"About the contents of the house. Aren't you looking after them for
him?"
"She knows how awfully kind you've been to me," Owen said. He showed
such discomfiture that he really gave away their situation; and Fleda
found herself divided between the hope that he would take leave and the
wish that he should see the whole of what the occasion might enable her
to bring to pass for him.
She explained to Mrs. Brigstock. "Mrs. Gereth, at Ricks, the other day,
asked me particularly to see him for her."
"And did she ask you also particularly to see him here in town?" Mrs.
Brigstock's hideous bonnet seemed to argue for the unsophisticated
truth; and it was on Fleda's lips to reply that such had indeed been
Mrs. Gereth's request. But she checked herself, and before she could say
anything else Owen had addressed their companion.
"I made a point of letting Mona know that I should be here, don't you
see? That's exactly what I wrote her this morning."
"She would have had no doubt you would be here, if you had a chance,"
Mrs. Brigstock returned. "If your letter had arrived it might have
prepared me for finding you here at tea. In that case I certainly
wouldn't have come."
"I'm glad, then, it didn't arrive. Shouldn't you like him to go?" Fleda
asked.
Mrs. Brigstock looked at Owen and considered: nothing showed in her face
but that it turned a deeper pink. "I should like him to go with _me_."
There was no menace in her tone, but she evidently knew what she wanted.
As Owen made no response to this Fleda glanced at him to invite him to
assent; then, for fear that he wouldn't, and would thereby make his case
worse, she took upon herself to declare that she was sure he would be
very glad to meet such a wish. She had no sooner spoken than she felt
that the words had a bad effect of intimacy: she had answered for him as
if she had been his wife. Mrs. Brigstock continued to regard him as if
she had observed nothing, and she continued to address Fleda: "I've not
seen him for a long time--I've particular things to say to him."
"So have I things to say to you, Mrs. Brigstock!" Owen interjected. With
this he took up his hat as if for an immediate departure.
The other visitor meanwhile turned to Fleda. "What is Mrs. Gereth going
to do?"
"Is that what you came to ask me?" Fleda demanded.
"That and several other things."
"Then you had much better let Mr. Gereth go, and stay by yourself and
make me a pleasant visit. You can talk with him when you like, but it is
the first time you've been to see me."
This appeal had evidently a certain effect; Mrs. Brigstock visibly
wavered. "I can't talk with him whenever I like," she returned; "he
hasn't been near us since I don't know when. But there are things that
have brought me here."
"They are not things of any importance," Owen, to Fleda's surprise,
suddenly asserted. He had not at first taken up Mrs. Brigstock's
expression of a wish to carry him off: Fleda could see that the instinct
at the bottom of this was that of standing by her, of seeming not to
abandon her. But abruptly, all his soreness working within him, it had
struck him that he should abandon her still more if he should leave her
to be dealt with by her other visitor. "You must allow me to say, you
know, Mrs. Brigstock, that I don't think you should come down on Miss
Vetch about anything. It's very good of her to take the smallest
interest in us and our horrid little squabble. If you want to talk about
it, talk about it with _me_." He was flushed with the idea of protecting
Fleda, of exhibiting his consideration for her. "I don't like your
cross-questioning her, don't you see? She's as straight as a die: _I_'ll
tell you all about her!" he declared with an excited laugh. "Please come
off with me and let her alone."
Mrs. Brigstock, at this, became vivid at once; Fleda thought she looked
most peculiar. She stood straight up, with a queer distention of her
whole person and of everything in her face but her mouth, which she
gathered into a small, tight orifice. Fleda was painfully divided; her
joy was deep within, but it was more relevant to the situation that she
should not appear to associate herself with the tone of familiarity in
which Owen addressed a lady who had been, and was perhaps still, about
to become his mother-in-law. She laid on Mrs. Brigstock's arm a
repressive hand. Mrs. Brigstock, however, had already exclaimed on her
having so wonderful a defender. "He speaks, upon my word, as if I had
come here to be rude to you!"
At this, grasping her hard, Fleda laughed; then she achieved the exploit
of delicately kissing her. "I'm not in the least afraid to be alone with
you, or of your tearing me to pieces. I'll answer any question that you
can possibly dream of putting to me."
"I'm the proper person to answer Mrs. Brigstock's questions," Owen broke
in again, "and I'm not a bit less ready to meet them than you are." He
was firmer than she had ever seen him: it was as if she had not known he
could be so firm.
"But she'll only have been here a few minutes. What sort of a visit is
that?" Fleda cried.
"It has lasted long enough for my purpose. There was something I wanted
to know, but I think I know it now."
"Anything you don't know I dare say I can tell you!" Owen observed as he
impatiently smoothed his hat with the cuff of his coat.
Fleda by this time desired immensely to keep his companion, but she saw
she could do so only at the cost of provoking on his part a further
exhibition of the sheltering attitude, which he exaggerated precisely
because it was the first thing, since he had begun to "like" her, that
he had been able frankly to do for her. It was not in her interest that
Mrs. Brigstock should be more struck than she already was with that
benevolence. "There may be things you know that I don't," she presently
said to her, with a smile. "But I've a sort of sense that you're
laboring under some great mistake."
Mrs. Brigstock, at this, looked into her eyes more deeply and yearningly
than she had supposed Mrs. Brigstock could look; it was the flicker of a
certain willingness to give her a chance. Owen, however, quickly spoiled
everything. "Nothing is more probable than that Mrs. Brigstock is doing
what you say; but there's no one in the world to whom you owe an
explanation. I may owe somebody one--I dare say I do; but not you, no!"
"But what if there's one that it's no difficulty at all for me to give?"
Fleda inquired. "I'm sure that's the only one Mrs. Brigstock came to
ask, if she came to ask any at all."
Again the good lady looked hard at her young hostess. "I came, I
believe, Fleda, just, you know, to plead with you."
Fleda, with a bright face, hesitated a moment. "As if I were one of
those bad women in a play?"
The remark was disastrous. Mrs. Brigstock, on whom her brightness was
lost, evidently thought it singularly free. She turned away, as from a
presence that had really defined itself as objectionable, and Fleda had
a vain sense that her good humor, in which there was an idea, was taken
for impertinence, or at least for levity. Her allusion was improper,
even if she herself wasn't; Mrs. Brigstock's emotion simplified: it came
to the same thing. "I'm quite ready," that lady said to Owen rather
mildly and woundedly. "I do want to speak to you very much."
"I'm completely at your service." Owen held out his hand to Fleda.
"Good-bye, Miss Vetch. I hope to see you again to-morrow." He opened the
door for Mrs. Brigstock, who passed before the girl with an oblique,
averted salutation. Owen and Fleda, while he stood at the door, then
faced each other darkly and without speaking. Their eyes met once more
for a long moment, and she was conscious there was something in hers
that the darkness didn't quench, that he had never seen before and that
he was perhaps never to see again. He stayed long enough to take it--to
take it with a sombre stare that just showed the dawn of wonder; then he
followed Mrs. Brigstock out of the house.