grown
submissively and indescribably sweet, had her own interpretation of her
daughter-in-law's share in this second migration. It was a piece of
calculated insolence--a stroke odiously directed at showing whom it
might concern that now she had Poynton fast she was perfectly
indifferent to living there. The Morning Post, at Ricks, had again been
a resource: it was stated in that journal that Mr. and Mrs. Owen Gereth
proposed to spend the winter in India. There was a person to whom it was
clear that she led her wretched husband by the nose. Such was the light
in which contemporary history was offered to Fleda until, in her own
room, late at night, she broke the seal of her letter.

"I want you, inexpressibly, to have, as a remembrance, something of
mine--something of real value. Something from Poynton is what I mean and
what I should prefer. You know everything there, and far better than I
what's best and what isn't. There are a lot of differences, but aren't
some of the smaller things the most remarkable? I mean for judges, and
for what they'd bring. What I want you to take from me, and to choose
for yourself, is the thing in the whole house that's most beautiful and
precious. I mean the 'gem of the collection,' don't you know? If it
happens to be of such a sort that you can take immediate possession of
it--carry it right away with you--so much the better. You're to have it
on the spot, whatever it is. I humbly beg of you to go down there and
see. The people have complete instructions: they'll act for you in every
possible way and put the whole place at your service. There's a thing
mamma used to call the Maltese cross and that I think I've heard her say
is very wonderful. Is _that_ the gem of the collection? Perhaps you
would take it, or anything equally convenient. Only I do want you
awfully to let it be the very pick of the place. Let me feel that I can
trust you for this. You won't refuse if you will think a little what it
must be that makes me ask."

Fleda read that last sentence over more times even than the rest; she
was baffled--she couldn't think at all of what it might be. This was
indeed because it might be one of so many things. She made for the
present no answer; she merely, little by little, fashioned for herself
the form that her answer should eventually wear. There was only one form
that was possible--the form of doing, at her time, what he wished. She
would go down to Poynton as a pilgrim might go to