 CHAPTER VII As soon as her sister was married she went down to Mrs. Gareth at Ricks, a promise to this effect having been promptly exacted and given, and her inner vision was much more fixed on the alterations there, complete now, as she understood, than on the success of her plotting and pinching for Maggie's happiness. Her imagination in the interval had indeed had plenty to do and numerous scenes to visit. For when, on the summons just mentioned, it had taken a flight from West Kensington to Ricks, it had hung but an hour over the terrace of painted pots, and then yielded to a current of the upper air that swept it straight off to Pointon and to Waterbath. Not a sound had reached her of any supreme clash, and Mrs. Gareth had communicated next to nothing, giving out that, as was easily conceivable, she was too busy, too bitter, and too tired for vain civilities. All she had written was that she had got the new place well in hand, and that Fleeter would be surprised at the way it was turning out. Nothing was even yet upside down. Nevertheless, in the sense of having passed the threshold of Pointon for the last time, the amputation, as she called it, had been performed. Her leg had come off, she had now begun to stump along with the lovely wooden substitute, she would stump for life, and what her young friend was to come and admire was the beauty of her movement and the noise she made about the house. The reserve of Pointon and Waterbath had been matched by the austerity of Fleeter's own secret, under the discipline of which she had repeated to herself a hundred times a day that she rejoiced at having cares that excluded all thought of it. She had lavished herself in act on Maggie and the curate, and had opposed to her father's selfishness a sweetness quite ecstatic. The young couple wondered why they had waited so long, since everything was, after all, so easy. She had thought of everything, even to how the quietness of the wedding should be relieved by champagne, and her father kept brilliant on a single bottle. Fleeter knew, in short, and liked the knowledge that for several weeks she had appeared exemplary in every relation of life. She had been perfectly prepared to be surprised at Rick's, for Mrs. Gareth was a wonder-working wizard with a command, when all was said, of good material. But the impression and wait for her on the threshold made her catch her breath and falter. Dust had fallen when she arrived, and in the plain square hall, one of the few good features, the glow of a Venetian lamp just showed on either wall the richness of an admirable tapestry. This instant perception that the place had been dressed at the expense of Pointon was a shock. It was as if she had abruptly seen herself in the light of an accomplice. The next moment folded in Mrs. Gareth's arms. Her eyes were diverted, but she had already had, in a flash, the vision of the great gaps in the other house. The two tapestries, not the largest, but those most splendidly toned by time, had been on the whole its most uplifted pride. When she could really see again she was on a sofa in the drawing-room, staring with intensity at an object soon distinct as the great Italian cabinet that at Pointon had been in the red saloon. Without looking she was sure the room was occupied with other objects like it, stuffed with as many as it could hold of the trophies of her friend's struggle. By this time the very fingers of her glove, resting on the seat of the sofa, had thrilled at the touch of an old velvet brocade, a wondrous texture that she could recognise would have recognised among a thousand, without dropping her eyes on it. They stuck to the cabinet with a kind of dissimulated dread, while she painfully asked herself if she should notice it, notice everything, or just pretend not to be affected. How could she pretend not to be affected, with the very pendants of the luster's tinkling at her, and with Mrs. Gareth beside her and staring at her even as she herself stared at the cabinet, hunching up a back like Atlas under his globe? She was appalled at this image of what Mrs. Gareth had on her shoulders. That lady was waiting and watching her, bracing herself and preparing the same face of confession and defiance she had shown, the day at Pointon she had been surprised in the corridor. It was farcical not to speak, and yet to exclaim to participate would give one a bad sense of being mixed up with a theft. This ugly word sounded for herself in fleet of silence, and the very violence of it jarred her into a scared glance as of a creature detected to right and left. But what again the full picture most showed her was the far away empty sockets, a scandal of nakedness in high bare walls. She at last uttered something formal and incoherent. She didn't know what. It had no relation to either house. Then she felt Mrs. Gareth's hand once more on her arm. I've arranged a charming room for you. It's really lovely. You'll be very happy there. This was spoken with extraordinary sweetness, and with a smile that meant, Oh, I know what you're thinking, but what does it matter when you're so loyally on my side? It had come indeed to a question of sides, fleet of thought, for the whole place was in battle array, in the soft lamplight with one fine feature after another, looming up into somber richness, it defied her not to pronounce it a triumph of taste. Her passion for beauty leaped back into life, and was not what now most appealed to it a certain gorgeous audacity. Mrs. Gareth's high hand was, as mere great effect, the climax of the impression. It's too wonderful what you've done with the house. The visitor met her friend's eyes. They lighted up with joy. That friend herself was so pleased with what she had done. This was not at all, in its accidental air of enthusiasm, what Fleeda wanted to have said. It offered her as stupidly announcing from the first minute on whose side she was. Such was clearly the way Mrs. Gareth took it. She threw herself upon the delightful girl, and tenderly embraced her again, so that Fleeda soon went on with a study difference and a cooler inspection. Why, you brought away absolutely everything. Oh, no, not everything. I saw how little I could get into this scrap of a house. I only brought away what I required. Fleeda had got up. She took a turn around the room. You required the very best pieces, the more so the musée, the individual gems. I certainly didn't want the rubbish, if that's what you mean. Mrs. Gareth on the sofa followed the direction of her companion's eyes. With the light of her satisfaction still in her face, she slowly rubbed her large, handsome hands. Wherever she was, she was herself the great peace in the gallery. It was the first Fleeda had heard of there being rubbish at Pointon, but she didn't for the moment take up this insincerity. She only, from where she stood in the room, called out one after the other, as if she had had a list before her, the items that in the great house had been scattered, and that now, if they had a fault, were too much like a minuet danced on a hearth rug. She knew them each in every chink and charm, knew them by the personal name their distinctive sign or story had given them. At a second time she felt how, against her intention, this uttered knowledge struck her hostess as so much free approval. Mrs. Gareth was never indifferent to approval, and there was nothing she could so love you for as for doing justice to her deep morality. There was a particular gleam in her eyes when Fleeda exclaimed at last, dazzled by the display, and even the Maltese cross. That description, though technically incorrect, had always been applied at pointon to a small but marvellous crucifix of ivory, a masterpiece of delicacy, of expression, and of the great Spanish period, the existence and precarious accessibility of which she had heard of at Malta years before by an odd and romantic chance, a clue followed through mazes of secrecy till the treasure was at last unearthed. In the Maltese cross Mrs. Gareth Rose, as she sharply echoed the words, my dear child, you don't suppose I'd have sacrificed that? For what in the world would you have taken me? A be-below-the-more-or-less, Fleeda said, could have made little difference in this grand general view of you. I take you simply for the greatest of all conjurers. You've operated with a quickness and with a quietness. Her voice trembled a little as she spoke, for the plain meaning of her words was that what her friend had achieved belonged to the class of operation, essentially involving the protection of darkness. Fleeda felt she really could say nothing at all if she couldn't say that she knew what the danger had been. She completed her thought by a resolute and perfectly candid question. How in the world did you get off with them? Mrs. Gareth confessed to the fact of danger with the cynicism that surprised the girl. By calculating, by choosing my time, I was quiet and I was quick, I maneuvered, then at the last I rushed. Fleeda drew a long breath. She saw in the poor woman something much better than sophisticated ease, a crude elation that was a comparatively simple state to deal with. Her elation, it was true, was not so much from what she had done as from the way she had done it, by as brilliant a stroke as any commemorated in the annals of crime. I succeeded because I had thought it all out and left nothing to chance. The whole process was organized in advance, so that the mere carrying it into effect took but a few hours. It was largely a matter of money. Oh, I was horribly extravagant. I had to turn on so many people, but they were all to be had, a little army of workers, the packers, the porters, the helpers of every sort. The men with the mighty vans. It was a question of arranging in Tottenham Court Road and of paying the price. I haven't paid it yet. There'll be a horrid bill. But at least the thing's done. Expedition pure and simple was the essence of the bargain. I can give you two days, I said. I can't give you another second. They undertook the job, and the two days saw them through. The people came down on a Tuesday morning. They were off on the Thursday. I admit that some of them worked all Wednesday night. I had thought it all out. I stood over them. I showed them how. Yes, I coaxed them. I made love to them. Oh, I was inspired. They found me wonderful. I neither ate nor slept, but I was as calm as I am now. I didn't know what was in me. It was worth finding out. I'm very remarkable, my dear. I lifted tons with my own arms. I'm tired, very, very tired. But there's neither a scratch nor a