"Oh, I came back from Ricks last week. I shall be here now till I don't know when." In her bewildered horror she tried to think. "Have they come back?"!

Again our young lady reflected. "I think I'm rather glad you didn't." "No, but he has told you. That's better still!" laughed Mrs. Gereth. "My dear child," she went on with an air that affected the girl as a sort of blind profanity, "don't try to make yourself out better than you are. I know what you are. I haven't lived with you so much for nothing. You're not quite a saint in heaven yet. Lord, what a creature you'd have thought me in my good time! But you do like it, fortunately, you idiot. You're pale with your passion, you sweet thing. That's exactly what I wanted to see. I can't for the life of me think where the shame comes in." Then with a finer significance, a look that seemed to Fleda strange, she added: "It's all right."

"Very true, you've done it all yourself." Fleda spoke gravely and gently, without a breath of coquetry. "But those are shades between which she's probably not obliged to distinguish. It's enough for her that we're singularly intimate." Fleda faltered a moment. "I think she has gone too far." Then she added: "I shall immediately tell her that I've said that to you." The other visitor meanwhile turned to Fleda. "What is Mrs. Gereth going to do?"