e explained in regard to
the opinion he had just expressed. "I mean I could put up with it just
as it was; it had a lot of good things, don't you think? I mean if
everything was back at Poynton, if everything was all right." He brought
out these last words with a sort of smothered sigh. Fleda didn't
understand his explanation unless it had reference to another and more
wonderful exchange--the restoration to the great house not only of its
tables and chairs, but of its alienated mistress. This would imply the
installation of his own life at Ricks, and obviously that of another
person. Such another person could scarcely be Mona Brigstock. He put out
his hand now; and once more she heard his unsounded words: "With
everything patched up at the other place, I could live here with _you_.
Don't you see what I mean?"

Fleda saw perfectly, and, with a face in which she flattered herself
that nothing of this vision appeared, gave him her hand and said:
"Good-bye, good-bye."

Owen held her hand very firmly and kept it even after an effort made by
her to recover it--an effort not repeated, as she felt it best not to
show she was flurried. That solution--of her living with him at
Ricks--disposed of him beautifully, and disposed not less so of herself;
it disposed admirably too of Mrs. Gereth. Fleda could only vainly wonder
how it provided for poor Mona. While he looked at her, grasping her
hand, she felt that now indeed she was paying for his mother's
extravagance at Poynton--the vividness of that lady's public plea that
little Fleda Vetch was the person to insure the general peace. It was to
that vividness poor Owen had come back, and if Mrs. Gereth had had more
discretion little Fleda Vetch wouldn't have been in a predicament. She
saw that Owen had at this moment his sharpest necessity of speech, and
so long as he didn't release her hand she could only submit to him. Her
defense would be perhaps to look blank and hard; so she looked as blank
and as hard as she could, with the reward of an immediate sense that
this was not a bit what he wanted. It even made him hang fire, as if he
were suddenly ashamed of himself, were recalled to some idea of duty and
of honor. Yet he none the less brought it out. "There's one thing I dare
say I ought to tell you, if you're going so kindly to act for me; though
of course you'll see for yourself it's a thing it won't do to tell
_her_." What was it? He made her wait for it again, and while she
wai