et I
don't know what to hold on by. He cares for you, it does appear, and yet
in the same breath you inform me that nothing is more possible than that
he's spending these days at Waterbath. Excuse me if I'm so dull as not
to see my way in such darkness. If he's at Waterbath he doesn't care for
you. If he cares for you he's not at Waterbath."

"Then where is he?" poor Fleda helplessly wailed. She caught herself up,
however; she did her best to be brave and clear. Before Mrs. Gereth
could reply, with due obviousness, that this was a question for her not
to ask, but to answer, she found an air of assurance to say: "You
simplify far too much. You always did and you always will. The tangle of
life is much more intricate than you've ever, I think, felt it to be.
You slash into it," cried Fleda finely, "with a great pair of shears,
you nip at it as if you were one of the Fates! If Owen's at Waterbath
he's there to wind everything up."

Mrs. Gereth shook her head with slow austerity. "You don't believe a
word you're saying. I've frightened you, as you've frightened me: you're
whistling in the dark to keep up our courage. I do simplify, doubtless,
if to simplify is to fail to comprehend the insanity of a passion that
bewilders a young blockhead with bugaboo barriers, with hideous and
monstrous sacrifices. I can only repeat that you're beyond me. Your
perversity's a thing to howl over. However," the poor woman continued
with a break in her voice, a long hesitation and then the dry triumph of
her will, "I'll never mention it to you again! Owen I can just make out;
for Owen _is_ a blockhead. Owen's a blockhead," she repeated with a
quiet, tragic finality, looking straight into Fleda's eyes. "I don't
know why you dress up so the fact that he's disgustingly weak."

Fleda hesitated; at last, before her companion's, she lowered her look.
"Because I love him. It's because he's weak that he needs me," she
added.

"That was why his father, whom he exactly resembles, needed _me_. And I
didn't fail his father," said Mrs. Gereth. She gave Fleda a moment to
appreciate the remark; after which she pursued: "Mona Brigstock isn't
weak; she's stronger than you!"

"I never thought she was weak," Fleda answered. She looked vaguely round
the room with a new purpose: she had lost sight of her umbrella.

"I did tell you to let yourself go, but it's clear enough that you
really haven't," Mrs. Gereth declared. "If Mona has got him--"

Fleda had a