no reminders nor knocked at any doors; she wandered vaguely in the
western wilderness or cultivated shy forms of that "household art" for
which she had had a respect before tasting the bitter tree of knowledge.
Her only plan was to be as quiet as a mouse, and when she failed in the
attempt to lose herself in the flat suburb she felt like a lonely fly
crawling over a dusty chart.

How had Mrs. Gereth known in advance that if she had chosen to be "vile"
(that was what Fleda called it) everything would happen to help
her?--especially the way her poor father, after breakfast, doddered off
to his club, showing seventy when he was really fifty-seven, and leaving
her richly alone for the day. He came back about midnight, looking at
her very hard and not risking long words--only making her feel by
inimitable touches that the presence of his family compelled him to
alter all his hours. She had in their common sitting-room the company of
the objects he was fond of saying that he had collected--objects, shabby
and battered, of a sort that appealed little to his daughter: old
brandy-flasks and match-boxes, old calendars and hand-books, intermixed
with an assortment of pen-wipers and ash-trays, a harvest he had
gathered in from penny bazaars. He was blandly unconscious of that side
of Fleda's nature which had endeared her to Mrs. Gereth, and she had
often heard him wish to goodness there was something striking she cared
for. Why didn't she try collecting something?--it didn't matter what.
She would find it gave an interest to life, and there was no end of
little curiosities one could easily pick up. He was conscious of having
a taste for fine things which his children had unfortunately not
inherited. This indicated the limits of their acquaintance with
him--limits which, as Fleda was now sharply aware, could only leave him
to wonder what the mischief she was there for. As she herself echoed
this question to the letter she was not in a position to clear up the
mystery. She couldn't have given a name to her errand in town or
explained it save by saying that she had had to get away from Ricks. It
was intensely provisional, but what was to come next? Nothing could come
next but a deeper anxiety. She had neither a home nor an
outlook--nothing in all the wide world but a feeling of suspense.

Of course she had her duty--her duty to Owen--a definite undertaking,
reaffirmed, after his visit to Ricks, under her hand and seal; but there
wa