ted, under firm coercion, she had the extraordinary impression that
Owen's simplicity was in eclipse. His natural honesty was like the scent
of a flower, and she felt at this moment as if her nose had been brushed
by the bloom without the odor. The allusion was undoubtedly to his
mother; and was not what he meant about the matter in question the
opposite of what he said--that it just _would_ do to tell her? It would
have been the first time he had said the opposite of what he meant, and
there was certainly a fascination in the phenomenon, as well as a
challenge to suspense in the ambiguity. "It's just that I understand
from Mona, you know," he stammered; "it's just that she has made no
bones about bringing home to me--" He tried to laugh, and in the effort
he faltered again.

"About bringing home to you?"--Fleda encouraged him.

He was sensible of it, he achieved his performance. "Why, that if I
don't get the things back--every blessed one of them except a few
_she_'ll pick out--she won't have anything more to say to me."

Fleda, after an instant, encouraged him again. "To say to you?"

"Why, she simply won't marry me, don't you see?"

Owen's legs, not to mention his voice, had wavered while he spoke, and
she felt his possession of her hand loosen so that she was free again.
Her stare of perception broke into a lively laugh. "Oh, you're all
right, for you _will_ get them. You will; you're quite safe; don't
worry!" She fell back into the house with her hand on the door.
"Good-bye, good-bye." She repeated it several times, laughing bravely,
quite waving him away and, as he didn't move and save that he was on the
other side of it, closing the door in his face quite as he had closed
that of the drawing-room in hers. Never had a face, never at least had
such a handsome one, been so presented to that offense. She even held
the door a minute, lest he should try to come in again. At last, as she
heard nothing, she made a dash for the stairs and ran up.

IX

In knowing a while before all she needed, Fleda had been far from
knowing as much as that; so that once upstairs, where, in her room, with
her sense of danger and trouble, the age of Louis Seize suddenly struck
her as wanting in taste and point, she felt that she now for the first
time knew her temptation. Owen had put it before her with an art beyond
his own dream. Mona would cast him off if he didn't proceed to
extremities; if his negotiation with his mother