised, but went on: "She regards it as a regular sell."