ll, she had never yet looked to Fleda so much in possession
nor so far from meeting unsuspectedness halfway. "Is he going to send
them down here?"

"I dare say he thinks it may come to that."

"The lawyers can scarcely do the packing," Mrs. Gereth humorously
remarked.

"I suppose he means them--in the first place, at least--to try to talk
you over."

"In the first place, eh? And what does he mean in the second?"

Fleda hesitated; she had not foreseen that so simple an inquiry could
disconcert her. "I'm afraid I don't know."

"Didn't you ask?" Mrs. Gereth spoke as if she might have said, "What
then were you doing all the while?"

"I didn't ask very much," said her companion. "He has been gone some
time. The great thing seemed to be to understand clearly that he
wouldn't be content with anything less than what he mentioned."

"My just giving everything back?"

"Your just giving everything back."

"Well, darling, what did you tell him?" Mrs. Gereth blandly inquired.

Fleda faltered again, wincing at the term of endearment, at what the
words took for granted, charged with the confidence she had now
committed herself to betray. "I told him I would tell you!" She smiled,
but she felt that her smile was rather hollow and even that Mrs. Gereth
had begun to look at her with some fixedness.

"Did he seem very angry?"

"He seemed very sad. He takes it very hard," Fleda added.

"And how does _she_ take it?"

"Ah, that--that I felt a delicacy about asking."

"So you didn't ask?" The words had the note of surprise.

Fleda was embarrassed; she had not made up her mind definitely to lie.
"I didn't think you'd care." That small untruth she would risk.

"Well--I don't!" Mrs. Gereth declared; and Fleda felt less guilty to
hear her, for the statement was as inexact as her own. "Didn't you say
anything in return?" Mrs. Gereth presently continued.

"Do you mean in the way of justifying you?"

"I didn't mean to trouble you to do that. My justification," said Mrs.
Gereth, sitting there warmly and, in the lucidity of her thought, which
nevertheless hung back a little, dropping her eyes on the gravel--"my
justification was all the past. My justification was the cruelty--" But
at this, with a short, sharp gesture, she checked herself. "It's too
good of me to talk--now." She produced these sentences with a cold
patience, as if addressing Fleda in the girl's virtual and actual
character of Owen's representative. Our young l