When Owen and Fleda were in her father's little place and, among the
brandy-flasks and pen-wipers, still more disconcerted and divided, the
girl--to do something, though it would make him stay--had ordered tea,
he put the letter before her quite as if he had guessed her thought.
"She's still a bit nasty--fancy!" He handed her the scrap of a note
which he had pulled out of his pocket and from its envelope. "Fleda
Vetch," it ran, "is at 10 Raphael Road, West Kensington. Go to see her,
and try, for God's sake, to cultivate a glimmer of intelligence." When
in handing it back to him she took in his face she saw that its
heightened color was the effect of his watching her read such an
allusion to his want of wit. Fleda knew what it was an allusion to, and
his pathetic air of having received this buffet, tall and fine and kind
as he stood there, made her conscious of not quite concealing her
knowledge. For a minute she was kept silent by an angered sense of the
trick that had been played her. It was a trick because Fleda considered
there had been a covenant; and the trick consisted of Mrs. Gereth's
having broken the spirit of their agreement while conforming in a
fashion to the letter. Under the girl's menace of a complete rupture she
had been afraid to make of her secret the use she itched to make; but in
the course of these days of separation she had gathered pluck to hazard
an indirect betrayal. Fleda measured her hesitations and the impulse
which she had finally obeyed and which the continued procrastination of
Waterbath had encouraged, had at last made irresistible. If in her
high-handed manner of playing their game she had not named the thing
hidden, she had named the hiding-place. It was over the sense of this
wrong that Fleda's lips closed tight: she was afraid of aggravating her
case by some ejaculation that would make Owen prick up his ears. A
great, quick effort, however, helped her to avoid the danger; with her
constant idea of keeping cool and repressing a visible flutter, she
found herself able to choose her words. Meanwhile he had exclaimed with
his uncomfortable laugh: "That's a good one for me, Miss Vetch, isn't
it?"
"Of course you know by this time that your mother's very sharp," said
Fleda.
"I think I can understand well enough when I know what's to be
understood," the young man asserted. "But I hope you won't mind my
saying that you've kept me pretty well in the dark about that. I've been
waiting, waiting, waiting; so much has depended on your news. If you've
been working for me I'm afraid it has been a thankless job. Can't she
say what she'll do, one way or the other? I can't tell in the least
where I am, you know. I haven't really learnt from you, since I saw you
there, where _she_ is. You wrote me to be patient, and upon my soul I
have been. But I'm afraid you don't quite realize what I'm to be patient
with. At Waterbath, don't you know? I've simply to account and answer
for the damned things. Mona looks at me and waits, and I, hang it, I
look at you and do the same." Fleda had gathered fuller confidence as he
continued; so plain was it that she had succeeded in not dropping into
his mind the spark that might produce the glimmer invoked by his mother.
But even this fine assurance gave a start when, after an appealing
pause, he went on: "I hope, you know, that after all you're not keeping
anything back from me."
In the full face of what she was keeping back such a hope could only
make her wince; but she was prompt with her explanations in proportion
as she felt they failed to meet him. The smutty maid came in with
tea-things, and Fleda, moving several objects, eagerly accepted the
diversion of arranging a place for them on one of the tables. "I've been
trying to break your mother down because it has seemed there may be some
chance of it. That's why I've let you go on expecting it. She's too
proud to veer round all at once, but I think I speak correctly in saying
that I've made an impression."
In spite of ordering tea she had not invited him to sit down; she
herself made a point of standing. He hovered by the window that looked
into Raphael Road; she kept at the other side of the room; the stunted
slavey, gazing wide-eyed at the beautiful gentleman and either stupidly
or cunningly bringing but one thing at a time, came and went between the
tea-tray and the open door.
"You pegged at her so hard?" Owen asked.
"I explained to her fully your position and put before her much more
strongly than she liked what seemed to me her absolute duty."