"Getting on! Why! you're as young as ever. By the way, that chap

Profond, Mother, is he all right?"

"Prosper Profond! Oh! the most amusing man I know."

Val grunted, and recounted the story of the Mayfly filly.

"That's SO like him," murmured Winifred. "He does all sorts of things."

"Well," said Val shrewdly, "our family haven't been too lucky with that

kind of cattle; they're too light-hearted for us."

It was true, and Winifred's blue study lasted a full minute before she

answered:

"Oh! well! He's a foreigner, Val; one must make allowances."

"All right, I'll use his filly and make it up to him, somehow."

And soon after he gave her his blessing, received a kiss, and left her

for his bookmaker's, the Iseeum Club, and Victoria station.

VI

JON

Mrs. Val Dartie, after twenty years of South Africa, had fallen deeply

in love, fortunately with something of her own, for the object of her

passion was the prospect in front of her windows, the cool clear light

on the green Downs. It was England again, at last! England more

beautiful than she had dreamed. Chance had, in fact, guided the Val

Darties to a spot where the South Downs had real charm when the sun

shone. Holly had enough of her father's eye to apprehend the rare

quality of their outlines and chalky radiance; to go up there by the

ravine-like lane and wander along towards Chanctonbury or Amberley, was

still a delight which she hardly attempted to share with Val, whose

admiration of Nature was confused by a Forsyte's instinct for getting

something out of it, such as the condition of the turf for his horses'

exercise.

Driving the Ford home with a certain humouring smoothness, she promised

herself that the first use she would make of Jon would be to take him

up there, and show him "the view" under this May-day sky.

She was looking forward to her young half-brother with a motherliness

not exhausted by Val. A three-day visit to Robin Hill, soon after their

arrival home, had yielded no sight of him--he was still at school; so

that her recollection, like Val's, was of a little sunny-haired boy

striped blue and yellow, down by the pond.

Those three days at Robin Hill had been exciting, sad, embarrassing.

Memories of her dead brother, memories of Val's courtship; the aging of

her father, not seen for twenty years, something funereal in his ironic

gentleness which did not escape one who had much subtle instinct; above

all, the presence of her stepmother, whom she could still vaguely

remember as the "lady in grey" of days when she was little and

grandfather alive and Mademoiselle Beauce so cross because that

intruder gave her music lessons--all these confused and tantalised a

spirit which had longed to find Robin Hill untroubled. But Holly was

adept at keeping things to herself, and all had seemed to go quite well.

Her father had kissed her when she left him, with lips which she was

sure had trembled.

"Well, my dear," he said, "the war hasn't changed Robin Hill, has it?

If only you could have brought Jolly back with you! I say, can you

stand this spiritualistic racket? When the oak-tree dies, it dies, I'm

afraid."

From the warmth of her embrace he probably divined that he had let the

cat out of his bag, for he rode off at once on irony.

"Spiritualism--queer word, when the more they manifest the more they

prove that they've got hold of matter."

"How?" said Holly.

"Why! Look at their photographs of auric presences. You must have

something material for light and shade to fall on before you can take a

photograph. No, it'll end in our calling all matter spirit, or all

spirit matter--I don't know which."

"But don't you believe in survival, Dad?"

Jolyon had looked at her, and the sad whimsicality of his face

impressed her deeply.

"Well, my dear, I should like to get something out of death. I've been

looking into it a bit. But for the life of me I can't find anything

that telepathy, subconsciousness, and emanation from the storehouse of

this world can't account for just as well. Wish I could! Wishes father

thoughts but they don't breed evidence."

Holly had pressed her lips again to his forehead with a feeling that it

confirmed his theory that all matter was becoming spirit--his brow felt

somehow so insubstantial.

But the most poignant memory of that little visit had been watching,

unobserved, her stepmother reading to herself a letter from Jon. It

was--she decided--the prettiest sight she had ever seen. Irene, lost as

it were in the letter of her boy, stood at a window where the light

fell on her face and her fine grey hair; her lips were moving, smiling,

her dark eyes laughing, dancing, and the hand which did not hold the

letter was pressed against her breast. Holly withdrew as from a vision

of perfect love, convinced that Jon must be nice.

When she saw him coming out of the station with a kit-bag in either

hand, she was confirmed in her predisposition. He was a little like

Jolly, that long-lost idol of her childhood, but eager-looking and less

formal, with deeper eyes and brighter-coloured hair, for he wore no

hat; altogether a very interesting "little" brother!

His tentative politeness charmed one who was accustomed to assurance in

the youthful manner; he was disturbed because she was to drive him

home, instead of his driving her. Shouldn't he have a shot? They hadn't

a car at Robin Hill since the war, of course, and he had only driven

once, and landed up a bank, so she oughtn't to mind his trying. His

laugh, soft and infectious, was very attractive, though that word, she

had heard, was now quite old-fashioned. When they reached the house he

pulled out a crumpled letter which she read while he was washing--a

quite short letter, which must have cost her father many a pang to

write.

"MY DEAR,

"You and Val will not forget, I trust, that Jon knows nothing of family

history. His mother and I think he is too young at present. The boy is

very dear, and the apple of her eye. Verbum sapientibus.

Your loving father, J. F."

That was all; but it renewed in Holly an uneasy regret that Fleur was

coming.

After tea she fulfilled that promise to herself and took Jon up the

hill. They had a long talk, sitting above an old chalk-pit grown over

with brambles and goosepenny. Milkwort and liverwort starred the green

slope, the larks sang, and thrushes in the brake, and now and then a

gull flighting inland would wheel very white against the paling sky,

where the vague moon was coming up. Delicious fragrance came to them,

as if little invisible creatures were running and treading scent out of

the blades of grass.

Jon, who had fallen silent, said rather suddenly: "I say, this is

wonderful! There's no fat on it at all. Gull's flight and sheep-bells--"

"Gull's flight and sheep-bells! You're a poet, my dear!"

Jon sighed.

"Oh, Golly! No go!"

"Try! I used to at your age."

"Did you? Mother says 'try' too; but I'm so rotten. Have you any of

yours for me to see?"

"My dear," Holly murmured, "I've been married nineteen years. I only

wrote verses when I wanted to be."