neck. There isn't a teacup missing. Magnificent both in her exhaustion and in her triumph, Mrs. Gareth sank on the sofa again, the sweep of her eyes, a rich synthesis, and the restless friction of her hands, a clear betrayal. Upon my words, she laughed, they really look better here. Fleeta had listened in awe, and no one at point had said anything. There was no alarm. What alarm should there have been? Owen left me almost defiantly alone. I had taken a time that I had reason to believe was safe from a dissent. Fleeta had another wonder, which she hesitated to express. It would scarcely do to ask Mrs. Gareth if she hadn't stood in fear of her servants. She knew more over some of the secrets of her humorous household rule, all made up of shocks to shyness and provocations to curiosity, a diplomacy so artful that several of the maids quite yearn to accompany her to ricks. Mrs. Gareth, reading sharply the whole of her visitors' thought, caught it up with fine frankness. You mean that I was watched, that he had his myrmidons, pledged to wire him if they should see what I was up to? Precisely. I know the three persons you have in mind. I had them in mind myself. Well, I took a line with them. I settled them. Fleeta had had no one particular in mind. She had never believed in the myrmidons, but the tone in which Mrs. Gareth spoke added to her suspense. What did you do to them? I took hold of them hard. I put them in the forefront. I made them work, to move the furniture, to help and to help so as to please me. That was the way to take them. It was what they had least expected. I marched up to them and looked each straight in the eye, giving him the chance to choose if he'd gratify me or gratify my son. He gratified me. They were too stupid. Mrs. Gareth masked herself more and more as an immoral woman, but Fleeta had to recognize that she too would have been stupid and she too would have gratified her. And when did all this take place? Only last week, it seems a hundred years. We've worked here as fast as we worked there, but I'm not settled yet. You'll see in the rest of the house. However, the worst is over. Do you really think so? Fleeta presently inquired. I mean, does he, after the fact as it were, accept it? Owen, what I've done? I haven't the least idea, said Mrs. Gareth. Does Mona? You mean that she'll be the soul of the row? I hardly see Mona as the soul of anything, the girl replied. But have they made no sound? Have you heard nothing at all? Not a whisper, not a step in all the eight days. Perhaps they don't know. Perhaps they're crouching for a leap. But wouldn't they have gone down as soon as you left? They may not have known of my leaving. Fleeta wondered her fresh. It struck her as scarcely supposable that some sign shouldn't have flashed from Pointon to London. If the storm was taking this term of silence to gather, even in Mona's breast, it would probably discharge itself in some startling form. The great hush of everyone concerned was strange, but when she pressed Mrs. Gareth for some explanation of it, that lady only replied with her brave irony. Oh, I took their breath away. She had no illusions, however. She was still prepared to fight. What indeed was her spoliation of Pointon but the first engagement of a campaign. All this was exciting, but Fleeta's spirit dropped at bedtime in the quarter embellished for her pleasure, where she found several of the objects that in her earlier room she had most admired. These had been reinforced by other pieces from other rooms so that the quiet air of it was a harmony without a break, the finished picture of a maiden's bower. It was the sweetest Louisais, all assorted and combined, old, chastened, figured, faded France. Fleeta was impressed in you with her friend's genius for composition. She could say to herself that no girl in England that night went to rest with so picked a guard, but there was no joy for her in her privilege, no sleep even for the tired hours that made the place in the embers of the fire and the winter dawn look gray somehow and loveless. She couldn't care for such things when they came to her in such ways. There was a wrong about them all that turned them to ugliness. In the watches of the night she saw a point in dishonored. She had cherished it as a happy whole, she reasoned, and the parts of it now around her seemed to suffer like chopped limbs. Before going to bed, she had walked about with Mrs. Gareth and had seen at whose expense the whole house had been furnished. At poor Owens, from top to bottom, there wasn't a chair he hadn't sat upon. The maiden aunt had been exterminated no trace of her to tell her tale. Fleeda tried to think of some of the things that point and still unappropriated, but her memory was a blank about them, and in trying to focus the old combinations she saw again nothing but gaps and scars, a vacancy that gathered at moments into something worse. This concrete image was her greatest trouble for it was Owen Gareth's face, his sad, strange eyes, fixed upon her now as they had never been. They stared at her out of the darkness and their expression was more than she could bear. It seemed to say that he was in pain and that it was somehow her fault. He had looked to her to help him and this was what her help had been. He had done her the honor to ask her to exert herself in his interest, confiding to her a task of difficulty but of the highest delicacy. Hadn't that been exactly the sort of service she longed to render him? Well, her way of rendering it had been simply to betray him and hand him over to his enemy. Shame, pity, resentment, oppressed her in turn. In the last of these feelings the others were quickly submerged. Mrs. Gareth had imprisoned her in that torment of taste, but it was clear to her for an hour at least that she might hate Mrs. Gareth. Something else, however, when mourning came was even more intensely definite. The most odious thing in the world for her would be ever again to meet Owen. She took on the spot a resolve to neglect no precaution that could lead to her going through life without that calamity. After this, while she dressed, she took still another. Her position had become in a few hours intolerably false. In as few more hours as possible she would therefore put an end to it. The way to put an end to it would be to inform Mrs. Gareth that to her great regret. She couldn't be with her now, couldn't cleave to her to the point that everything about her so plainly urged. She dressed with a sort of violence, a symbol of the manner in which this purpose was precipitated. The more they parted company, the less likely she was to come across Owen for Owen would be drawn closer to his mother now by the very necessity of bringing her down. Flida, in the inconsequence of distress, wished to have nothing to do with her fall. She had had too much to do with everything. She was well aware of the importance before breakfast and in view of any light they might shed on the question of motive, of not suffering her invidious expression of a difference to be accompanied by the traces of tears. But it nonetheless came to pass downstairs that after she had subtly put her back to the window to make a mystery of the state of her eyes, she stupidly let a rich sob escape her before she could properly meet the consequences of being asked if she wasn't delighted with her room. This accident struck her on the spot as so grave that she felt the only refuge to be instant hypocrisy, some graceful impulse that would charge her emotion to the quick and sense of her friend's generosity. A demonstration entailing a flutter round the table and a renewed embrace, and not so successfully improvised, but that Flida fancied Mrs. Gareth to have been only half reassured. She had been startled at any rate and she might remain suspicious. This reflection interposed by the time after breakfast, the girl had recovered sufficiently to say what was in her heart. She accordingly didn't say it that morning at all. She had absurdly veered about. She had encountered the shock of the fear that Mrs. Gareth with sharpened eyes might wonder why the deuce, she often wondered in that phrase, she had grown so warm about Owen's rights. She would doubtless at a pinch be able to defend them on abstract grounds, but that would involve the discussion and the idea of a discussion made her nervous for her secret. Until in some way, point and should return the blow and give her a cue, she must keep nervousness down, and she called herself a fool for having forgotten, however briefly, that her one safety was in silence. Directly after luncheon, Mrs. Gareth took her into the garden for a glimpse of the revolution, or at least, said the mistress of Rick's, of the great row that had been decreed there. But the ladies had scarcely placed themselves for this view before the young one who found herself embracing a prospect that opened in quite another quarter. Her attention was called to it, oddly, by the streamers of the Parliament's cap, which, flying straight behind the neat young woman who unexpectedly burst from the house and showed a long red face as she ambled over the grass, seemed to articulate in their flutter the name that Fleeda lived at present only to catch. Pointon, pointon, said the morsels of muslin, so that the Parliament became on the instant an actress in the drama, and Fleeda, assuming, pusillanimously, that she herself was only a spectator, looked across the footlights at the exponent of the principal part, the manner in which this artist returned her look showed that she was equally preoccupied. Both were haunted alike by possibilities, but the apprehension of neither before the announcement was made took the form of the arrival at Ricks in the flesh of Mrs. Gareth's victim. When the messenger informed them that Mr. Gareth was in the drawing room, the blank, oh, omitted by Fleeda, was quite as precipitant as the sound on her hostess's lips, besides being, as she felt, much less pertinent. I thought it would be somebody, that lady afterwards said, but I expected on the whole a solicitous clerk. Fleeda didn't mention that she herself had expected on the whole a pair of constables. She was surprised by Mrs. Gareth's question to the Parliament. For whom did he ask? Why, for you, of course, dearest friend, Fleeda interjected, falling instinctively into the address that embodied the intensest pressure. She wanted to put Mrs. Gareth between her and her danger. He asked for Miss Vetch, mom, the girl replied, with a face that brought startlingly to Fleeda's ear the muffled chorus of the kitchen. Quite