"How should I have? I'm not in their counsels." Mrs. Gereth turned on her sharply. "Ready for what? Ready to see me ruined without a reason or a reward?"!

"What do you want of him," Fleda sadly asked, "feeling as you do to both of us?" Fleda, as if she humbly assented, went through no form of controverting this; she simply stood passive to her companion's sudden refreshment of her appearance. "How can I get him away from her?" she presently demanded.

At this our young lady smiled. "Yes, because it was a disappointment. She had been so sure." Fleda looked this inquiry in the face only long enough to recognize that, in her embarrassment, she must take instant refuge in a superior one. "I can answer that better if I know how kind to her you've been. Have you been kind to her?" she asked as simply as she could. "Well, then, that's all right," said Mrs. Gereth as if she had only wanted to feel that she had been irreproachably considerate. After this she was gentler still, but she had another point to clear up. "Why have you given, for a reply, your sister's address?"