e patient
with. At Waterbath, don't you know? I've simply to account and answer
for the damned things. Mona looks at me and waits, and I, hang it, I
look at you and do the same." Fleda had gathered fuller confidence as he
continued; so plain was it that she had succeeded in not dropping into
his mind the spark that might produce the glimmer invoked by his mother.
But even this fine assurance gave a start when, after an appealing
pause, he went on: "I hope, you know, that after all you're not keeping
anything back from me."

In the full face of what she was keeping back such a hope could only
make her wince; but she was prompt with her explanations in proportion
as she felt they failed to meet him. The smutty maid came in with
tea-things, and Fleda, moving several objects, eagerly accepted the
diversion of arranging a place for them on one of the tables. "I've been
trying to break your mother down because it has seemed there may be some
chance of it. That's why I've let you go on expecting it. She's too
proud to veer round all at once, but I think I speak correctly in saying
that I've made an impression."

In spite of ordering tea she had not invited him to sit down; she
herself made a point of standing. He hovered by the window that looked
into Raphael Road; she kept at the other side of the room; the stunted
slavey, gazing wide-eyed at the beautiful gentleman and either stupidly
or cunningly bringing but one thing at a time, came and went between the
tea-tray and the open door.

"You pegged at her so hard?" Owen asked.

"I explained to her fully your position and put before her much more
strongly than she liked what seemed to me her absolute duty."

Owen waited a little. "And having done that, you departed?"

Fleda felt the full need of giving a reason for her departure; but at
first she only said with cheerful frankness: "I departed."

Her companion again looked at her in silence. "I thought you had gone to
her for several months."

"Well," Fleda replied, "I couldn't stay. I didn't like it. I didn't like
it at all--I couldn't bear it," she went on. "In the midst of those
trophies of Poynton, living with them, touching them, using them, I felt
as if I were backing her up. As I was not a bit of an accomplice, as I
hate what she has done, I didn't want to be, even to the extent of the
mere look of it--what is it you call such people?--an accessory after
the fact." There was something she kept back so rigidly tha