proper, said Mrs. Gareth austerely, then to Fleeda, please go to him. But what to do? What you always do to see what he wants? Mrs. Gareth dismissed the maid. Tell him Miss Vetch will come. Fleeda saw that nothing was in the mother's imagination at this moment, but the desire not to meet her son. She had completely broken with him, and there was little in what had just happened to repair the rupture. It would now take more to do so than his presenting himself uninvited at her door. He's right in asking for you. He's aware that you're still our communicator. Nothing has occurred to alter that. To what he wishes to transmit through you, I'm ready, as I've been ready before to listen. As far as I'm concerned, if I couldn't meet him a month ago, how am I to meet him today? If he has come to say, my dear mother, you're here in the hovel into which I flung you with consolations that give me pleasure, I'll listen to him, but on no other footing. That's what you're to ascertain, please. You'll oblige me as you've obliged me before, there. Mrs. Gareth turned her back, and with a fine imitation of superiority, began to redress the miseries immediately before her. Fleeda, meanwhile, hesitated, lingered for some minutes where she had been left, feeling secretly that her fate still had her in hand. It had put her face to face with Owen Gareth, and it evidently meant to keep her so. She was reminded afresh of two things, one of which was that, though she judged her friend's rigor, she had never really had the story of the scene enacted in the great awe-stricken house between the mother and the son weeks before. The day the former took to her bed in her overthrow, the other was that at Rick's as at Pointon, it was before all things her place to accept thankfully a usefulness not, she must remember, universally acknowledged. What determined her at the last, while Mrs. Gareth disappeared in the shrubbery, was that though she was at a distance from the house and the drawing room was turned the other way, she could absolutely see the young man alone there with the sources of his pain. She saw his simple stare at his tapestries, heard his heavy tread on the carpets, and the hard breath of his sense of unfairness. At this she went to him fast. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight of the spoils of Pointon. This is the LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The spoils of Pointon by Henry James, chapter eight. I asked for you, he said when she stood there, because I heard from the flyman who drove me from the station to the inn that he had brought you here yesterday. We had some talk, he mentioned it. You didn't know I was here. No, I knew only that you had had in London all you told me that day to do. And it was Mona's idea that after your sister's marriage, you were staying on with your father. So I thought you were with him still. I am, Fleet have replied, idealizing a little the fact. I'm here only for a moment. But do you mean, she went on, that if you had known I was with your mother, you wouldn't have come down? The way Owen hung fire at this question made it sound more playful than she had intended. She had in fact no consciousness of any intention, but that of confining herself rigidly to her function. She could already see that in whatever he had now braced himself for, she was an element he had not reckoned with. His preparation had been of a different sort. The sort congruous with his having been careful to go first and lunch solidly at the inn. He had not been forced to ask for her, but she became aware in his presence of a particular desire to make him feel that no harm could really come to him. She might upset him as people called it, but she would take no advantage of having done so. She had never seen a person with whom she wished more to be light and easy, to be exceptionally human. The account he presently gave of the matter was that he indeed wouldn't have come if he had known she was on the spot. Because then, didn't she see, he could have written to her. He would have had her there to let fly at his mother. That would have saved me. Well, it would have saved me a lot. Of course, I would rather see you than her, he somewhat awkwardly added. When the fellow spoke of you, I assure you, I quite jumped at you. In fact, I've no real desire to see Mummy at all. If she thinks I like it, he sighed disgustedly. I only came down because it seemed better than any other way. I didn't want her to be able to say I hadn't been all right. I daresay you know she's taken everything, or if not quite everything, why, a lot more than one ever dreamed. You can see for yourself. She has got half the place down. She has got them crammed. You can see for yourself. He had his old trick of artless repetition, his helpless iteration of the obvious, but he was sensibly different for Fleda, if only by the difference of his clear face, mottled over and almost disfigured by little points of pain. He might have been a fine young man with a bad toothache, with the first even of his life. What ailed him above all, she felt, was the trouble was new to him. He had never known a difficulty. He had taken all his fences, his world, wholly the world of the personally possible, rounded indeed by a gray suburb into which he had never had occasion to stray. In this vulgar and ill-lighted region, he had evidently now lost himself. We left it quite to her honor, you know, he said ruefully. Perhaps you were right to say that you left it a little to mine. Mixed up with the spoils there, rising before him as if she were in a man of their keeper, she felt that she must absolutely dissociate herself. Mrs. Gareth had made it impossible to do anything but give her away. I can only tell you that on my side I left it to her. I never dreamed either that she would pick out so many things. And you don't really think it's fair, do you? You don't, he spoke very quickly. He really seemed to plead. Fleed a fault at a moment. I think she has gone too far, then she added. I shall immediately tell her that I've said that to you. She appeared puzzled by this statement, but he presently rejoined. You haven't then said to Mama what you think? Not yet, remember that I only got here last night. She appeared to herself as ignomely weak. I had had no idea what she was doing. I was completely taken by surprise. She managed it wonderfully. It's the sharpest thing I ever saw in my life. They looked at each other with intelligence and appreciation of the sharpness. And Owen quickly broke into a loud laugh. The laugh was in itself natural, but the occasion of it strange. And strangers still to flea to, so that she too almost laughed, the inconsequent charity with which she added, poor dear old mummy, that's one of the reasons I asked for you, he went on, to see if you'd back her up. Whatever he said or did, she somehow liked him the better for it. How can I back her up, Mr. Gareth, what I think as I tell you, that she has made a great mistake? A great mistake, that's all right. He spoke, it wasn't clear to her why, as if this declaration were a great point gained. Of course there were many things she hasn't taken, flea to continue. Oh yes, a lot of things, but you wouldn't know the place all the same. He looked about the room with his discolored, swindled face, which deepened Flea's compassion for him, conjuring away any smile that so candid an image of the dupe. You'd know this one soon enough, wouldn't you? These are just the things she ought to have left. Is the whole house full of them? The whole house, said Flea uncompromisingly, she thought of her lovely room. I never knew how much I cared for them. They're awfully valuable, aren't they? Owen's manner mystified her. She was conscious of a return of the agitation he had produced in her on that last bewildering day, and she reminded herself that now she was warned it would be inexcusable of her to allow him to justify the fear that had dropped on her. Mother thinks I never took any notice, but I assure you I was awfully proud of everything. Upon my honor I was proud, Miss Vetch. There was an oddity in his helplessness. He appeared to wish to persuade her and to satisfy himself that she sincerely felt how worthy he really was to treat what has happened as an injury. She could only exclaim almost as helplessly as himself. Of course you did, Justice. It's all most painful. I shall instantly let your mother know, she again declared, the way I've spoken of her to you. She clung to that idea as to the sign of her straightness. You'll tell her what you think she ought to do. He asked with some eagerness, what she ought to do. Don't you think it? I mean, she ought to give them up. To give them up, Fleeter hesitated again. To send them back, to keep it quiet. The girl had not felt the impulse to ask him to sit down among the monuments of his wrong, so that nervously, awkwardly, he fidgeted about the room with his hands in his pockets and in effect of returning a little into possession through the formulation of his view. To have them packed and dispatched again since she knows so well how. She does it beautifully. He looked close at two or three precious pieces. What sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? He had laughed at his way of putting it, but Fleeter remained grave. Is that what you came to say to her? Not exactly those words, but I did come to say, he stammered, then brought it out. I did come to say, we must have them right back. And did you think your mother would see you? I wasn't sure, but I thought it right to try to put it to her kindly, don't you see? If she won't see me, then she has herself to thank. The only other way would have been to set the lawyers at her. I'm glad you didn't do that. I'm dashed if I want to, oh, and honestly responded, but what's the fellow to do if she won't meet a fellow? What do you call meeting a fellow, Fleeter asked with a smile? Why, letting me tell her a dozen things she can have? This was a transaction that Fleeter, after a moment, had to give up trying to represent to herself. If she won't do that, she went on. I'll leave it all to my solicitor. He won't let her off by job, I know the fellow. That's horrible, said Fleeter, looking at him in woe. It's utterly beastly. His want of logic, as well as his vehement, startled her, and with her eyes still on his, she considered before asking him the question these things suggested. At the last she asked it. Is Mona very angry? Oh, dear, yes, said Owen. She had perceived that he wouldn't speak of Mona without her beginning, after waiting fruitlessly now