"About its being _her_ that thinks she has gone too far." This was still
slightly obscure, but now Fleda understood. "It mustn't seem to come
from _her_ at all, don't you know? That would only make Mummy worse."
Fleda knew exactly how much worse, but she felt a delicacy about
explicitly assenting: she was already immersed moreover in the deep
consideration of what might make "Mummy" better. She couldn't see as yet
at all; she could only clutch at the hope of some inspiration after he
should go. Oh, there was a remedy, to be sure, but it was out of the
question; in spite of which, in the strong light of Owen's troubled
presence, of his anxious face and restless step, it hung there before
her for some minutes. She felt that, remarkably, beneath the decent
rigor of his errand, the poor young man, for reasons, for weariness, for
disgust, would have been ready not to insist. His fitness to fight his
mother had left him--he wasn't in fighting trim. He had no natural
avidity and even no special wrath; he had none that had not been taught
him, and it was doing his best to learn the lesson that had made him so
sick. He had his delicacies, but he hid them away like presents before
Christmas. He was hollow, perfunctory, pathetic; he had been girded by
another hand. That hand had naturally been Mona's, and it was heavy even
now on his strong, broad back. Why then had he originally rejoiced so in
its touch? Fleda dashed aside this question, for it had nothing to do
with her problem. Her problem was to help him to live as a gentleman and
carry through what he had undertaken; her problem was to reinstate him
in his rights. It was quite irrelevant that Mona had no intelligence of
what she had lost--quite irrelevant that she was moved not by the
privation, but by the insult: she had every reason to be moved, though
she was so much more movable, in the vindictive way, at any rate, than
one might have supposed--assuredly more than Owen himself had imagined.
"Certainly I shall not mention Mona," Fleda said, "and there won't be
the slightest necessity for it. The wrong's quite sufficiently yours,
and the demand you make is perfectly justified by it."
"I can't tell you what it is to me to feel you on my side!" Owen
exclaimed.
"Up to this time," said Fleda, after a pause, "your mother has had no
doubt of my being on hers."
"Then of course she won't like your changing."
"I dare say she won't like it at all."
"Do you mean to say you'll have a regular kick-up with her?"
"I don't exactly know what you mean by a regular kick-up. We shall
naturally have a great deal of discussion--if she consents to discuss
the matter at all. That's why you must decidedly give her two or three
days."
"I see you think she _may_ refuse to discuss it at all," said Owen.
"I'm only trying to be prepared for the worst. You must remember that to
have to withdraw from the ground she has taken, to make a public
surrender of what she has publicly appropriated, will go uncommonly hard
with her pride."
Owen considered; his face seemed to broaden, but not into a smile. "I
suppose she's tremendously proud, isn't she?" This might have been the
first time it had occurred to him.
"You know better than I," said Fleda, speaking with high extravagance.
"I don't know anything in the world half so well as you. If I were as
clever as you I might hope to get round her." Owen hesitated; then he
went on: "In fact I don't quite see what even you can say or do that
will really fetch her."
"Neither do I, as yet. I must think--I must pray!" the girl pursued,
smiling. "I can only say to you that I'll try. I _want_ to try, you
know--I want to help you." He stood looking at her so long on this that
she added with much distinctness: "So you must leave me, please, quite
alone with her. You must go straight back."
"Back to the inn?"
"Oh no, back to town. I'll write to you to-morrow."
He turned about vaguely for his hat.
"There's the chance, of course, that she may be afraid."
"Afraid, you mean, of the legal steps you may take?"
"I've got a perfect case--I could have her up. The Brigstocks say it's
simple stealing."
"I can easily fancy what the Brigstocks say!" Fleda permitted herself to
remark without solemnity.
"It's none of their business, is it?" was Owen's unexpected rejoinder.
Fleda had already noted that no one so slow could ever have had such
rapid transitions.
She showed her amusement. "They've a much better right to say it's none
of mine."
"Well, at any rate, you don't call her names."
Fleda wondered whether Mona did; and this made it all the finer of her
to exclaim in a moment: "You don't know what I shall call her if she
holds out!"
Owen gave her a gloomy glance; then he blew a speck off the crown of his
hat. "But if you do have a set-to with her?"
He paused so long for a reply that Fleda said: "I don't think I know
what you mean by a set-to."
"Well, if she calls _you_ names."
"I don't think she'll do that."
"What I mean to say is, if she's angry at your backing me up--what will
you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know."
"She may very well not like it; but everything depends. I must see what
I shall do. You mustn't worry about me."
She spoke with decision, but Owen seemed still unsatisfied. "You won't
go away, I hope?"
"Go away?"
"If she does take it ill of you."
Fleda moved to the door and opened it. "I'm not prepared to say. You
must have patience and see."
"Of course I must," said Owen--"of course, of course." But he took no
more advantage of the open door than to say: "You want me to be off, and
I'm off in a minute. Only, before I go, please answer me a question. If
you _should_ leave my mother, where would you go?"