"Oh!" said Jon, and turned over on to his face: the one cheek she could

see was a charming colour. Was Jon "touched in the wind," then, as Val

would have called it? Already? But, if so, all the better, he would

take no notice of young Fleur. Besides, on Monday he would begin his

farming. And she smiled. Was it Burns who followed the plough, or only

Piers Plowman? Nearly every young man and most young women seemed to be

poets nowadays, from the number of their books she had read out in

South Africa, importing them from Hatchus and Bumphards; and quite

good--oh! quite; much better than she had been herself! But then poetry

had only really come in since her day--with motor-cars. Another long

talk after dinner over a wood fire in the low hall, and there seemed

little left to know about Jon except anything of real importance. Holly

parted from him at his bedroom door, having seen twice over that he had

everything, with the conviction that she would love him, and Val would

like him. He was eager, but did not gush; he was a splendid listener,

sympathetic, reticent about himself. He evidently loved their father,

and adored his mother. He liked riding, rowing, and fencing, better

than games. He saved moths from candles, and couldn't bear spiders, but

put them out of doors in screws of paper sooner than kill them. In a

word, he was amiable. She went to sleep, thinking that he would suffer

horribly if anybody hurt him; but who would hurt him?

Jon, on the other hand, sat awake at his window with a bit of paper and

a pencil, writing his first "real poem" by the light of a candle

because there was not enough moon to see by, only enough to make the

night seem fluttery and as if engraved on silver. Just the night for

Fleur to walk, and turn her eyes, and lead on--over the hills and far

away. And Jon, deeply furrowed in his ingenuous brow, made marks on the

paper and rubbed them out and wrote them in again, and did all that was

necessary for the completion of a work of art; and he had a feeling

such as the winds of Spring must have, trying their first songs among

the coming blossom. Jon was one of those boys (not many) in whom a

home-trained love of beauty had survived school life. He had had to

keep it to himself, of course, so that not even the drawing-master knew

of it; but it was there, fastidious and clear within him. And his poem

seemed to him as lame and stilted as the night was winged. But he kept

it all the same. It was a "beast," but better than nothing as an

expression of the inexpressible. And he thought with a sort of

discomfiture: 'I shan't be able to show it to Mother.' He slept

terribly well, when he did sleep, overwhelmed by novelty.

VII

FLEUR

To avoid the awkwardness of questions which could not be answered, all

that had been told Jon was: "There's a girl coming down with Val for

the week-end."

For the same reason, all that had been told Fleur was: "We've got a

youngster staying with us."

The two yearlings, as Val called them in his thoughts, met therefore in

a manner which for unpreparedness left nothing to be desired. They were

thus introduced by Holly:

"This is Jon, my little brother; Fleur's a cousin of ours, Jon."

Jon, who was coming in through a French window out of strong sunlight,

was so confounded by the providential nature of this miracle, that he

had time to hear Fleur say calmly: "Oh, how do you do?" as if he had

never seen her, and to understand dimly from the quickest imaginable

little movement of her head that he never HAD seen her. He bowed

therefore over her hand in an intoxicated manner, and became more

silent than the grave. He knew better than to speak. Once in his early

life, surprised reading by a night-light, he had said fatuously "I was

just turning over the leaves, Mum," and his mother had replied: "Jon,

never tell stories, because of your face--nobody will ever believe

them."

The saying had permanently undermined the confidence necessary to the

success of spoken untruth. He listened therefore to Fleur's swift and

rapt allusions to the jolliness of everything, plied her with scones

and jam, and got away as soon as might be. They say that in delirium

tremens you see a fixed object, preferably dark, which suddenly changes

shape and position. Jon saw the fixed object; it had dark eyes and

passably dark hair, and changed its position, but never its shape. The

knowledge that between him and that object there was already a secret

understanding (however impossible to understand) thrilled him so that

he waited feverishly, and began to copy out his poem--which of course

he would never dare to show her--till the sound of horses' hoofs roused

him, and, leaning from his window, he saw her riding forth with Val. It

was clear that she wasted no time; but the sight filled him with grief.

He wasted his. If he had not bolted, in his fearful ecstasy, he might

have been asked to go too. From his window he watched them disappear,

appear again in the chine of the road, vanish, and emerge once more for

a minute clear on the outline of the Down. 'Silly brute!' he thought;

'I always miss my chances.'

Why couldn't he be self-confident and ready? And, leaning his chin on

his hands, he imagined the ride he might have had with her. A week-end

was but a week-end, and he had missed three hours of it. Did he know

any one except himself who would have been such a flat? He did not.

He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no more.

But he missed Fleur, who came down last. He sat opposite her at dinner,

and it was terrible--impossible to say anything for fear of saying the

wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed on her in the only

natural way; in sum, impossible to treat normally one with whom in

fancy he had already been over the hills and far away; conscious, too,

all the time, that he must seem to her, to all of them, a dumb gawk.

Yes, it was terrible! And she was talking so well--swooping with swift

wing this way and that. Wonderful how she had learned an art which he

found so disgustingly difficult. She must think him hopeless indeed!

His sister's eyes fixed on him with a certain astonishment, obliged him

at last to look at Fleur; but instantly her eyes, very wide and eager,

seeming to say: "Oh! for goodness' sake!" obliged him to look at Val;

where a grin obliged him to look at his cutlet--that, at least, had no

eyes, and no grin, and he ate it hastily.

"Jon is going to be a farmer," he heard Holly say; "a farmer and a

poet."

He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow just

like their father's, laughed, and felt better.

Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing could

have been more favourable, for, in relating it, he regarded Holly, who

in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be regarding with a slight

frown some thought of her own, and Jon was really free to look at her

at last. She had on a white frock, very simple and well made; her arms

were bare, and her hair had a white rose in it. In just that swift

moment of free vision, after such intense discomfort, Jon saw her

sublimated, as one sees in the dark a slender white fruit-tree; caught

her like a verse of poetry flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a

tune which floats out in the distance and dies.

He wondered giddily how old she was--she seemed so much more

self-possessed and experienced than himself. Why mustn't he say they

had met? He remembered suddenly his mother's face; puzzled,

hurt-looking, when she answered: "Yes, they're relations, but we don't

know them." Impossible that his mother, who loved beauty, should not

admire Fleur if she did know her!

Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and answered

the advances of this new-found brother-in-law. As to riding (always the

first consideration with Val) he could have the young chestnut, saddle

and unsaddle it himself, and generally look after it when he brought it

in. Jon said he was accustomed to all that at home, and saw that he had

gone up one in his host's estimation.

"Fleur," said Val, "can't ride much yet, but she's keen. Of course, her

father doesn't know a horse from a cartwheel. Does your dad ride?"

"He used to; but now he's--you know, he's--" He stopped, so hating the

word old. His father was old, and yet not old; no--never!

"Quite!" muttered Val. "I used to know your brother up at Oxford, ages

ago, the one who died in the Boer War. We had a fight in New College

Gardens. That was a queer business," he added, musing; "a good deal

came out of it."

Jon's eyes opened wide; all was pushing him towards historical

research, when his sister's voice said gently from the doorway:

"Come along, you two," and he rose, his heart pushing him towards

something far more modern.

