exchange of remarks with whom,
however, remained, as they went, suggestively inaudible. That member of
the party in whose intenser consciousness we shall most profitably seek
a reflection of the little drama with which we are concerned received an
even livelier impression of Mrs. Gereth's intervention from the fact
that ten minutes later, on the way to church, still another pairing had
been effected. Owen walked with Fleda, and it was an amusement to the
girl to feel sure that this was by his mother's direction. Fleda had
other amusements as well: such as noting that Mrs. Gereth was now with
Mona Brigstock; such as observing that she was all affability to that
young woman; such as reflecting that, masterful and clever, with a great
bright spirit, she was one of those who impose themselves as an
influence; such as feeling finally that Owen Gereth was absolutely
beautiful and delightfully dense. This young person had even from
herself wonderful secrets of delicacy and pride; but she came as near
distinctness as in the consideration of such matters she had ever come
at all in now surrendering herself to the idea that it was of a pleasant
effect and rather remarkable to be stupid without offense--of a
pleasanter effect and more remarkable indeed than to be clever and
horrid. Owen Gereth at any rate, with his inches, his features, and his
lapses, was neither of these latter things. She herself was prepared, if
she should ever marry, to contribute all the cleverness, and she liked
to think that her husband would be a force grateful for direction. She
was in her small way a spirit of the same family as Mrs. Gereth. On that
flushed and huddled Sunday a great matter occurred; her little life
became aware of a singular quickening. Her meagre past fell away from
her like a garment of the wrong fashion, and as she came up to town on
the Monday what she stared at in the suburban fields from the train was
a future full of the things she particularly loved.

II

These were neither more nor less than the things with which she had had
time to learn from Mrs. Gereth that Poynton overflowed. Poynton, in the
south of England, was this lady's established, or rather her
disestablished home, having recently passed into the possession of her
son. The father of the boy, an only child, had died two years before,
and in London, with his mother, Owen was occupying for May and June a
house good-naturedly lent them by Colonel Gereth, their