She didn't understand. "About Mona?" "I'm dashed if I want to!" Owen honestly declared. "But what's a fellow to do if she won't meet a fellow?"!

"What alarm should there have been? Owen left me almost defiantly alone: I had taken a time that I had reason to believe was safe from a descent." Fleda had another wonder, which she hesitated to express: it would scarcely do to ask Mrs. Gereth if she hadn't stood in fear of her servants. She knew, moreover, some of the secrets of her humorous household rule, all made up of shocks to shyness and provocations to curiosity—a diplomacy so artful that several of the maids quite yearned to accompany her to Ricks. Mrs. Gereth, reading sharply the whole of her visitor's thought, caught it up with fine frankness. "You mean that I was watched—that he had his myrmidons, pledged to wire him if they should see what I was 'up to'? Precisely. I know the three persons you have in mind: I had them in mind myself. Well, I took a line with them—I settled them." "He answered it sufficiently by rushing off on the spot to see you."

"Do you mean to say you'll have a regular kick-up with her?" "That gives me a pull!" Fleda returned, smiling. "What sort of coercion?" said Mrs. Gereth.