"It's very true that you know everything. No, dear, you haven't a petty mind; you've a lovely imagination and you're the nicest creature in the world. If you were inane, like most girls--like every one, in fact--I would have insulted you, I would have outraged you, and then you would have fled from me in terror. No, now that I think of it," Mrs. Gereth went on, "you wouldn't have fled from me; nothing, on the contrary, would have made you budge. You would have cuddled into your warm corner, but you would have been wounded and weeping and martyrized, and you would have taken every opportunity to tell people I'm a brute--as indeed I should have been!" They went to and fro, and she would not allow Fleda, who laughed and protested, to attenuate with any light civility this spirited picture. She praised her cleverness and her patience; then she said it was getting cold and dark and they must go in to tea. She delayed quitting the place, however, and reverted instead to Owen's ultimatum, about which she asked another question or two; in particular whether it had struck Fleda that he really believed she would comply with such a summons. "I think he really believes that if I try hard enough I can make you:" after uttering which words our young lady stopped short and emulated the embrace she had received a few moments before. "And you've promised to try: I see. You didn't tell me that, either," Mrs. Gereth added as they went on. "But you're rascal enough for anything!" While Fleda was occupied in thinking in what terms she could explain why she had indeed been rascal enough for the reticence thus denounced, her companion broke out with an inquiry somewhat irrelevant and even in form somewhat profane. "Why the devil, at any rate, doesn't it come off?" Fleda hesitated. "You mean their marriage?" "Of course I mean their marriage!" Fleda hesitated again. "I haven't the least idea." "You didn't ask him?" "Oh, how in the world can you fancy?" She spoke in a shocked tone. "Fancy your putting a question so indelicate? _I_ should have put it--I mean in your place; but I'm quite coarse, thank God!" Fleda felt privately that she herself was coarse, or at any rate would presently have to be; and Mrs. Gereth, with a purpose that struck the girl as increasing, continued: "What, then, _was_ the day to be? Wasn't it just one of these?" "I'm sure I don't remember." It was part of the great rupture and an effect of Mrs. Gereth's character that up to this moment she had been completely and haughtily indifferent to that detail. Now, however, she had a visible reason for being clear about it. She bethought herself and she broke out--"Isn't the day past?" Then, stopping short, she added: "Upon my word, they must have put it off!" As Fleda made no answer to this she sharply went on: "_Have_ they put it off?" "I haven't the least idea," said the girl. Her hostess was looking at her hard again. "Didn't he tell you--didn't he say anything about it?"