"I knew what I was about," said Owen. "It didn't strike me that she had the least right to come down on us that way and ask for explanations." Fleda shook her head wearily. "No—I was only in love with him!"!

Fleda wondered whether Mona did; and this made it all the finer of her to exclaim in a moment: "You don't know what I shall call her if she holds out!" Owen had been blank a moment before, but he followed this argument with success—a success so immediate that it enabled him to produce with decision: "Ah, she's not that sort! She wants them herself," he added; "she wants to feel they're hers; she doesn't care whether I have them or not! And if she can't get them she doesn't want me. If she can't get them she doesn't want anything at all."

"Why, legal, don't you know?—what he calls setting the lawyers at you." "Then why doesn't she do it?" Fleda hesitated; he held her fast. "No. Anything is better than that."