Fleur having declared that it was "simply too wonderful to stay

indoors," they all went out. Moonlight was frosting the dew, and an old

sun-dial threw a long shadow. Two box hedges at right angles, dark and

square, barred off the orchard. Fleur turned through that angled

opening.

"Come on!" she called. Jon glanced at the others, and followed. She was

running among the trees like a ghost. All was lovely and foamlike above

her, and there was a scent of old trunks, and of nettles. She vanished.

He thought he had lost her, then almost ran into her standing quite

still.

"Isn't it jolly?" she cried, and Jon answered:

"Rather!"

She reached up, twisted off a blossom, and, twirling it in her fingers,

said:

"I suppose I can call you Jon?"

"I should think so just."

"All right! But you know there's a feud between our families?"

Jon stammered: "Feud? Why?"

"It's ever so romantic and silly? That's why I pretended we hadn't met.

Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a walk before

breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about things, don't you?"

Jon murmured a rapturous assent.

"Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful."

Jon said fervently: "Yes, she is."

"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. I

don't like Greek things a bit."

"What! Not Euripides?"

"Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I think

beauty's always swift. I like to look at ONE picture, for instance, and

then run off. I can't bear a lot of things together. Look!" She held up

her blossom in the moonlight. "That's better than all the orchard, I

think."

And, suddenly, with her other hand she caught Jon's. "Of all things in

the world, don't you think caution's the most awful? Smell the

moonlight!"

She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that of all

things in the world caution was the worst, and bending over, kissed the

hand which held his.

"That's nice and old-fashioned," said Fleur calmly. "You're frightfully

silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift." She let go his

hand. "Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on purpose?"

"No!" cried Jon, intensely shocked.

"Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're doing

this on purpose too." And again she ran like a ghost among the trees.

Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his heart, and over all

the moonlit white unearthly blossom. They came out where they had gone

in, Fleur walking demurely.

"It's quite wonderful in there," she said dreamily to Holly.

Jon preserved silence, hoping against hope that she might be thinking

it swift.

She bade him a casual and demure good-night, which made him think he

had been dreaming....

In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a

shapeless garment, with the white flower still in her hair, she looked

like a mousme, sitting cross-legged on her bed, writing by candlelight.

"DEAREST CHERRY:

"I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, only the feeling is

really lower down. He's a second cousin--such a child, about six months

older and ten years younger than I am. Boys always fall in love with

their seniors, and girls with their juniors or with old men of forty.

Don't laugh, but his eyes are the truest things I ever saw; and he's

quite divinely silent! We had a most romantic first meeting in London

under the Vospovitch 'Juno.' And now he's sleeping in the next room and

the moonlight's on the blossom; and to-morrow morning, before anybody's

awake, we're going to walk off into Down fairyland. There's a feud

between our families, which makes it really exciting. Yes! and I may

have to use subterfuge and come on you for invitations--if so, you'll

know why! My father doesn't want us to know each other, but I can't

help that. Life's too short. He's got the most beautiful mother, with

lovely silvery hair and a young face with dark eyes. I'm staying with

his sister--who married my cousin; it's all mixed up, but I mean to

pump her to-morrow. We've often talked about love being a spoil-sport;

well, that's all tosh, it's the beginning of sport, and the sooner you

feel it, my dear, the better for you.

"Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a name in

my family, they say) is the sort that lights up and goes out; about

five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going to be a poet. If

you laugh at me I've done with you for ever. I perceive all sorts of

difficulties, but you know when I really want a thing I get it. One of

the chief effects of love is that you see the air sort of inhabited,

like seeing a face in the moon; and you feel--you feel dancey and soft

at the same time, with a funny sensation--like a continual first sniff

of orange blossom--just above your stays. This is my first, and I feel

as if it were going to be my last, which is absurd, of course, by all

the laws of Nature and morality. If you mock me I will smite you, and

if you tell anybody I will never forgive you. So much so, that I almost

don't think I'll send this letter. Anyway, I'll sleep over it. So

good-night, my Cherry--oh!

Your FLEUR."

VIII

IDYLL ON GRASS

When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and set

their faces East towards the sun, there was not a cloud in heaven, and

the Downs were dewy. They had come at a good bat up the slope and were

a little out of breath; if they had anything to say they did not say

it, but marched in the early awkwardness of unbreakfasted morning under

the songs of the larks. The stealing out had been fun, but with the

freedom of the tops the sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave place to

dumbness.

"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they had gone half a

mile. "I'm hungry."

Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their tongues

were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes and previous

existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely

height. There remained but one thing solid in Jon's past--his mother;

but one thing solid in Fleur's--her father; and of these figures, as

though seen in the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.

The Down dipped and rose again towards Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of

far sea came into view, a sparrowhawk hovered in the sun's eye so that

the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red. Jon had a

passion for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch

them; keen-sighted, and with a memory for what interested him, on birds

he was almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were

none--its great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at

this early hour; they came out willingly again into the sun on the far

side. It was Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people

treated them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to

flog people who did that. Jon was astonished to find her so

humanitarian. She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her

home kept chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all weathers

till it had almost lost its voice from barking!

"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing

didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I do

think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's

nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but

it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up again. If I had

my way, I'd chain that man up."

Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him on his forehead

with the word 'Brute'; that would teach him!"

Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy. "It's their sense of

property," he said, "which makes people chain things. The last

generation thought of nothing but property; and that's why there was

the war."

"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and mine

quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got it--at least, I

suppose your people have."

"Oh! yes, luckily; I don't suppose I shall be any good at making money."

"If you were, I don't believe I should like you."

Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm.

Fleur looked straight before her, and chanted:

"Jon, Jon, the farmer's son,

Stole a pig, and away he run!"

Jon's arm crept round her waist.

"This is rather sudden," said Fleur calmly; "do you often do it?"

Jon dropped his arm. But when she laughed, his arm stole back again;

and Fleur began to sing:

"O who will o'er the downs so free,

O who will with me ride?

O who will up and follow me--"

"Sing, Jon!"

Jon sang. The larks joined in, sheep-bells, and an early morning church

far away over in Steyning. They went on from tune to tune, till Fleur

said:

"My God! I am hungry now!"

"Oh! I AM sorry!"

She looked round into his face.

"Jon, you're rather a darling."

And she pressed his hand against her waist. Jon almost reeled with

happiness. A yellow-and-white dog coursing a hare startled them apart.

They watched the two vanish down the slope, till Fleur said with a

sigh: "He'll never catch it, thank goodness! What's the time? Mine's

stopped. I never wound it."

Jon looked at his watch. "By Jove!" he said, "mine's stopped, too."

They walked on again, but only hand in hand.

"If the grass is dry," said Fleur, "let's sit down for half a minute."

Jon took off his coat, and they shared it.

