responsibility was now so vivid that all resentments turned
comparatively pale. She had no heart to produce a grievance; she could
only, left as she was with the little mystery on her hands, produce,
after a moment, a question. "How then do you come to know that your son
has ever thought--"

"That he would give his ears to get you?" Mrs. Gereth broke in. "I had a
visit from Mrs. Brigstock."

Fleda opened her eyes. "She went down to Ricks?"

"The day after she had found Owen at your feet. She knows everything."

Fleda shook her head sadly; she was more startled than she cared to
show. This odd journey of Mrs. Brigstock's, which, with a simplicity
equal for once to Owen's, she had not divined, now struck her as having
produced the hush of the last ten days. "There are things she doesn't
know!" she presently exclaimed.

"She knows he would do anything to marry you."

"He hasn't told her so," Fleda said.

"No, but he has told you. That's better still!" laughed Mrs. Gereth. "My
dear child," she went on with an air that affected the girl as a sort of
blind profanity, "don't try to make yourself out better than you are.
_I_ know what you are. I haven't lived with you so much for nothing.
You're not quite a saint in heaven yet. Lord, what a creature you'd have
thought me in my good time! But you do like it, fortunately, you idiot.
You're pale with your passion, you sweet thing. That's exactly what I
wanted to see. I can't for the life of me think where the shame comes
in." Then with a finer significance, a look that seemed to Fleda
strange, she added: "It's all right."

"I've seen him but twice," said Fleda.

"But twice?" Mrs. Gereth still smiled.

"On the occasion, at papa's, that Mrs. Brigstock told you of, and one
day, since then, down at Maggie's."

"Well, those things are between yourselves, and you seem to me both poor
creatures at best." Mrs. Gereth spoke with a rich humor which tipped
with light for an instant a real conviction. "I don't know what you've
got in your veins: you absurdly exaggerated the difficulties. But enough
is as good as a feast, and when once I get you abroad together--!" She
checked herself as if from excess of meaning; what might happen when she
should get them abroad together was to be gathered only from the way she
slowly rubbed her hands.

The gesture, however, made the promise so definite that for a moment her
companion was almost beguiled. But there was nothing to account, as ye