Not yet; remember that I only got here last night." She appeared to
herself ignobly weak. "I had had no idea what she was doing; I was taken
completely by surprise. She managed it wonderfully."

"It's the sharpest thing I ever saw in _my_ life!" They looked at each
other with intelligence, in appreciation of the sharpness, and Owen
quickly broke into a loud laugh. The laugh was in itself natural, but
the occasion of it strange; and stranger still, to Fleda, so that she
too almost laughed, the inconsequent charity with which he added: "Poor
dear old Mummy! That's one of the reasons I asked for you," he went
on--"to see if you'd back her up."

Whatever he said or did, she somehow liked him the better for it. "How
can I back her up, Mr. Gereth, when I think, as I tell you, that she has
made a great mistake?"

"A great mistake! That's all right." He spoke--it wasn't clear to her
why--as if this declaration were a great point gained.

"Of course there are many things she hasn't taken," Fleda continued.

"Oh yes, a lot of things. But you wouldn't know the place, all the
same." He looked about the room with his discolored, swindled face,
which deepened Fleda's compassion for him, conjuring away any smile at
so candid an image of the dupe. "You'd know this one soon enough,
wouldn't you? These are just the things she ought to have left. Is the
whole house full of them?"

"The whole house," said Fleda uncompromisingly. She thought of her
lovely room.

"I never knew how much I cared for them. They're awfully valuable,
aren't they?" Owen's manner mystified her; she was conscious of a return
of the agitation he had produced in her on that last bewildering day,
and she reminded herself that, now she was warned, it would be
inexcusable of her to allow him to justify the fear that had dropped on
her. "Mother thinks I never took any notice, but I assure you I was
awfully proud of everything. Upon my honor, I _was_ proud, Miss Vetch."

There was an oddity in his helplessness; he appeared to wish to persuade
her and to satisfy himself that she sincerely felt how worthy he really
was to treat what had happened as an injury. She could only exclaim,
almost as helplessly as himself: "Of course you did justice! It's all
most painful. I shall instantly let your mother know," she again
declared, "the way I've spoken of her to you." She clung to that idea as
to the sign of her straightness.

"You'll tell her what you think she ought to