Fleda hesitated; she had not foreseen that so simple an inquiry could disconcert her. "I'm afraid I don't know." At this she knew. "Poynton's on fire?"!

"Oh, she thinks they're all right!" The question had not come up with this definiteness before, and Mrs. Gereth was clearly more surprised than ever. She marveled a moment. "Not even to have Poynton?"

"By letting yourself go." "For you, of course—to entreat me to give you up. She thinks me awfully designing—that I've taken some sort of possession of 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."