love--with all the best
things at Ricks!"

Mrs. Gereth considered, trying to penetrate, as it seemed; but at last
she brought out roundly: "For you, you know, I'd send them back!"

The girl's heart gave a tremendous bound; the right way dawned upon her
in a flash. Obscurity indeed the next moment engulfed this course, but
for a few thrilled seconds she had understood. To send the things back
"for her" meant of course to send them back if there were even a dim
chance that she might become mistress of them. Fleda's palpitation was
not allayed as she asked herself what portent Mrs. Gereth had suddenly
perceived of such a chance: that perception could come only from a
sudden suspicion of her secret. This suspicion, in turn, was a tolerably
straight consequence of that implied view of the propriety of surrender
from which, she was well aware, she could say nothing to dissociate
herself. What she first felt was that if she wished to rescue the spoils
she wished also to rescue her secret. So she looked as innocent as she
could and said as quickly as possible: "For me? Why in the world for
me?"

"Because you're so awfully keen."

"Am I? Do I strike you so? You know I hate him," Fleda went on.

She had the sense for a while of Mrs. Gereth's regarding her with the
detachment of some stern, clever stranger. "Then what's the matter with
you? Why do you want me to give in?"

Fleda hesitated; she felt herself reddening. "I've only said your son
wants it. I haven't said _I_ do."

"Then say it and have done with it!"

This was more peremptory than any word her friend, though often speaking
in her presence with much point, had ever yet directly addressed to her.
It affected her like the crack of a whip, but she confined herself, with
an effort, to taking it as a reminder that she must keep her head. "I
know he has his engagement to carry out."

"His engagement to marry? Why, it's just that engagement we loathe!"

"Why should _I_ loathe it?" Fleda asked with a strained smile. Then,
before Mrs. Gereth could reply, she pursued: "I'm thinking of his
general undertaking--to give her the house as she originally saw it."

"To give her the house!" Mrs. Gereth brought up the words from the depth
of the unspeakable. The effort was like the moan of an autumn wind; it
was in the power of such an image to make her turn pale.

"I'm thinking," Fleda continued, "of the simple question of his keeping
faith on an important clause of his co