t the joy of
uttering the rest was double. She felt the sharpest need of giving him
all the other truth. There was a matter as to which she had deceived
him, and there was a matter as to which she had deceived Mrs. Gereth,
but her lack of pleasure in deception as such came home to her now. She
busied herself with the tea and, to extend the occupation, cleared the
table still more, spreading out the coarse cups and saucers and the
vulgar little plates. She was aware that she produced more confusion
than symmetry, but she was also aware that she was violently nervous.
Owen tried to help her with something: this made rather for disorder.
"My reason for not writing to you," she pursued, "was simply that I was
hoping to hear more from Ricks. I've waited from day to day for that."

"But you've heard nothing?"

"Not a word."

"Then what I understand," said Owen, "is that, practically, you and
Mummy have quarreled. And you've done it--I mean you personally--for
_me_."

"Oh no, we haven't quarreled a bit!" Then with a smile: "We've only
diverged."

"You've diverged uncommonly far!"--Owen laughed back. Fleda, with her
hideous crockery and her father's collections, could conceive that these
objects, to her visitor's perception even more strongly than to her own,
measured the length of the swing from Poynton and Ricks; she was aware
too that her high standards figured vividly enough even to Owen's
simplicity to make him reflect that West Kensington was a tremendous
fall. If she had fallen it was because she had acted for him. She was
all the more content he should thus see she _had_ acted, as the cost of
it, in his eyes, was none of her own showing. "What seems to have
happened," he exclaimed, "is that you've had a row with her and yet not
moved her!"

Fleda considered a moment; she was full of the impression that,
notwithstanding her scant help, he saw his way clearer than he had seen
it at Ricks. He might mean many things; and what if the many should mean
in their turn only one? "The difficulty is, you understand, that she
doesn't really see into your situation." She hesitated. "She doesn't
comprehend why your marriage hasn't yet taken place."

Owen stared. "Why, for the reason I told you: that Mona won't take
another step till mother has given full satisfaction. Everything must be
there. You see, everything _was_ there the day of that fatal visit."

"Yes, that's what I understood from you at Ricks," said Fleda; "but I