es
you by his silence clear notice that his marriage is practically off."

"He speaks to me of the only thing that concerns me. He gives me clear
notice that he abates not one jot of his demand."

"Well, then, let him take the only way to get it satisfied."

Fleda had no need to ask again what such a way might be, nor was her
support removed by the fine assurance with which Mrs. Gereth could make
her argument wait upon her wish. These days, which dragged their length
into a strange, uncomfortable fortnight, had already borne more
testimony to that element than all the other time the two women had
passed together. Our young lady had been at first far from measuring the
whole of a feature that Owen himself would probably have described as
her companion's "cheek." She lived now in a kind of bath of boldness,
felt as if a fierce light poured in upon her from windows opened wide;
and the singular part of the ordeal was that she couldn't protest
against it fully without incurring, even to her own mind, some reproach
of ingratitude, some charge of smallness. If Mrs. Gereth's apparent
determination to hustle her into Owen's arms was accompanied with an air
of holding her dignity rather cheap, this was after all only as a
consequence of her being held in respect to some other attributes rather
dear. It was a new version of the old story of being kicked upstairs.
The wonderful woman was the same woman who, in the summer, at Poynton,
had been so puzzled to conceive why a good-natured girl shouldn't have
contributed more to the personal rout of the Brigstocks--shouldn't have
been grateful even for the handsome puff of Fleda Vetch. Only her
passion was keener now and her scruple more absent; the fight made a
demand upon her, and her pugnacity had become one with her constant
habit of using such weapons as she could pick up. She had no imagination
about anybody's life save on the side she bumped against. Fleda was
quite aware that she would have otherwise been a rare creature; but a
rare creature was originally just what she had struck her as being. Mrs.
Gereth had really no perception of anybody's nature--had only one
question about persons: were they clever or stupid? To be clever meant
to know the marks. Fleda knew them by direct inspiration, and a warm
recognition of this had been her friend's tribute to her character. The
girl had hours, now, of sombre wishing that she might never see anything
good again: that kind of experien