"Smell! Actually wild thyme!"

With his arm round her waist again, they sat some minutes in silence.

"We are goats!" cried Fleur, jumping up; "we shall be most fearfully

late, and look so silly, and put them on their guard. Look here, Jon!

We only came out to get an appetite for breakfast, and lost our way.

See?"

"Yes," said Jon.

"It's serious; there'll be a stopper put on us. Are you a good liar?"

"I believe not very; but I can try." Fleur frowned.

"You know," she said, "I realise that they don't mean us to be friends."

"Why not?"

"I told you why."

"But that's silly."

"Yes; but you don't know my father!"

"I suppose he's fearfully fond of you."

"You see, I'm an only child. And so are you--of your mother. Isn't it a

bore? There's so much expected of one. By the time they've done

expecting, one's as good as dead."

"Yes," muttered Jon, "life's beastly short. One wants to live for ever,

and know everything."

"And love everybody?"

"No," cried Jon; "I only want to love once--you."

"Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalk-pit; we can't be

very far now. Let's run."

Jon followed, wondering fearfully if he had offended her.

The chalk-pit was full of sunshine and the murmuration of bees. Fleur

flung back her hair.

"Well," she said, "in case of accidents, you may give me one kiss,

Jon," and she pushed her cheek forward. With ecstasy he kissed that hot

soft cheek.

"Now, remember! We lost our way; and leave it to me as much as you can.

I'm going to be rather beastly to you; it's safer; try and be beastly

to me!"

Jon shook his head. "That's impossible."

"Just to please me; till five o'clock, at all events."

"Anybody will be able to see through it," said Jon gloomily.

"Well, do your best. Look! There they are! Wave your hat! Oh! you

haven't got one. Well, I'll cooee! Get a little away from me, and look

sulky."

Five minutes later, entering the house and, doing his utmost to look

sulky, Jon heard her clear voice in the dining-room:

"Oh! I'm simply RAVENOUS! He's going to be a farmer--and he loses his

way! The boy's an idiot!"

IX

GOYA

Lunch was over and Soames mounted to the picture-gallery in his house

near Mapledurham. He had what Annette called "a grief." Fleur was not

yet home. She had been expected on Wednesday; had wired that it would

be Friday; and again on Friday that it would be Sunday afternoon; and

here were her aunt, and her cousins the Cardigans, and this fellow

Profond, and everything flat as a pancake for the want of her. He stood

before his Gauguin--sorest point of his collection. He had bought the

ugly great thing with two early Matisses before the war, because there

was such a fuss about those Post-Impressionist chaps. He was wondering

whether Profond would take them off his hands--the fellow seemed not to

know what to do with his money--when he heard his sister's voice say:

"I think that's a horrid thing, Soames." and saw that Winifred had

followed him up.

"Oh! you DO?" he said dryly; "I gave five hundred for it."

"Fancy! Women aren't made like that even if they are black."

Soames uttered a glum laugh. "You didn't come up to tell me that."

"No. Do you know that Jolyon's boy is staying with Val and his wife?"

Soames spun round.

"What?"

"Yes," drawled Winifred; "he's gone to live with them there while he

learns farming."

Soames had turned away, but her voice pursued him as he walked up and

down. "I warned Val that neither of them was to be spoken to about old

matters."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

Winifred shrugged her substantial shoulders.

"Fleur does what she likes. You've always spoiled her. Besides, my dear

boy, what's the harm?"

"The harm!" muttered Soames. "Why, she--" he checked himself. The Juno,

the handkerchief, Fleur's eyes, her questions, and now this delay in

her return--the symptoms seemed to him so sinister that, faithful to

his nature, he could not part with them.

"I think you take too much care," said Winifred; "if I were you, I

should tell her of that old matter. It's no good thinking that girls in

these days are as they used to be. Where they pick up their knowledge I

can't tell, but they seem to know everything."

Over Soames's face, closely composed, passed a sort of spasm, and

Winifred added hastily:

"If you don't like to speak of it, I could for you." Soames shook his

head. Unless there was absolute necessity the thought that his adored

daughter should learn of that old scandal hurt his pride too much.

"No," he said, "not yet. Never if I can help it."

"Nonsense, my dear. Think what people are!"

"Twenty years is a long time," muttered Soames, "outside our family,

who's likely to remember?"

Winifred was silenced. She inclined more and more to that peace and

quietness of which Montague Dartie had deprived her in her youth. And,

since pictures always depressed her, she soon went down again.

Soames passed into the corner where, side by side, hung his real Goya,

and the copy of the fresco "La Vendimia." His acquisition of the real

Goya rather beautifully illustrated the cobweb of vested interests and

passions, which mesh the bright-winged fly of human life. The real

Goya's noble owner's ancestor had come into possession of it during

some Spanish war--it was in a word loot. The noble owner had remained

in ignorance of its value until in the nineties an enterprising critic

discovered that a Spanish painter named Goya was a genius. It was only

a fair Goya, but almost unique in England, and the noble owner became a

marked man. Having many possessions and that aristocratic culture

which, independent of mere sensuous enjoyment, is founded on the

sounder principle that one must know everything and be fearfully

interested in life, he had fully intended to keep an article which

contributed to his reputation while he was alive, and to leave it to

the nation after he was dead. Fortunately for Soames, the House of

Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the noble owner became

alarmed and angry. "If," he said to himself, "they think they can have

it both ways they are very much mistaken. So long as they leave me in

quiet enjoyment the nation can have some of my pictures at my death.

But if the nation is going to bait me, and rob me like this, I'm damned

if I won't sell the--lot. They can't have my private property and my

public spirit--both." He brooded in this fashion for several months

till one morning, after reading the speech of a certain statesman, he

telegraphed to his agent to come down and bring Bodkin. On going over

the collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on market values none was

more sought, pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America,

Germany, and other places where there was an interest in art, a lot

more money could be made than by selling in England. The noble owner's

public spirit--he said--was well known but the pictures were unique.

The noble owner put this opinion in his pipe and smoked it for a year.

At the end of that time he read another speech by the same statesman,

and telegraphed to his agents: "Give Bodkin a free hand." It was at

this juncture that Bodkin conceived the idea which salved the Goya and

two other unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner.

With one hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign market, with

the other he formed a list of private British collectors. Having

obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from across the

seas, he submitted pictures and bids to the private British collectors,

and invited them, of their public spirit, to outbid. In three instances

(including the Goya) out of twenty-one he was successful. And why? One

of the private collectors made buttons--he had made so many that he

desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons." He therefore

bought an unique picture at great cost, and gave it to the nation. It

was "part," his friends said, "of his general game." The second of the

private collectors was an Americo-phobe, and bought a unique picture to

"spite the damned Yanks." The third of the private collectors was

Soames, who--more sober than either of the others--bought after a visit

to Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up grade.