for him to say more, she continued. She has been there again. She has seen the state of the house. Oh, dear, yes, Owen repeated. Fleeter disliked to appear not to take account of his brevity, but it was just because she was struck by it that she felt the pressure of the desire to know more. What it suggested was simply what her intelligence applied, for he was incapable of any art of insinuation. Wasn't it at all events the rule of communication with him to say for him what he couldn't say? This truth was present to the girl, as she inquired if Mona greatly resented what Mrs. Gareth had done. He satisfied her promptly. He was standing before the fire, his back to it, his long legs apart, his hands behind him, rather violently jiggling his gloves. She hates it awfully. In fact, she refuses to put up with it at all. Don't you see? She saw the place with all the things. So that, of course, she misses them. Misses them, rather. She was awfully sweet on them. Fleeter remembered how sweet Mona had been, and reflected that if that was the sort of plea he had prepared, it was indeed, as well, he shouldn't see his mother. This was not all she wanted to know, but it came over her that it was all she needed. You see, it puts me in the position of not carrying out what I promised, Owen said. As she says herself, he hesitated an instant, it's just as if I had obtained her under false pretenses. Just before, when he spoke with more drollery than he knew, it had left Fleeter serious, but now his own clear gravity had the effect of exciting her mirth. She laughed out, and he looked surprised, but went on. She regards it as a regular cell. Fleeter was silent, but finally, as he added nothing, she exclaimed. Of course it makes a great difference. She knew all she needed, but nonetheless she risked after another pause an interrogative remark. I forget when it is your marriage takes place. Owen came away from the fire, and apparently at a loss, where to turn, ended by directing himself to one of the windows. It's a little uncertain, the date isn't quite fixed. Oh, I thought I remembered that at point when you had told me a day, and that it was near at hand. I dare say I did, it was for the 19th, but we've altered that, she wants to shift it. He looked out of the window, then he said, in fact it won't come off till Mummy has come round. Come round? Put the place as it was, in his offhand way, he added. You know what I mean. He spoke not impatiently, but with a kind of intimate familiarity, the sweetness of which made her feel a pang for having forced him to tell her what was embarrassing to him, what was even humiliating. Yes indeed, she knew all she needed. All she needed was that Mona had proved apt at putting down that wonderful patent leather foot. Her type was misleading only to the superficial, and no one in the world was less superficial than Flida. She had guessed the truth at Waterbath, and she had suffered from it at Pointon. Had ricks the only thing she could do was to accept it with a dumb exaltation that she felt rising. Mona had been prompt with her exercise of the member in question, for it might be called prompt to do that sort of thing before marriage, that she had indeed been premature. Who should say save those who should have read the matter in the full light of results? Neither at Waterbath nor Pointon had even Flida's thoroughness discovered all there was, or rather all there was not, in Owen Gareth. Of course it makes all the difference, she said in answer to his last words. She pursued after considering, what you wish me to say from you then to your mother is that you demand immediate and practically complete restitution? Yes please, it's tremendously good of you. Very well then, will you wait? For Mummy's answer, Owen stared and looked perplexed. He was more and more fevered with so much vivid expression of his case. Don't you think that if I'm here she may hate it worse? Think I may want to make her reply bang off? Flida thought, you don't then? I want her to take it in the right way, don't you know? Treat her as if I gave her more than just an hour or two. I see, said Flida, then if you don't wait, goodbye. This again seemed not what he wanted. Must you do it, bang off? I'm only thinking she'll be impatient. I mean, you know, to learn what will have passed between us. I see, said Owen, looking at his gloves. I can give her a day or two, you know. Of course I didn't come down to sleep, he went on. The inn seems a horrible hole. I know all about the trains, having no idea you were here. Almost as soon as his interlocutress, he was struck with the absence of the visible in this as between effect and cause. I mean, because in that case I should have felt I could stop over. I should have felt I could talk with you a blessed sight longer than with Mummy. We've already talked a long time, smile, Flida. Awfully, haven't we? He spoke with the stupidity she didn't object to. Inarticulate as he was, he had more to say. He lingered, perhaps, because he was vaguely aware of the want of sincerity in her encouragement to him to go. There's one thing, please, he mentioned, as if there might be a great many others too. Please don't say anything about Mona. She didn't understand about Mona. About it being her that thinks she has gone too far. This was still slightly obscure, but now, Flida understood. It mustn't seem to come from her at all, don't you know? That would only make Mummy worse. Flida knew exactly how much worse, but felt a delicacy about explicitly assenting. She was already immersed more over in the deep consideration of what might make Mummy better. She couldn't see as yet at all. She could only clutch at the hope of some inspiration after he should go. Oh, there was a remedy to be sure, but it was out of the question. In spite of which, in the strong light of Owen's troubled presence, of his anxious face and restless step, it hung there before her for a few minutes. She felt that remarkably, beneath the decent rigor of his errand, the poor young man for reasons, for weariness, for disgust, would have been ready not to insist. His fitness to fight his mother had left him. He wasn't in fighting trim. He had no natural avidity and even no special wrath. He had none that had not been taught him, and it was doing his best to learn the lesson that had made him so sick. He had his delicacies, but he hid them away like presents before Christmas. He was hollow, perfunctory, pathetic. He had been girded by another hand. That hand had naturally been Mona's, and it was heavy even now on his strong, broad back. Why, then, had he originally rejoiced so in its touch? Fleed had asked aside this question, for it had nothing to do with her problem. Her problem was to help him to live as a gentleman and to carry through what he had undertaken. Her problem was to reinstate him in his rights. It was quite irrelevant that Mona had no intelligence of what she had lost. Quite irrelevant that she was moved, not by the privation, but by the insult. She had every reason to be moved, though she was so much more movable in the vindictive way at any rate than one might have supposed, assuredly more than Owen himself had imagined. Certainly I shall not mention Mona, Fleed has said, and there won't be the slightest necessity for it. The wrong's quite sufficiently yours, and the demand you make is perfectly justified by it. I can't tell you what it is to me to feel you on my side, Owen exclaimed. Up to this time, said Fleed after her pause, your mother has had no doubt of my being on hers, that of course she won't like your changing. I dare say she won't like it at all. Do you mean to say you'll have a regular kick-up with her? I don't exactly know what you mean by a regular kick-up. We shall naturally have a great deal of discussion if she consents to discuss the matter at all. That's why you must decidedly give her two or three days. I see you think she may refuse to discuss it after all, said Owen. I'm only trying to be prepared for the worst. You must remember that to have to withdraw from the ground she has taken, to make a public surrender of what she had publicly appropriated will go uncommonly hard with her pride. Owen considered, his face seemed to broaden, but not into a smile. I suppose she's tremendously proud, isn't she? This might have been the first time it had occurred to him. You know better than I, said Fleed speaking with high extravagance. I don't know anything in the world half so well as you. If I were as clever as you, I might hope to get round her. Owen hesitated, then he went on. In fact, I don't quite see what even you can say or do that will really fetch her. Neither do I, as yet. I must think, I must pray, the girl pursued smiling. I can only say to you that I'll try. I want to try, you know. I want to help you. He stood looking at her so long on this that she added with much distinctness. So you must leave me, please, quite alone with her. You must go straight back. Back to the inn. Oh no, back to town. I'll write to you tomorrow. He turned about vaguely for his hat. There's the chance, of course, that she may be afraid. Afraid you mean of the legal steps you might take? I've got a perfect case. I could have her up. The brigstocks say it's simply stealing. I can easily fancy what the brigstocks say. Flida permitted herself to remark without solemnity. It's none of their business, is it? Was Owen's unexpected rejoinder. Flida had already noted that no one so slow could ever have had such quick transitions. She showed her amusement. They were much better right to say it's none of mine. Well, at any rate you don't call her names. Flida wondered whether Mona did, and this made it all the finer of her to exclaim in a moment, you don't know what I shall call her if she holds out. Owen gave her a gloomy glance, then he blew a speck off the crown of his hat. But if you do have a set to with her, he paused so long for a reply that Flida said, I don't think I know what you mean by a set to. Well, if she calls you names, I don't think she'll do that. What I mean to say is if she's angry at you're backing me up, what will you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know. She may very well not like it, but everything depends. I must see what I shall do. You mustn't worry about me. She spoke with decision, but Owen seemed still unsatisfied. You won't go away, I hope. Go away. If she does take it ill of you. Flida moved to the door and opened it. I'm not prepared to say, you must have patience and see. Of course I must, said Owen, of course, of course. But he took no