Fleda marveled: her companion had in an instant become young again. "Away from Mona? How in the world—?" Fleda was silent a little. "What do you know about his 'loving' me?"!

"It's very true that you know everything. No, dear, you haven't a petty mind; you've a lovely imagination and you're the nicest creature in the world. If you were inane, like most girls—like every one, in fact—I would have insulted you, I would have outraged you, and then you would have fled from me in terror. No, now that I think of it," Mrs. Gereth went on, "you wouldn't have fled from me; nothing, on the contrary, would have made you budge. You would have cuddled into your warm corner, but you would have been wounded and weeping and martyrized, and you would have taken every opportunity to tell people I'm a brute—as indeed I should have been!" They went to and fro, and she would not allow Fleda, who laughed and protested, to attenuate with any light civility this spirited picture. She praised her cleverness and her patience; then she said it was getting cold and dark and they must go in to tea. She delayed quitting the place, however, and reverted instead to Owen's ultimatum, about which she asked another question or two; in particular whether it had struck Fleda that he really believed she would comply with such a summons. "I'm glad, then, it didn't arrive. Shouldn't you like him to go?" Fleda asked.

"Well, if she calls you names." Fleda scarcely heard his words; something new had suddenly come into her mind. "When you went to Waterbath after seeing me," she asked, "did you tell her all about that?" "Of course you know by this time that your mother's very sharp," said Fleda.