the act itself imputed to her. As
high, bold diplomacy it dazzled and carried her off her feet. She
admired the noble risk of it, a risk Mrs. Gereth had faced for the
utterly poor creature that the girl now felt herself. The change it
instantly wrought in her was, moreover, extraordinary: it transformed at
a touch her emotion on the subject of concessions. A few weeks earlier
she had jumped at the duty of pleading for them, practically quarreling
with the lady of Ricks for her refusal to restore what she had taken.
She had been sore with the wrong to Owen, she had bled with the wounds
of Poynton; now however, as she heard of the replenishment of the void
that had so haunted her, she came as near sounding an alarm as if from
the deck of a ship she had seen a person she loved jump into the sea.
Mrs. Gereth had become in a flash the victim; poor little Ricks had been
laid bare in a night. If Fleda's feeling about the old things had taken
precipitate form the form would have been a frantic command. It was
indeed for mere want of breath that she didn't shout: "Oh, stop
them--it's no use; bring them back--it's too late!" And what most kept
her breathless was her companion's very grandeur. Fleda distinguished as
never before the purity of such a passion; it made Mrs. Gereth august
and almost sublime. It was absolutely unselfish--she cared nothing for
mere possession. She thought solely and incorruptibly of what was best
for the things; she had surrendered them to the presumptive care of the
one person of her acquaintance who felt about them as she felt herself,
and whose long lease of the future would be the nearest approach that
could be compassed to committing them to a museum. Now it was indeed
that Fleda knew what rested on her; now it was also that she measured as
if for the first time Mrs. Gereth's view of the natural influence of a
fine acquisition. She had adopted the idea of blowing away the last
doubt of what her young friend would gain, of making good still more
than she was obliged to make it the promise of weeks before. It was one
thing for the girl to have heard that in a certain event restitution
would be made; it was another for her to see the condition, with a noble
trust, treated in advance as performed, and to be able to feel that she
should have only to open a door to find every old piece in every old
corner. To have played such a card was therefore, practically, for Mrs.
Gereth, to have won the game. Fleda h