more advantage of the open door than to say, you want me to be off and I'm off in a minute. Only before I go, please answer me a question. If you should leave my mother, where would you go? Flida smiled again. I haven't the least idea. I suppose you'd go back to London. I haven't the least idea, Flida repeated. You don't live anywhere in particular, do you? The young man went on. He looked conscious as soon as he had spoken. She could see that he felt himself to have eluded more grossly than he meant to the circumstance of her having, if one were plain about it, no home of her own. He had meant it as an illusion of a tender sort to all she would sacrifice in the case of a quarrel with his mother. But there was indeed no graceful way of touching on that. One just couldn't be plain about it. Flida, wound up as she was, shrank from any treatment at all of the matter, and she made no answer to his question. I won't leave your mother, she said. I'll produce an effect on her. I'll convince her absolutely. I believe you will if you look at her like that. She was wound up to such a height that there might well be a light in her pale, fine, little face, a light that, while for all return at first, she simply shone back at him, was intensely reflected in his own. I'll make her see it. I'll make her see it. She rang out like a silver bell. She had at that moment a perfect faith that she should succeed, but it passed into something else. When the next instant, she became aware that Owen, quickly getting between her and the door she had opened, was sharply closing it, as might be said, in her face. He had done this before she could stop him, and he stood there with his hand on the knob and smiled at her strangely. Clearer than he could have spoken it was the sense of those seconds of silence. When I got into this, I didn't know you, and now that I know you, how can I tell you the difference? And she's so different, so ugly and vulgar in the light of this squabble. No, like you, I've never known one. It's another thing, it's a new thing altogether. Listen to me a little. Can't something be done? It was what had been in the air in those moments at Kensington, and it only wanted words to be a committed act. The more reason to the girl's excited mind, why it shouldn't have words. Her one thought was not to hear, to keep the act uncommitted. She would do this if she had to be horrid. Please let me out, Mr. Gareth, she said, on which she opened the door with the hesitation, so very brief, that in thinking of these things afterwards, for she was to think of them forever, she wondered in what tone she could have spoken. They went into the hall where she encountered the parlourmaid, of whom she inquired whether Mrs. Gareth had come in. No, miss, and I think she has left the garden. She has gone up the back road. In other words, they had the whole place to themselves. It would have been a pleasure in a different mood to converse with that parlourmaid. Please open the house door, said Fleta. Owen, as if in quest of his umbrella, looked vaguely about the hall, looked even wistfully up the staircase, while the neat young woman complied with Fleta's request. Owen's eyes then wandered out of the open door. I think it's awfully nice here, he observed. I assure you I could do with it myself. I should think you might with half your things here. It's point in itself, almost. Goodbye, Mr. Gareth, Fleta added. Her intention had naturally been that the neat young woman, opening the front door, should remain to close it on the departing guest. That functionary, however, had acutely vanished behind a stiff flap of green bays, which Mrs. Gareth had not yet had time to abolish. Fleta put out her hand, but Owen turned away. He couldn't find his umbrella. She passed into the open air. She was determined to get him out. And in a moment he joined her in the little plastered portico, which had small resemblance to any feature of Pointon. It was, as Mrs. Gareth had said, like the portico of a house in Brompton. Oh, I don't mean with all the things here, he explained in regard to the opinion he had just expressed. I mean, I could put up with it just as it was. It had a lot of good things, don't you think? I mean, if everything was back at Pointon, if everything was all right, he brought out these last words with a sort of smothered sigh. Fleta didn't understand his explanation unless it had referenced to another and more wonderful exchange. The restoration to the great house, not only of its tables and chairs, but of its alienated mistress. This would imply the installation of his own life at Ricks, and obviously that of another person. Such another person could scarcely be Mona Briggstock. He put out his hand now, and once more she heard his unsounded words. With everything patched up at the other place, I could live here with you. Don't you see what I mean? Fleta saw perfectly, and with a face in which she flattered herself that nothing of this vision appeared, gave him her hand and said, Good-bye, good-bye. Oh, and held her hand very firmly and kept it even after an effort made by her to recover it. An effort not repeated, as she felt it best not to show she was flurried. That solution of her living with him at Ricks disposed of him beautifully and disposed not less so of herself. It disposed admirably too of Mrs. Gareth. Fleta could only vainly wonder how it provided for poor Mona. While he looked at her, grasping her hand, she felt that now indeed she was paying for his mother's extravagance at Pointon. The vividness of that lady's public plea that little Fleta Vetch was the person to ensure the general peace. It was to that vividness poor Owen had come back. And if Mrs. Gareth had had more discretion, little Fleta Vetch wouldn't have been in a predicament. She saw that Owen had at this moment his sharpest necessity of speech. And so long as he didn't release her hand, she could only submit to him. Her defense would be perhaps to look blank and hard. So she looked as blank and hard as she could with the reward of an immediate sense that this was not a bit what he wanted. It even made him hang fire as if he was suddenly ashamed of his self. We're recalled to some idea of duty and of honor. Yet he nonetheless brought it out. There's one thing I dare say I ought to tell you if you're going so kindly to act for me. Though of course you'll see for yourself it's a thing it won't do to tell her. What was it? He made her wait for it again. And while she waited under firm coercion, she had the extraordinary impression that Owen's simplicity was in eclipse. His natural honesty was like the scent of a flower. And she felt at this moment as if her nose had been brushed by the bloom without the odor. The illusion was undoubtedly to his mother and was not what he meant about the matter in question the opposite of what he said that it just would do to tell her. It would have been the first time he had said the opposite of what he meant. And there was certainly a fascination in the phenomenon as well as a challenge to suspense in the ambiguity. It's just that I understand from Mona, you know, he stammered. It's just that he's made no bones about bringing home to me. He tried to laugh and in the effort he faulted again. About bringing home to you, Flida encouraged him. He was sensible of it. He achieved his performance. Why, that if I don't get the things back, every blessed one of them, except a few, she'll pick out, she won't have anything more to say to me. Flida, after an instant, encouraged him again. To say to you, why, she simply won't marry me, don't you see? Owen's legs, not to mention his voice, had wavered while he spoke and she felt his possession of her hand loosen so that she was free again. Her stare of perception broke into a lively laugh. Oh, you're all right, for you will get them. You will, you're quite safe, don't worry. She fell back into the house with her hand on the door. Goodbye, goodbye. She repeated it several times, laughing bravely, quite waving him away and as he didn't move and save that he was on the other side of it, closing the door in his face quite as he had closed that of the drawing room in hers. Never had a face, never at least had such a handsome one been so presented to that events. She even held the door a minute, lest he should try to come in again. At last, as she heard nothing, she made a dash for the stairs and ran up. End of chapter eight. Chapter nine of the Spoils of Pointon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Spoils of Pointon by Henry James, chapter nine. In knowing a while before all she needed, she had been far from knowing as much as that. So that once upstairs, where in her room, with her sense of danger and trouble, the age of Louis says, suddenly struck her as wanting and taste and point, she felt she now for the first time knew her temptation. Owen had put it before her with an art beyond his own dream. Mona would cast him off if he didn't proceed to extremities. If his negotiation with his mother should fail, he would be completely free. That negotiation depended on a young lady to whom he had pressingly suggested the condition of his freedom. And as if to aggravate the young lady's predicament, designing fate had sent Mrs. Gareth, as the parliament said, up the back road. This would give the young lady the more time to make up her mind that nothing should come of the negotiation. There would be different ways of putting the question to Mrs. Gareth and Flida might profitably devote the moments before her return to a selection of the way that would be most surely tantamount to failure. This selection indeed required no great adroitness. It was so conspicuous that failure would be the reward of an effective introduction of Mona. If that abhorred name should be properly invoked, Mrs. Gareth would resist to the death. And before in venomed resistance, Owen would certainly retire. His retirement would be in a single life and Flida reflected that he had now gone away conscious of having practically told her so. She could only say, as she waited for the back road to this gorge, that she hoped it was a consciousness he enjoyed. There was something she enjoyed, but that was a very different matter. To know that she had become to him an object of desire gave her wings that she felt herself flutter in the air. It was like the rush of a flood into her own accumulations. These stored depths had been fathomless and still. But now for half an hour in the empty house, they spread till they overflowed. He seemed to have made it right for her to confess to herself