Goya was not booming at the moment, but he would come again; and,

looking at that portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness, but

with its own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied

still that he had made no error, heavy though the price had

been--heaviest he had ever paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of

"La Vendimia." There she was--the little wretch--looking back at him in

her dreamy mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so much safer

when she looked like that.

He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his nostrils,

and a voice said: "Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to do with this

small lot?"

That Belgian chap, whose mother--as if Flemish blood were not

enough--had been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said: "Are

you a judge of pictures?"

"Well, I've got a few myself."

"Any Post-Impressionists?"

"Ye-es, I rather like them."

"What do you think of this?" said Soames, pointing to the Gauguin.

Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short pointed beard.

"Rather fine, I think," he said; "do you want to sell it?"

Soames checked his instinctive "Not particularly"--he would not chaffer

with this alien.

"Yes," he said.

"What do you want for it?"

"What I gave."

"All right," said Monsieur Profond. "I'll be glad to take that small

picture. Post-Impressionists--they're awful dead, but they're amusin'.

I don' care for pictures much, but I've got some, just a small lot."

"What DO you care for?"

Monsieur Profond shrugged his shoulders. "Life's awful like a lot of

monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts."

"You're young," said Soames. If the fellow must make a generalisation,

he needn't suggest that the forms of property lacked solidity!

"I don' worry," replied Monsieur Profond smiling; "we're born, and we

die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of babies out in my

mother's country; but what's the use? Might as well throw my money in

the river."

Soames looked at him, and turned back towards his Goya. He didn't know

what the fellow wanted.

"What shall I make my cheque for?" pursued Monsieur Profond.

"Five hundred," said Soames shortly; "but I don't want you to take it

if you don't care for it more than that."

"That's all right," said Monsieur Profond; "I'll be 'appy to 'ave that

picture."

He wrote a cheque with a fountain-pen heavily chased with gold. Soames

watched the process uneasily. How on earth had the fellow known that he

wanted to sell that picture? Monsieur Profond held out the cheque.

"The English are awful funny about pictures," he said. "So are the

French, so are my people. They're all awful funny."

"I don't understand you," said Soames stiffly.

"It's like hats," said Monsieur Profond enigmatically, "small or large,

turnin' up or down--just the fashion. Awful funny." And, smiling, he

drifted out of the gallery again, blue and solid like the smoke of his

excellent cigar.

Soames had taken the cheque, feeling as if the intrinsic value of

ownership had been called in question. 'He's a cosmopolitan,' he

thought, watching Profond emerge from under the verandah with Annette,

and saunter down the lawn towards the river. What his wife saw in the

fellow he didn't know, unless it was that he could speak her language;

and there passed in Soames what Monsieur Profond would have called a

"small doubt" whether Annette was not too handsome to be walking with

any one so "cosmopolitan." Even at that distance he could see the blue

fumes from Profond's cigar wreathe out in the quiet sunlight; and his

grey buckskin shoes, and his grey hat--the fellow was a dandy! And he

could see the quick turn of his wife's head, so very straight on her

desirable neck and shoulders. That turn of her neck always seemed to

him a little too showy, and in the "Queen of all I survey" manner--not

quite distinguished. He watched them walk along the path at the bottom

of the garden. A young man in flannels joined them down there--a Sunday

caller no doubt, from up the river. Soames went back to his Goya. He

was still staring at that replica of Fleur, and worrying over

Winifred's news, when his wife's voice said:

"Mr. Michael Mont, Soames. You invited him to see your pictures."

There was the cheerful young man of the Gallery off Cork Street!

"Turned up, you see, sir; I live only four miles from Pangbourne. Jolly

day, isn't it?"

Confronted with the results of his expansiveness, Soames scrutinised

his visitor. The young man's mouth was excessively large and curly--he

seemed always grinning. Why didn't he grow the rest of those idiotic

little moustaches, which made him look like a music-hall buffoon? What

on earth were young men about, deliberately lowering their class with

these tooth-brushes, or little slug whiskers? Ugh! Affected young

idiots! In other respects he was presentable, and his flannels very

clean.

"Happy to see you!" he said.

The young man, who had been turning his head from side to side, became

transfixed. "I say!" he said, "'some' picture!"

Soames saw, with mixed sensations, that he had addressed the remark to

the Goya copy.

"Yes," he said dryly, "that's not a Goya. It's a copy. I had it painted

because it reminded me of my daughter."

"By Jove! I thought I knew the face, sir. Is she here?"

The frankness of his interest almost disarmed Soames.

"She'll be in after tea," he said. "Shall we go round the gallery?"

And Soames began that round which never tired him. He had not

anticipated much intelligence from one who had mistaken a copy for an

original, but as they passed from section to section, period to period,

he was startled by the young man's frank and relevant remarks. Natively

shrewd himself, and even sensuous beneath his mask, Soames had not

spent thirty-eight years over his one hobby without knowing something

more about pictures than their market values. He was, as it were, the

missing link between the artist and the commercial public. Art for

art's sake and all that, of course, was cant. But aesthetics and good

taste were necessary. The appreciation of enough persons of good taste

was what gave a work of art its permanent market value, or in other

words made it "a work of art." There was no real cleavage. And he was

sufficiently accustomed to sheep-like and unseeing visitors, to be

intrigued by one who did not hesitate to say of Mauve: "Good old

haystacks!" or of James Maris: "Didn't he just paint and paper 'em!

Mathew was the real swell, sir; you could dig into his surfaces!" It

was after the young man had whistled before a Whistler, with the words:

"D'you think he ever really saw a naked woman, sir?" that Soames

remarked:

"What ARE you, Mr. Mont, if I may ask?"

"I, sir? I WAS going to be a painter, but the War knocked that. Then in

the trenches, you know, I used to dream of the Stock Exchange, snug and

warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace knocked that; shares seem

off, don't they? I've only been demobbed about a year. What do you

recommend, sir?"

"Have you got money?"

"Well," answered the young man; "I've got a father, I kept him alive

during the War, so he's bound to keep me alive now. Though, of course,

there's the question whether he ought to be allowed to hang on to his

property. What do you think about that, sir?"

Soames, pale and defensive, smiled.

"The old man has fits when I tell him he may have to work yet. He's got

land, you know; it's a fatal disease."

"This is my real Goya," said Soames dryly.

"By George! He WAS a swell. I saw a Goya in Munich once that bowled me

middle stump. A most evil-looking old woman in the most gorgeous lace.

HE made no compromise with the public taste. That old boy was 'some'

explosive; he must have smashed up a lot of convention in his day.

