a free man: he
had had at West Kensington, as soon as they got into the street, such a
horrid scene with Mrs. Brigstock.

"I knew what she wanted to say to me: that's why I was determined to get
her off. I knew I shouldn't like it, but I was perfectly prepared," said
Owen. "She brought it out as soon as we got round the corner; she asked
me point-blank if I was in love with you."

"And what did you say to that?"

"That it was none of her business."

"Ah," said Fleda, "I'm not so sure!"

"Well, _I_ am, and I'm the person most concerned. Of course I didn't use
just those words: I was perfectly civil, quite as civil as she. But I
told her I didn't consider she had a right to put me any such question.
I said I wasn't sure that even Mona had, with the extraordinary line,
you know, that Mona has taken. At any rate the whole thing, the way _I_
put it, was between Mona and me; and between Mona and me, if she didn't
mind, it would just have to remain."

Fleda was silent a little. "All that didn't answer her question."

"Then you think I ought to have told her?"

Again our young lady reflected. "I think I'm rather glad you didn't."

"I knew what I was about," said Owen. "It didn't strike me that she had
the least right to come down on us that way and ask for explanations."

Fleda looked very grave, weighing the whole matter. "I dare say that
when she started, when she arrived, she didn't mean to 'come down.'"

"What then did she mean to do?"

"What she said to me just before she went: she meant to plead with me."

"Oh, I heard her!" said Owen. "But plead with you for what?"

"For you, of course--to entreat me to give you up. She thinks me awfully
designing--that I've taken some sort of possession of you."

Owen stared. "You haven't lifted a finger! It's I who have taken
possession."

"Very true, you've done it all yourself." Fleda spoke gravely and
gently, without a breath of coquetry. "But those are shades between
which she's probably not obliged to distinguish. It's enough for her
that we're singularly intimate."

"I am, but you're not!" Owen exclaimed.

Fleda gave a dim smile. "You make me at least feel that I'm learning to
know you very well when I hear you say such a thing as that. Mrs.
Brigstock came to get round me, to supplicate me," she went on; "but to
find you there, looking so much at home, paying me a friendly call and
shoving the tea-things about--that was too much for her patience. She
doesn't