her secret. Strange then that there should be for him in return nothing that such a confession could make right. How could it make right that he should give up Mona for another woman? His attitude was a sorry appeal to Flida to legitimate that. But he didn't believe it himself and he had none of the courage of his perversity. She could easily see how wrong everything must be when a man so made to be manly was wanting and courage. She had upset him, as people called it, and he had spoken out from the force of the jar of finding her there. He had upset her too, heaven knew, but she was one of those who could pick themselves up. She had the real advantage she considered of having kept him from seeing she had been overthrown. She had moreover at present completely recovered her feet, though there was in the intensity of the effort required to do so, a vibration which throbbed away into an immense allowance for the young man. How could she, after all, know what in the disturbance wrought by his mother Mona's relations with him might have become? If he had been able to keep his wits, such as they were, more about him, he would probably have felt as sharply as she felt on his behalf that so long as those relations were not ended, he had no right to say even the little he had said. He had no right to appear to wish to draw in another girl to help him run away. If he was in a plight, he must get out of the plight himself. He must get out of it first, and anything he should have to say to anyone else must be deferred and detached. She herself, at any rate, it was her own case that was in question, couldn't dream of assisting him, save in the sense of their common honor. She could never be the girl to be drawn in. She could never lift her finger against Mona. There was something in her that would make it a shame to her forever to evoke her happiness to an interference. It would seem intolerably vulgar to her to have ousted the daughter of the Briggs stocks, and merely to have abstained even wouldn't assure her she had been straight. Nothing was really straight, but to justify her little penchant presence by her use. And now, one over as she was to heroism, she could see her use only as some high and delicate deed. She couldn't, in short, do anything at all, unless she could do it with a kind of pride, and there would be nothing to be proud of in having arranged for poor Owen to get off easily. Nobody had a right to get off easily from pledges so deep and so sacred. How could Fleet had doubt that they had been tremendous when she knew so well what any pledge of her own would be? If Mona was so formed that she could hold such vows light, that was Mona's peculiar business. To have loved Owen, apparently, and yet to have loved him only so much, only to the extent of a few tables and chairs, was not a thing she could so much as try to grasp. Of a different manner of loving, she was herself ready to give an instance, an instance of which the beauty, indeed, would not be generally known. It would not, perhaps, have revealed to be generally understood in as much as the effect of the particular pressure she proposed to exercise would be, should success attend it, to keep him tied to an affection that had died a sudden and violent death. Even in the ardor of her meditation, Fleeder remained in sight of the truth that it would be an odd result of her magnanimity to prevent her friends shaking off a woman he disliked. If he didn't dislike Mona, what was the matter with him? And if he did, Fleeder asked, what was the matter with her own silly self? Our young lady met this branch of the temptation, it pleased her frankly to recognize, by declaring that to encourage any such cruelty would be tortuous and base. She had nothing to do with his dislikes. She had only to do with his good nature and his good name. She had joy of him just as he was, but it was of these things that she had the greatest. The worst aversion of the liveliest reaction wouldn't alter the fact, since one was facing facts, that but the other day his strong arms must have clasped a remarkably handsome girl as close as she had permitted. Fleeder's emotion at this time was a wondrous mixture in which Mona's permissions and Mona's beauty figured powerfully as aids to reflection. She herself had no beauty and her permissions with a stony stare she had just practiced in the drawing room, a consciousness of a kind appreciably to add to the particular sense of triumph that made her generous. I may not perhaps too much diminish the merit of that generosity if I mention that it could take the flight we are considering just because really with the telescope of her long thought Fleeder saw what might bring her out of the wood. Mona herself would bring her out. At least Mona possibly might. Deep down plunged the idea that even should she achieve what she had promised Owen there was still the contingency of Mona's independent action. She might by that time undistressive temper or of whatever it was that was now moving her have said or done the things there is no patching up. If the rupture should come from water bath they might all be happy yet. This was the calculation that Fleeder wouldn't have committed to paper but it affected the total of her sentiments. She was meanwhile so remarkably constituted that while she refused to profit by Owen's mistake even while she judged it and hastened to cover it up she could drink a sweetness from it that consorted little with her wishing it might not have been made. There was no harm done because he had instinctively known poor dear with whom to make it and it was a compensation for seeing him worried that he hadn't made it with some horrid mean girl who would immediately have dished him by making a still bigger one. Their protected error for she indulged a fancy that it was hers too was like some dangerous lovely living thing that she had caught and could keep keep vivid and helpless in the cage of her own passion and look at and talk to all day long. She had got it well locked up there by the time that from an upper window she saw Mrs. Gareth again in the garden that this she went down to meet her. End of chapter nine. Chapter 10 of the Spoils of Pointon. This is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Spoils of Pointon by Henry James, Chapter 10. Fleed's line had been taken her word was quite ready on the terrace of the painted pots she broke out before her interlocutress could put a question. His errand was perfectly simple. He came to demand that you shall pack everything straight up again and send it back as fast as the railway will carry it. The back road had apparently been fatigued to Mrs. Gareth. She rose there rather white and waned with her walk. A certain sharp thinness was in her ejaculation of, oh, after which she glanced about her for a place to sit down. The movement was a criticism of the order of events that offered such a piece of news to a lady coming in tired. But Fleeda could see that in turning over the possibilities this particular peril was the one that during the last hour her friend had turned up oftenest. At the end of the short gray day which had been moist and mild the sun was out the terrace looked to the south and a bench formed as the legs and arms of iron representing knotted boughs stood against the warmest wall of the house. The mistress of Rick sack upon it and presented to her companion the handsome face she had composed to hear everything. Strangely enough it was just this fine vessel of her attention that made the girl most nervous about what she must drop in. Quite a demand, dear, is it? Asked Mrs. Gareth, drawing in her cloak. Oh, that's what I should call it, Fleeda laughed, to her own surprise. I mean with the threat of enforcement and that sort of thing. Distinctly with the threat of enforcement what would he called, I suppose, coercion. What sort of coercion said Mrs. Gareth? Why, legal, don't you know what he calls setting the lawyers at you? Is that what he calls it? She seemed to speak with disinterested curiosity. That's what he calls it, said Fleeda. Mrs. Gareth considered an instant. Oh, the lawyers, she exclaimed lightly. Seated there almost cosily in the reddening winter sunset, only with her shoulders raised a little and her mantle tightened as if from a slight chill. She had never yet looked to Fleeda so much in possession nor so far from meeting unsuspectedness halfway. Is he going to send them down here? I dare say he thinks it may come to that. The lawyers can scarcely do the packing, Mrs. Gareth playfully remarked. I suppose he means them in the first place at least to try to talk you over. In the first place, eh? And what does he mean in the second? Fleeda hesitated. She had not foreseen that so simple an inquiry could disconcert her. I'm afraid I don't know. Didn't you ask? Mrs. Gareth spoke as if she might have said. What then were you doing all the while? I didn't ask very much, said her companion. He has been gone some time. The great thing seemed to be to understand clearly that he wouldn't be content with anything less than what he mentioned. Am I just giving everything back? You're just giving everything back. Well, darling, what did you tell him? Mrs. Gareth blandly inquired. Fleeda faltered again, wincing at the term of endearment, at what the words took for granted, charged with the confidence she now had committed herself to betray. I told him I would tell you, she smiled, but she felt that her smile was rather hollow and even that Mrs. Gareth had begun to look at her with some fixedness. Did he seem very angry? He seemed very sad. He takes it very hard, Fleeda added. And how does she take it? Ah, that, that I felt a delicacy about asking. So you didn't ask? The words had the note of surprise. Fleeda was embarrassed. She had not made up her mind definitely to lie. I didn't think you'd care. That small untruth she would risk. Well, I don't, Mrs. Gareth declared, and Fleeda felt less guilty to hear her for the statement was as inexact as her own. Didn't you say anything in return, Mrs. Gareth presently continued? Do you mean in the way of justifying you? I didn't mean to trouble you to do that. My justification, said Mrs. Gareth sitting there warmly and in the lucidity of her thought, which nevertheless hung back a little, dropping her eyes on the gravel. My justification was all the past. My justification was the cruelty. But at this, with a short, sharp gesture, she checked herself. It's too good of me to talk now. She produced these sentences with a cold patience, as if addressing Fleeda in the girl's virtual