Couldn't he just paint! He makes Velasquez stiff, don't you think?"

"I have no Velasquez," said Soames.

The young man stared. "No," he said; "only nations or profiteers can

afford him, I suppose. I say, why shouldn't all the bankrupt nations

sell their Velasquezes and Titians and other swells to the profiteers

by force, and then pass a law that any one who holds a picture by an

Old Master--see schedule--must hang it in a public gallery? There seems

something in that."

"Shall we go down to tea?" said Soames.

The young man's ears seemed to droop on his skull. 'He's not dense,'

thought Soames, following him off the premises.

Goya, with his satiric and surpassing precision, his original "line,"

and the daring of his light and shade, could have reproduced to

admiration the group assembled round Annette's tea-tray in the

ingle-nook below. He alone, perhaps, of painters would have done

justice to the sunlight filtering through a screen of creeper, to the

lovely pallor of brass, the old cut glasses, the thin slices of lemon

in pale amber tea; justice to Annette in her black lacey dress; there

was something of the fair Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the

spirituality of that rare type; to Winifred's grey-haired, corseted

solidity; to Soames, of a certain grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to

the vivacious Michael Mont, pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark,

luscious of glance, growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond, with

his expression as who should say: "Well, Mr. Goya, what's the use of

paintin' this small party?" finally, to Jack Cardigan, with his shining

stare and tanned sanguinity betraying the moving principle: "I'm

English, and I live to be fit."

Curious, by the way, that Imogen, who as a girl had declared solemnly

one day at Timothy's that she would never marry a good man--they were

so dull--should have married Jack Cardigan, in whom health had so

destroyed all traces of original sin, that she might have retired to

rest with ten thousand other Englishmen without knowing the difference

from the one she had chosen to repose beside. "Oh!" she would say of

him, in her "amusing" way; "Jack keeps himself so fearfully fit; he's

never had a day's illness in his life. He went right through the war

without a finger-ache. You really can't imagine how fit he is!" Indeed,

he was so "fit" that he couldn't see when she was flirting, which was

such a comfort in a way. All the same she was quite fond of him, so far

as one could be of a sports-machine, and of the two little Cardigans

made after his pattern. Her eyes just then were comparing him

maliciously with Prosper Profond. There was no "small" sport or game

which Monsieur Profond had not played at too, it seemed, from skittles

to harpon-fishing, and worn out every one. Imogen would sometimes wish

that they had worn out Jack, who continued to play at them and talk of

them with the simple zeal of a schoolgirl learning hockey; at the age

of Great-uncle Timothy she well knew that Jack would be playing carpet

golf in her bedroom, and "wiping somebody's eye."

He was telling them now how he had "pipped the pro--a charmin' fellow,

playin' a very good game," at the last hole this morning; and how he

had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and trying to incite Prosper

Profond to play him a set of tennis after tea--do him good--"keep him

fit."

"But what's the use of keepin' fit?" said Monsieur Profond.

"Yes, sir," murmured Michael Mont, "what do you keep fit for?"

"Jack," cried Imogen, enchanted, "what do you keep fit for?"

Jack Cardigan stared with all his health. The questions were like the

buzz of a mosquito, and he put up his hand to wipe them away. During

the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now that it was

over he either did not know, or shrank in delicacy from explanation of

his moving principle.

"But he's right," said Monsieur Profond unexpectedly, "there's nothin'

left but keepin' fit."

The saying, too deep for Sunday afternoon, would have passed

unanswered, but for the mercurial nature of young Mont.

"Good!" he cried. "That's the great discovery of the war. We all

thought we were progressing--now we know we're only changing."

"For the worse," said Monsieur Profond genially.

"How you are cheerful, Prosper!" murmured Annette.

"You come and play tennis!" said Jack Cardigan; "you've got the hump.

We'll soon take that down. D'you play, Mr. Mont?"

"I hit the ball about, sir."

At this juncture Soames rose, ruffled in that deep instinct of

preparation for the future which guided his existence.

"When Fleur comes--" he heard Jack Cardigan say.

Ah! and why didn't she come? He passed through drawing-room, hall, and

porch out onto the drive, and stood there listening for the car. All

was still and Sunday-fied; the lilacs in full flower scented the air.

There were white clouds, like the feathers of ducks gilded by the

sunlight. Memory of the day when Fleur was born, and he had waited in

such agony with her life and her mother's balanced in his hands, came

to him sharply. He had saved her then, to be the flower of his life.

And now! Was she going to give him trouble--pain--give him trouble? He

did not like the look of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie

with an evening song--a great big fellow up in that acacia-tree. Soames

had taken quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and Fleur

would walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as needles, and

she knew every nest. He saw her dog, a retriever, lying on the drive in

a patch of sunlight, and called to him, "Hallo, old fellow--waiting for

her too!" The dog came slowly with a grudging tail, and Soames

mechanically laid a pat on his head. The dog, the bird, the lilac all

were part of Fleur for him; no more, no less. 'Too fond of her!' he

thought, 'too fond!' He was like a man uninsured, with his ships at

sea. Uninsured again--as in that other time, so long ago, when he would

wander dumb and jealous in the wilderness of London, longing for that

woman--his first wife--he mother of this infernal boy. Ah! There was

the car at last! It drew up, it had luggage, but no Fleur.

"Miss Fleur is walking up, sir, by the towing-path"

Walking all those miles? Soames stared. The man's face had the

beginning of a smile on it. What was he grinning at? And very quickly

he turned, saying: "All right, Sims!" and went into the house. He

mounted to the picture-gallery once more. He had from there a view of

the river bank, and stood with his eyes fixed on it, oblivious of the

fact that it would be an hour at least before her figure showed there.

Walking up! And that fellow's grin! The boy--! He turned abruptly from

the window. He couldn't spy on her. If she wanted to keep things from

him--she must; he could not spy on her. His heart felt empty; and

bitterness mounted from it into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of

Jack Cardigan pursuing the ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in the

stillness and came in. He hoped they were making that chap Profond run.

And the girl in "La Vendimia" stood with her arm akimbo and her dreamy

eyes looking past him. 'I've done all I could for you,' he thought,

'since you were no higher than my knee. You aren't going to--to--hurt

me, are you?'

But the Goya copy answered not, brilliant in colour just beginning to

tone down. 'There's no real life in it,' thought Soames. 'Why doesn't

she come?'

