usion was improper,
even if she herself wasn't; Mrs. Brigstock's emotion simplified: it came
to the same thing. "I'm quite ready," that lady said to Owen rather
mildly and woundedly. "I do want to speak to you very much."

"I'm completely at your service." Owen held out his hand to Fleda.
"Good-bye, Miss Vetch. I hope to see you again to-morrow." He opened the
door for Mrs. Brigstock, who passed before the girl with an oblique,
averted salutation. Owen and Fleda, while he stood at the door, then
faced each other darkly and without speaking. Their eyes met once more
for a long moment, and she was conscious there was something in hers
that the darkness didn't quench, that he had never seen before and that
he was perhaps never to see again. He stayed long enough to take it--to
take it with a sombre stare that just showed the dawn of wonder; then he
followed Mrs. Brigstock out of the house.

XVI

He had uttered the hope that he should see her the next day, but Fleda
could easily reflect that he wouldn't see her if she were not there to
be seen. If there was a thing in the world she desired at that moment,
it was that the next day should have no point of resemblance with the
day that had just elapsed. She accordingly aspired to an absence: she
would go immediately down to Maggie. She ran out that evening and
telegraphed to her sister, and in the morning she quitted London by an
early train. She required for this step no reason but the sense of
necessity. It was a strong personal need; she wished to interpose
something, and there was nothing she could interpose but distance, but
time. If Mrs. Brigstock had to deal with Owen she would allow Mrs.
Brigstock the chance. To be there, to be in the midst of it, was the
reverse of what she craved: she had already been more in the midst of it
than had ever entered into her plan. At any rate she had renounced her
plan; she had no plan now but the plan of separation. This was to
abandon Owen, to give up the fine office of helping him back to his own;
but when she had undertaken that office she had not foreseen that Mrs.
Gereth would defeat it by a manoeuvre so simple. The scene at her
father's rooms had extinguished all offices, and the scene at her
father's rooms was of Mrs. Gereth's producing. Owen, at all events, must
now act for himself: he had obligations to meet, he had satisfactions to
give, and Fleda fairly ached with the wish that he might be equal to
them. She never