and actual character of Owen's representative. Our young lady crept to and fro before the bench, combating the sense that it was occupied by a judge, looking at her boot-toes, reminding herself in doing so of Mona, and lightly crunching the pebbles as she walked. She moved about because she was afraid, putting off from moment to moment the exercise of the courage she had been sure she possessed. That courage would all come to her if she could only be equally sure that what she should be called upon to do for Owen would be to suffer. She had wondered, while Mrs. Gareth spoke, how that lady would describe her justification. She had described it as if to be irreproachably fair, give her adversary the benefit of every doubt, and then dismiss the question forever. Of course, Mrs. Gareth went on, if we didn't succeed in showing him at point in the ground we took, it's simply that he shuts his eyes. What I supposed was that you would have given him your opinion that if I was the woman so signally to assert myself, I'm also the woman to rest upon it imperturbably enough. Fleeda stopped in front of her hostess. I gave him my opinion that you're very logical, very obstinate, and very proud. Quite right, my dear, I'm a rank bigot about that sort of thing, and Mrs. Gareth jerked her head at the contents of the house. I've never denied it. I'd kidnap to save them, to convert them, the children of heretics. When I know I'm right, go to the stake. Oh, he may burn me alive, she cried with a happy face. Did he abuse me, she then demanded. Fleeda had remained there, gathering in her purpose. How little you know him. Mrs. Gareth stared, then broke into a laugh that her companion had not expected. Ah, my dear, certainly not so well as you. The girl at this turned away again. She felt she looked too conscious, and she was aware that during a pause, Mrs. Gareth's eyes watched her as she went. She faced about afresh to meet them, but what she met was a question that reinforced them. Why had you a delicacy as to speaking of Mona? She stopped again before the bench, and an inspiration came to her. I should think you would know, she said, with proper dignity. Blankness was for a moment on Mrs. Gareth's brow. Then light broke. She visibly remembered the scene in the breakfast room after Mona's night at Pointon. Because I contrasted you, told him you were the one? Her eyes looked deep. You were, you are still. Fleeda gave a bold, dramatic laugh. Thank you, my love, with all the best things at Rick's. Mrs. Gareth considered trying to penetrate as it seemed, but at last she brought out roundly. For you, you know, I'd send them back. The girl's heart gave a tremendous bound, the right way dawned upon her in a flash. Obscurity, indeed, the next moment engulfed this course, but for a few thrilled seconds she had understood. To send the things back, for her, meant, of course, to send them back as if there were even a dim chance that she might become mistress of them. Fleeda's palpitation was not a laid as she asked herself what portent Mrs. Gareth had suddenly perceived of such a chance. That perception could come only from a sudden suspicion of her secret. This suspicion, in turn, was a tolerably straight consequence of that implied view of the propriety of surrender, from which she was well aware, she could say nothing to dissociate herself. What she first felt was that if she wished to rescue the spoils, she wished also to rescue her secret. So she looked as innocent as she could and said as quickly as possible, for me, why in the world for me? Because you're so awfully keen. Am I? Do I strike you so? You know I hate him, Fleeda went on. She had the sense for a while of Mrs. Gareth's regarding her with the detachment of some stern, clever stranger. Then what's the matter with you? Why do you want me to give in? Fleeda hesitated. She felt herself reddening. I've only said your son wants it. I haven't said I do. Then say it and have done with it. This was more peremptory than any word her friend, though often speaking in her presence with much point, had ever yet deliberately addressed her. It affected her like the crack of a whip, but she confined herself with an effort to taking it as a reminder that she must keep her head. I know he has his engagement to carry out. His engagement to marry? Why, it's just that engagement we loathe. Why should I loathe it, Fleeda asked with a strange smile? Then before Mrs. Gareth could reply, she pursued. I'm thinking of his general undertaking to give her the house as she originally saw it. To give her the house, Mrs. Gareth brought up the words from the depth of the unspeakable. The effect was like the moan of an autumn wind. It was in the power of such an image to make her turn pale. I'm thinking, Fleeda continued, of the simple question of his keeping faith on an important clause of his contract. It doesn't matter whether it's with a stupid person or with a monster of cleverness. I'm thinking of his honor and his good name. The honor and good name of a man you hate? Certainly the girl resolutely answered. I don't see why you should talk as if one had a petty mind. You don't think so. It's not on that assumption you've ever dealt with me. I can do your son justice as he put his case to me. Ah, then he did put his case to you, Mrs. Gareth exclaimed with an accent of triumph. You seem to speak just now as if really nothing of any consequence had passed between you. Something always passes when one has a little imagination, our young lady declared. I take it you don't mean that Owen has any. Mrs. Gareth cried with her large laugh. Fleta was silent for a moment. No, I don't mean that Owen has any. She returned at last. Why is it you hate him so? Her hostess abruptly put to her. Should I love him for all he has made you suffer? Mrs. Gareth slowly rose at this and coming over the walk took her young friend to her breast and kissed her. She then passed into one of Fleta's an arm perversely and imperiously sociable. Let us move a little, she said, holding her close and giving a slight shiver. They strolled along the terrace and she brought out another question. He was eloquent then, poor dear. He poured forth the story of his wrongs. Fleta smiled down at her companion who cloaked and perceptibly bowed, leaned on her heavily and gave her an odd unwanted sense of age and cunning. She took refuge in an evasion. He couldn't tell me anything that I didn't know pretty well already. It's very true you know everything. No, dear, you haven't a petty mind. You have 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. Gareth 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 martyred 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 Fleta, 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 into 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 Fleta 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 woman 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. Gareth added, as they moved, but you're rascal enough for anything. While Fleta 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 informed, somewhat profane. Why the devil at any rate doesn't it come off? Fleta hesitated, you mean their marriage? Of course I mean their marriage. Fleta 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 you're putting a question so indelicate. I should have put it, I mean in your place, but I'm quite coarse, thank God. Fleta felt privately that she herself was coarse, or at any rate would presently have to be, and Mrs. Gareth with a purpose that struck her 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 effective Mrs. Gareth'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 sure. She bethought herself, and she broke out. Isn't the day passed? Then, stopping short, she added, upon my word, they must have put it off. As Fleta made no answer to this, she sharply pursued. Have they put it off? I haven't the least idea, said the girl. Her hostess was again looking at her hard. Didn't he tell you? Didn't he say anything about it? Fleta, meanwhile, had had time to make her reflections, which were, moreover, the continued throb of those that had occupied the interval between Owen's departure and his mother's return. If she should now repeat his words, this wouldn't at all play the game of her definite vow. It would only play the game of her little gagged and blinded desire. She could calculate well enough the result of telling Mrs. Gareth how she had had it from Owen's troubled lips, that Mona was only waiting for the restitution and would do nothing without it. The thing was to obtain the restitution without imparting that knowledge. The only way also not to impart it was not to tell any truth at all about it. And the only way to meet this last condition was to reply to her companion as she presently did. He told me nothing whatever. He didn't touch on the subject. Not in any way? Not in any way. Mrs. Gareth watched Flida and considered. You haven't any idea if they are waiting for the things? How should I have? I'm not in their counsels. I dare say they are, or that Mona is, Mrs. Gareth reflected again. She had a bright idea. If I don't give in, I'll be hanged if she'll not break it off. She'll never, never break off, said Flida. Are you sure? I can't be sure, but it's my belief. Derived from him? The girl hung fire a few seconds. Derived from him? Mrs. Gareth gave her a long last look and turned abruptly away. It's an awful bore. You didn't really get it out of him. Well, come to tea, she added rather dryly, passing straight into the house. