Dear Mrs. Gereth smiled sweetly. "How could he, when our situation is
such that he communicates with me only through you, and that you are so
tortuous you conceal everything?"
"Didn't he answer the note in which you let him know that I was in
town?" Fleda asked.
"He answered it sufficiently by rushing off on the spot to see you."
Mrs. Gereth met that allusion with a prompt firmness that made almost
insolently light of any ground of complaint, and Fleda's own sense of
responsibility was now so vivid that all resentments turned
comparatively pale. She had no heart to produce a grievance; she could
only, left as she was with the little mystery on her hands, produce,
after a moment, a question. "How then do you come to know that your son
has ever thought--"
"That he would give his ears to get you?" Mrs. Gereth broke in. "I had a
visit from Mrs. Brigstock."