X

TRIO

Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say, fourth

generation, at Wansdon under the Downs, a week-end prolonged unto the

ninth day had stretched the crossing threads of tenacity almost to

snapping-point. Never had Fleur been so "FINE," Holly so watchful, Val

so stable-secretive, Jon so silent and disturbed. What he learned of

farming in that week might have been balanced on the point of a

pen-knife and puffed off. He, whose nature was essentially averse to

intrigue, and whose adoration of Fleur disposed him to think that any

need for concealing it was "skittles," chafed and fretted, yet obeyed,

taking what relief he could in the few moments when they were alone. On

Thursday, while they were standing in the bay window of the

drawing-room, dressed for dinner, she said to him:

"Jon, I'm going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if you were

to go home on SATURDAY you could come up on Sunday and take me down,

and just get back here by the last train, after. You WERE going home

anyway, weren't you?"

Jon nodded.

"Anything to be with you," he said; "only why need I pretend--"

Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm:

"You have no instinct, Jon; you MUST leave things to me. It's serious

about our people. We've simply got to be secret at present, if we want

to be together." The door was opened, and she added loudly: "You ARE a

duffer, Jon."

Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this subterfuge

about a feeling so natural, so overwhelming, and so sweet.

On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was leaning out

of his window, half miserable and half lost in a dream of Paddington

station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a finger-nail tapping on his

door. He rushed to it and listened. Again the sound. It WAS a nail. He

opened. Oh! What a lovely thing came in!

"I wanted to show you my fancy dress," it said, and struck an attitude

at the foot of his bed. Jon drew a long breath and leaned against the

door. The apparition wore white muslin on its head, a fichu round its

bare neck over a wine-coloured dress, fulled out below its slender

waist. It held one arm akimbo, and the other raised right-angled

holding a fan which touched its head.

"This ought to be a basket of grapes," it whispered, "but I haven't got

it here. It's my Goya dress. And this is the attitude in the picture.

Do you like it?"

"It's a dream."

The apparition pirouetted. "Touch it, and see."

Jon knelt down and took the skirt reverently.

"Grape colour," came the whisper, "all grapes--La Vendimia--the

vintage."

Jon's fingers scarcely touched each side of the waist; he looked up,

with adoring eyes.

"Oh! Jon," it whispered; bent, kissed his forehead, pirouetted again,

and,--gliding out, was gone.

Jon stayed on his knees, and his head fell forward against the bed. How

long he stayed like that he did not know. The little noises of the

tapping nail, the feet, the skirts rustling--as in a dream--went on

about him; and before his closed eyes the figure stood and smiled and

whispered, a faint perfume of narcissus lingering in the air. And his

forehead where it had been kissed had a little cool place between the

brows, like the imprint of a flower. Love filled his soul, that love of

boy for girl which knows so little, hopes so much, would not brush the

down off for the world, and must become in time a fragrant memory--a

searing passion--a humdrum mateship--or, once in many times, vintage

full and sweet with sunset colour on the grapes.

Enough has been said about Jon Forsyte here and in another place to

show what long marches lay between him and his great-great-grandfather,

the first Jolyon, in Dorset down by the sea. Jon was sensitive as a

girl, more sensitive than nine out of ten girls of the day; imaginative

as one of his half-sister June's "lame duck" painters; affectionate as

a son of his father and his mother naturally would be. And yet, in his

inner tissue, there was something of the old founder of his family, a

secret tenacity of soul, a dread of showing his feelings, a

determination not to know when he was beaten. Sensitive, imaginative,

affectionate boys get a bad time at school, but Jon had instinctively

kept his nature dark, and been but normally unhappy there. Only with

his mother had he, up till then, been absolutely frank and natural; and

when he went home to Robin Hill that Saturday his heart was heavy

because Fleur had said that he must not be frank and natural with her

from whom he had never yet kept anything, must not even tell her that

they had met again, unless he found that she knew already. So

intolerable did this seem to him that he was very near to telegraphing

an excuse and staying up in London. And the first thing his mother said

to him was:

"So you've had our little friend of the confectioner's there, Jon. What

is she like on second thoughts?"

With relief, and a high colour, Jon answered:

"Oh! awfully jolly, Mum."

Her arm pressed his.

Jon had never loved her so much as in that minute which seemed to

falsify Fleur's fears and to release his soul. He turned to look at

her, but something in her smiling face--something which only he perhaps

would have caught--stopped the words bubbling up in him. Could fear go

with a smile? If so, there was fear in her face. And out of Jon tumbled

quite other words, about farming, Holly, and the Downs. Talking fast,

he waited for her to come back to Fleur. But she did not. Nor did his

father mention her, though of course he, too, must know. What

deprivation, and killing of reality was in this silence about

Fleur--when he was so full of her, when his mother was so full of Jon,

and his father so full of his mother! And so the trio spent the evening

of that Saturday.

After dinner his mother played; she seemed to play all the things he

liked best, and he sat with one knee clasped, and his hair standing up

where his fingers had run through it. He gazed at his mother while she

played, but he saw Fleur--Fleur in the moonlit orchard, Fleur in the

sunlit gravel-pit, Fleur in that fancy dress, swaying, whispering,

stooping, kissing his forehead. Once, while he listened, he forgot

himself and glanced at his father in that other easy chair. What was

Dad looking like that for? The expression on his face was so sad and

puzzling. It filled him with a sort of remorse, so that he got up and

went and sat on the arm of his father's chair. From there he could not

see his face; and again he saw Fleur--in his mother's hands, slim and

white on the keys, in the profile of her face and her powdery hair; and

down the long room in the open window where the May night walked

outside.

When he went up to bed his mother came into his room. She stood at the

window, and said:

"Those cypresses your grandfather planted down there have done

wonderfully. I always think they look beautiful under a dropping moon.

I wish you had known your grandfather, Jon."

"Were you married to Father, when he was alive?" asked Jon suddenly.

"No, dear; he died in '92--very old--eighty-five, I think."

"Is Father like him?"

"A little, but more subtle, and not quite so solid."

"I know, from Grandfather's portrait; who painted that?"

"One of June's 'lame ducks.' But it's quite good."

Jon slipped his hand through his Mother's arm. "Tell me about the

family quarrel, Mum."

He felt her arm quivering. "No, dear; that's for your father some day,

if he thinks fit."

"Then it WAS serious," said Jon, with a catch in his breath.

"Yes." And there was a silence, during which neither knew whether the

arm or the hand within it were quivering most.

"Some people," said Irene softly, "think the moon on her back is evil;

to me she's always lovely. Look at those cypress shadows! Jon, Father

says we may go to Italy, you and I, for two months. Would you like?"

Jon took his hand from under her arm; his sensation was so sharp and so

confused. Italy with his Mother! A fortnight ago it would have been

perfection; now it filled him with dismay; he felt that the sudden

suggestion had to do with Fleur. He stammered out:

"Oh! yes; only--I don't know. Ought I--now I've just begun? I'd like to

think it over."

Her voice answered, cool and gentle:

"Yes, dear; think it over. But better now than when you've begun

farming seriously. Italy with you--! It would be nice!"