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of the Spoils of Pointon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Spoils of Pointon by Henry James, chapter 11. The sense of her dryness, which was ominous of a complication, made Flida, before complying, linger a little on the terrace. She felt the need more over of taking breath after such a flight into the cold air of denial. When at last she rejoined Mrs. Gareth, she found her erect before the drawing room fire. Their tea had been set out in the same quarter, and the mistress of the house, for whom the preparation of it was in general a high and undelegated function, was in an attitude to which the hissing urn made no appeal. This omission for Flida was such a further sign of something to come, that to disguise her apprehension she immediately, and without apology, took the duty in hand, only, however, to be promptly reminded that she was performing it confusedly, and not counting the journeys of the little silver shovel she emptied into the pot. Not five, my dear, the usual three, said her hostess, with the same reserve. Watching her then in silence while she clumsily corrected her mistake, the tea took some minutes to draw, and Mrs. Gareth availed herself of them suddenly to exclaim, You haven't yet told me, you know, how it is you propose to make me. Give everything back. Flida looked into the pot again, and uttered her question with the briskness that she felt to be a trifle overdone. Why, by putting the question well before you, by being so eloquent that I shall persuade you, shall act upon you, by making you sorry for having gone so far, she said boldly, by simply and earnestly asking it of you in short, and by reminding you at the same time that it's the first thing I have ever so asked. Oh, you've done things for me, endless and beautiful things, she exclaimed, but you've done them all from your own generous impulse. I've never so much as hinted to you to lend me a postage stamp. Give me a cup of tea, said Mrs. Gareth. A moment later, taking the cup, she replied, No, you've never asked me for a postage stamp. That gives me a pull, Flida returned with a smile. Puts you in the situation of expecting that I shall do this thing just simply to oblige you. The girl hesitated. You said a while ago that for me you would do it. For you, but not for your eloquence. Do you understand what I mean by the difference? Mrs. Gareth asked as she stood, stirring her tea. Flida, to postpone answering, looked round, while she drank it at the beautiful room. I don't at the least like you know you're having taken so much. It was a great shock to me on my arrival here to find you had done so. Give me some more tea, said Mrs. Gareth, and there was a moment's silence as Flida poured another cup. If you were shocked, my dear, I'm bound to say you concealed your shock. I know I did. I was afraid to show it. Mrs. Gareth drank off her second cup. And you're not afraid now? No, I'm not afraid now. What has made the difference? I pulled myself together, Flida paused, then she added, and I've seen Mr. Owen. You've seen Mr. Owen, Mrs. Gareth concurred. She put down her cup and sank into a chair in which she leaned back, resting her head and gazing at her young friend. Yes, I did tell you a while ago that for you I'd do it, but you haven't told me yet what you'll do in return. Flida thought an instant. Anything in the wide world you may require. Oh, anything is nothing at all. That's too easily said. Mrs. Gareth, reclining more completely, closed her eyes with an air of disgust, an air indeed of inviting slumber. Flida looked at her quiet face, which the appearance of slumber always made particularly handsome. She noted how much the ordeal of the last few days had added to its indications of age. Well, then try me with something. What is it you demand? At this opening her eyes, Mrs. Gareth sprang straight up. Get him away from her. Flida marveled. Her companion had in an instant become young again. Away from Mona, how in the world? By not looking like a fool, cried Mrs. Gareth very sharply. She kissed her, however, on the spot to make up for this roughness, and with an officious hand took off the hat which, on coming into the house, our young lady had not removed. She applied a friendly touch to the girl's hair and gave a business-like pull to her jacket. I say don't look like an idiot because you happen not to be one not the least bit. I'm idiotic. I've been so, I've just discovered. Ever since our first days together, I've been a precious donkey, but that's another affair. Flida, as if she humbly assented, went through no form of controverting this. She simply stood passive to her companion's sudden refreshment of the charms of her person. How can I get him away from her? She presently demanded. By letting yourself go. By letting myself go? She spoke mechanically, still more like an idiot, and felt as if her face flamed out the insincerity of her question. It was vividly back again, the vision of the real way to act on Mrs. Gareth. This lady's movements were now rapid. She turned off from her as quickly as she had seized her and Flida sat down to steady herself for full responsibility. Her hostess, without taking up her ejaculation, gave a violent poke at the fire and then faced her again. You've done two things then today, haven't you? That you've never done before. One has been asking me for the service or favor or concession, whatever you call it, that you've just mentioned. The other has been telling me, certainly two for the first time, an immense little fib. An immense little fib? Flida felt weak. She was glad of the support of her seat. An immense big one then, said Mrs. Gareth, irritatively. You don't in the least hate Owen, my darling. You care for him very much. In fact, my own, you're in love with him. There, don't tell me any more lies, cried Mrs. Gareth, with a voice and a face in the presence of which Flida recognized that there was nothing for her but to hold herself and take them. When once the truth was out, it was out. And she could see more and more every instant that it would be the only way. She accepted therefore what had to come. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes as her companion had done just before. She would have covered her face with her hands, but for the still greater shame. Oh, you're a wonder, a wonder, said Mrs. Gareth. You're magnificent, and I was right, as soon as I saw you, to pick you out and trust you. Flida closed her eyes tighter at this last word, but her friend kept it up. I never dreamed of it till a while ago when, after he had come and gone, we were face to face. Then something stuck out of you. It strongly impressed me, and I didn't know at first quite what to make of it. It was that you had just been with him and that you were not natural, not natural to me, she added with a smile. I pricked my ears up, and all that this might mean dawned upon me when you said you would ask nothing about Mona. It put me on the scent, but I didn't show you, did I? I felt it was in you, deep down, and that I must draw it out. Well, I have drawn it, and it's a blessing. Yesterday, when you shed tears at breakfast, I was awfully puzzled. What has been the matter with you all the while? Why, Flida, it isn't a crime. Don't you know that? cried the delighted woman. When I was a girl, I was always in love, and not always with such nice people as Owen. I didn't behave as well as you. Compared with you, I think I must have been odious. But if you're proud and reserved, it's your own affair. I'm proud too, though I'm not reserved. That's what spoils it. I'm stupid, above all. That's what I am. So dense that I really blush for it. However, no one but you could have deceived me. If I trusted you moreover, it was exactly to be cleverer than myself. You must be so now, more than ever. Suddenly, Flida felt her hands grasped. Mrs. Gareth had plumped down at her feet and was leaning on her knees. Save him, save him, you can, she passionately pleaded. How could you not like him when he's such a dear? He is a dear darling. There's no harm in my own boy. You can do what you will with him. You know you can. What else does he give us all this time for? Get him away from her. It's as if he besought you too, poor wretch. Don't abandon him to such a fate and I'll never abandon you. Think of him with that creature, that future. If you'll take him, I'll give up everything. There, it's a solemn promise, the most sacred of my life. Get the better of her and he shall have every stick I removed. Give me your word and I'll accept it. I'll write for the Packers tonight. Flida before this had fallen forward on her companion's neck and the two women clinging together had got up while the younger wailed on the other's bosom. You smooth it down because you see more in it than there can ever be. But after my hideous double game, how will you be able to believe in me again? I see in it simply what must be if you've a single spark of pity. We're on earth with the double game when you behave like such a saint. You've been beautiful, you've been exquisite and all our trouble is over. Flida, drying her eyes, shook her head ever so sadly. No, Mrs. Gareth, it isn't over. I can't do what you ask. I can't meet your condition. Mrs. Gareth stared. The cloud gathered in her face again. Why in the name of goodness when you adore him? I know what you see in him, she declared in another tone. You're quite right. Flida gave a faint stubborn smile. He cares for her too much. But why doesn't he marry her? He's giving you an extraordinary chance. He doesn't dream I've ever thought of him, said Flida. Why should he if you didn't? It wasn't me you were in love with, my duck. Then Mrs. Gareth added, I'll go and tell him. If you do any such thing, you shall never see me again. Absolutely, literally never. Mrs. Gareth looked hard at her young friend, betraying that she saw she must believe her. Then you're perverse, you're wicked. Will you swear he doesn't know? Of course he doesn't know, cried Flida indignantly. Her interlocutress was silent a little. And that he is no feeling on his side? For me, Flida stared, before he has even married her. Mrs. Gareth gave a sharp laugh at this. He ought at least to appreciate your wit. Oh, my dear, you are a treasure. Doesn't he appreciate anything? Has he given you absolutely no symptom, not offered a look, not breathed a sigh? The case, said Flida coldly, is as I've had the honor to state it. Then he's as big a donkey as his mother. But you know you must account for their delay, Mrs. Gareth remarked. Why must I, Flida asked after a moment? Because you were closeted with him here so long. You can't pretend at present, you know, not to have any art. The girl hesitated an instant. She was conscious that she must choose between two risks. She had had a secret, and the secret was gone. Owen had one, which was still unbrewed, and the greater risk now was that his mother should lay her formidable hand upon it. All Flida's tenderness for him moved her to protect it, so she faced the small apparel. Their delay, she brought herself to reply, may perhaps be Mona's doing. I mean because he has lost her the things. Mrs. Gareth jumped at this, so that she'll break all together if I keep them. Flida winced. I've told you what I believe about that. She'll make scenes and conditions, she'll worry him, but she'll hold him fast, she'll never give him up. Mrs. Gareth turned it over. Well, I'll keep them to try her, she finally pronounced, at which Flida felt quite sick as if to have given everything and got nothing. End of chapter 11.