her definite
vow; it would only play the game of her little gagged and blinded
desire. She could calculate well enough the effect of telling Mrs.
Gereth how she had had it from Owen's troubled lips that Mona was only
waiting for the restitution and would do nothing without it. The thing
was to obtain the restitution without imparting that knowledge. The only
way, also, not to impart it was not to tell any truth at all about it;
and the only way to meet this last condition was to reply to her
companion, as she presently did: "He told me nothing whatever: he didn't
touch on the subject."

"Not in any way?"

"Not in any way."

Mrs. Gereth watched Fleda and considered. "You haven't any idea if they
are waiting for the things?"

"How should I have? I'm not in their counsels."

"I dare say they are--or that Mona is." Mrs. Gereth reflected again; she
had a bright idea. "If I don't give in, I'll be hanged if she'll not
break off."

"She'll never, never break off!" said Fleda.

"Are you sure?"

"I can't be sure, but it's my belief."

"Derived from _him_?"

The girl hung fire a few seconds. "Derived from him."

Mrs. Gereth gave her a long last look, then turned abruptly away. "It's
an awful bore you didn't really get it out of him! Well, come to tea,"
she added rather dryly, passing straight into the house.

XI

The sense of her adversary's dryness, which was ominous of something she
couldn't read, made Fleda, before complying, linger a little on the
terrace; she felt the need moreover of taking breath after such a flight
into the cold air of denial. When at last she rejoined Mrs. Gereth she
found her erect before the drawing-room fire. Their tea had been set out
in the same quarter, and the mistress of the house, for whom the
preparation of it was in general a high and undelegated function, was in
an attitude to which the hissing urn made no appeal. This omission, for
Fleda, was such a further sign of something to come that, to disguise
her apprehension, she immediately and without an apology took the duty
in hand; only, however, to be promptly reminded that she was performing
it confusedly and not counting the journeys of the little silver shovel
she emptied into the pot. "Not _five_, my dear--the usual three," said
her hostess, with the same dryness; watching her then in silence while
she clumsily corrected her mistake. The tea took some minutes to draw,
and Mrs. Gereth availed herself of them suddenl