he touch of my hand. But
I could let them all go, since I have to, so strangely, to another
affection, another conscience. There's a care they want, there's a
sympathy that draws out their beauty. Rather than make them over to a
woman ignorant and vulgar, I think I'd deface them with my own hands.
Can't you see me, Fleda, and wouldn't you do it yourself?"--she appealed
to her companion with glittering eyes. "I couldn't bear the thought of
such a woman here--I _couldn't_. I don't know what she'd do; she'd be
sure to invent some deviltry, if it should be only to bring in her own
little belongings and horrors. The world is full of cheap gimcracks, in
this awful age, and they're thrust in at one at every turn. They'd be
thrust in here, on top of my treasures, my own. Who would save _them_
for me--I ask you who _would_?" and she turned again to Fleda with a
dry, strained smile. Her handsome, high-nosed, excited face might have
been that of Don Quixote tilting at a windmill. Drawn into the eddy of
this outpouring, the girl, scared and embarrassed, laughed off her
exposure; but only to feel herself more passionately caught up and, as
it seemed to her, thrust down the fine open mouth (it showed such
perfect teeth) with which poor Owen's slow cerebration gaped. "_You_
would, of course--only you, in all the world, because you know, you
feel, as I do myself, what's good and true and pure." No severity of the
moral law could have taken a higher tone in this implication of the
young lady who had not the only virtue Mrs. Gereth actively esteemed.
"_You_ would replace me, _you_ would watch over them, _you_ would keep
the place right," she austerely pursued, "and with you here--yes, with
you, I believe I might rest, at last, in my grave!" She threw herself on
Fleda's neck, and before Fleda, horribly shamed, could shake her off,
had burst into tears which couldn't have been explained, but which might
perhaps have been understood.

IV

A week later Owen Gereth came down to inform his mother that he had
settled with Mona Brigstock; but it was not at all a joy to Fleda,
conscious how much to himself it would be a surprise, that he should
find her still in the house. That dreadful scene before breakfast had
made her position false and odious; it had been followed, after they
were left alone, by a scene of her own making with her extravagant
friend. She notified Mrs. Gereth of her instant departure: she couldn't
possibly remain aft