"In as few days as possible. That's all that's left for me now." Fleda's
heart, at this, gave a bound; she wondered to what particular difference
in Mrs. Gereth's situation as last known to her it was an allusion.
"I've made my plan," her friend continued: "I go for at least a year. We
shall go straight to Florence; we can manage there. I of course don't
look to you, however," she added, "to stay with me all that time. That
will require to be settled. Owen will have to join us as soon as
possible; he may not be quite ready to get off with us. But I'm
convinced it's quite the right thing to go. It will make a good change;
it will put in a decent interval."
Fleda listened; she was deeply mystified. "How kind you are to me!" she
presently said. The picture suggested so many questions that she
scarcely knew which to ask first. She took one at a venture. "You really
have it from Mr. Gereth that he'll give us his company?"
If Mr. Gereth's mother smiled in response to this, Fleda knew that her
smile was a tacit criticism of such a form of reference to her son.
Fleda habitually spoke of him as Mr. Owen, and it was a part of her
present vigilance to appear to have relinquished that right. Mrs.
Gereth's manner confirmed a certain impression of her pretending to more
than she felt; her very first words had conveyed it, and it reminded
Fleda of the conscious courage with which, weeks before, the lady had
met her visitor's first startled stare at the clustered spoils of
Poynton. It was her practice to take immensely for granted whatever she
wished. "Oh, if you'll answer for him, it will do quite as well!" she
said. Then she put her hands on the girl's shoulders and held them at
arm's length, as if to shake them a little, while in the depths of her
shining eyes Fleda discovered something obscure and unquiet. "You bad,
false thing, why didn't you tell me?" Her tone softened her harshness,
and her visitor had never had such a sense of her indulgence. Mrs.
Gereth could show patience; it was a part of the general bribe, but it
was also like the handing in of a heavy bill before which Fleda could
only fumble in a penniless pocket. "You must perfectly have known at
Ricks, and yet you practically denied it. That's why I call you bad and
false!" It was apparently also why she again almost roughly kissed her.
"I think that before I answer you I had better know what you're talking
about," Fleda said.
Mrs. Gereth looked at her with a slight increase of hardness. "You've
done everything you need for modesty, my dear! If he's sick with love of
you, you haven't had to wait for me to inform you."