Jon put his arm round her waist, still slim and firm as a girl's.

"Do you think you ought to leave Father?" he said feebly, feeling very

mean.

"Father suggested it; he thinks you ought to see Italy at least before

you settle down to anything."

The sense of meanness died in Jon; he knew, yes--he knew--that his

father and his mother were not speaking frankly, no more than he

himself. They wanted to keep him from Fleur! His heart hardened. And,

as if she felt that process going on, his mother said:

"Good-night, darling. Have a good sleep and think it over. But it would

be lovely!"

She pressed him to her so quickly that he did not see her face. Jon

stood feeling exactly as he used to when he was a naughty little boy;

sore because he was not loving, and because he was justified in his own

eyes.

But Irene, after she had stood a moment in her own room, passed through

the dressing-room between it and her husband's.

"Well?"

"He will think it over, Jolyon."

Watching her lips that wore a little drawn smile, Jolyon said quietly:

"You had better let me tell him, and have done with it. After all, Jon

has the instincts of a gentleman. He has only to understand--"

"Only! He can't understand; that's impossible."

"I believe I could have at his age."

Irene caught his hand. "You were always more of a realist than Jon; and

never so innocent."

"That's true," said Jolyon. "It's queer, isn't it? You and I would tell

our stories to the world without a particle of shame; but our own boy

stumps us."

"We've never cared whether the world approves or not."

"Jon would not disapprove of US!"

"Oh! Jolyon, yes. He's in love, I feel he's in love. And he'd say: 'My

mother once married WITHOUT LOVE! How could she have!' It'll seem to

him a crime! And so it was!"

Jolyon took her hand, and said with a wry smile:

"Ah! why on earth are we born young? Now, if only we were born old and

grew younger year by year we should understand how things happen, and

drop all our cursed intolerance. But you know if the boy is really in

love, he won't forget, even if he goes to Italy. We're a tenacious

breed; and he'll know by instinct why he's being sent. Nothing will

really cure him but the shock of being told."

"Let me try, anyway."

Jolyon stood a moment without speaking. Between this devil and this

deep sea--the pain of a dreaded disclosure and the grief of losing his

wife for two months--he secretly hoped for the devil; yet if she wished

for the deep sea he must put up with it. After all, it would be

training for that departure from which there would be no return. And,

taking her in his arms, he kissed her eyes, and said:

"As you will, my love."

XI

DUET

That "small" emotion, love, grows amazingly when threatened with

extinction. Jon reached Paddington station half an hour before his time

and a full week after, as it seemed to him. He stood at the appointed

book-stall amid a crowd of Sunday travellers, in a Harris tweed suit

exhaling, as it were, the emotion of his thumping heart. He read the

names of the novels on the bookstall, and bought one at last, to avoid

being regarded with suspicion by the book-stall clerk. It was called

"The Heart of the Trail" which must mean something, though it did not

seem to. He also bought "The Lady's Mirror" and "The Landsman." Every

minute was an hour long, and full of horrid imaginings. After nineteen

had passed, he saw her with a bag and a porter wheeling her luggage.

She came swiftly; she came cool. She greeted him as if he were a

brother.

"First class," she said to the porter, "corner seats; opposite."

Jon admired her frightful self-possession.

"Can't we get a carriage to ourselves?" he whispered.

"No good; it's a stopping train. After Maidenhead perhaps. Look

natural, Jon."

Jon screwed his features into a scowl. They got in--with two other

beasts!--oh! heaven! He tipped the porter unnaturally, in his

confusion. The brute deserved nothing for putting them in there, and

looking as if he knew all about it into the bargain.

Fleur hid herself behind "The Lady's Mirror." Jon imitated her behind

"The Landsman." The train started. Fleur let "The Lady's Mirror" fall

and leaned forward. "Well?" she said.

"It's seemed about fifteen days."

She nodded, and Jon's face lighted up at once.

"Look natural," murmured Fleur, and went off into a bubble of laughter.

It hurt him. How could he look natural with Italy hanging over him? He

had meant to break it to her gently, but now he blurted it out.

"They want me to go to Italy with Mother for two months."

Fleur drooped her eyelids; turned a little pale, and bit her lips.

"Oh!" she said. It was all, but it was much.

That "Oh!" was like the quick drawback of the wrist in fencing ready

for riposte. It came.

"You must go!"

"Go?" said Jon in a strangled voice.

"Of course."

"But--two months--it's ghastly."

"No," said Fleur, "six weeks. You'll have forgotten me by then. We'll

meet in the National Gallery the day after you get back."

Jon laughed.

"But suppose you've forgotten ME," he muttered into the noise of the

train.

Fleur shook her head.

"Some other beast--" murmured Jon.

Her foot touched his.

"No other beast," she said, lifting the "Lady's Mirror."

The train stopped; two passengers got out, and one got in.

'I shall die,' thought Jon, 'if we're not alone at all.'

The train went on; and again Fleur leaned forward.

"I never let go," she said; "do you?"

Jon shook his head vehemently.

"Never!" he said. "Will you write to me?"

"No; but YOU can--to my club."

She had a Club; she was wonderful!

"Did you pump Holly?" he muttered.

"Yes, but got nothing. I didn't dare pump hard."

"What can it be?" cried Jon.

"I shall find out all right."

A long silence followed till Fleur said: "This is Maidenhead, stand by,

Jon!"

The train stopped. The remaining passenger got out. Fleur drew down her

blind.

"Quick!" she cried. "Hang out! Look as much of a beast as you can."

Jon blew his nose, and scowled; never in all his life had he scowled

like that! An old lady recoiled, a young one tried the handle. It

turned, but the lock would not open. The train moved, the young lady

darted to another carriage.

"What luck!" cried Jon. "It jammed."

"Yes," said Fleur; "I was holding it."

The train moved out, and Jon fell on his knees.

"Look out for the corridor," she whispered; "and--quick!"

Her lips met his. And though their kiss only lasted perhaps ten seconds

Jon's soul left his body and went so far beyond that, when he was again

sitting opposite that demure figure, he was pale as death. He heard her

sigh, and the sound seemed to him the most precious he had ever

heard--an exquisite declaration that he meant something to her.

"Six weeks isn't really long," she said; "and you can easily make it

six if you keep your head out there, and never seem to think of me."

Jon gasped.

"This is just what's really wanted, Jon, to convince them, don't you

see? If we're just as bad when you come back they'll stop being

ridiculous about it. Only, I'm sorry it's not Spain; there's a girl in

a Goya picture at Madrid who's like me, Father says. Only she

isn't--we've got a copy of her."

It was to Jon like a ray of sunshine piercing through a fog. "I'll make

it Spain," he said, "Mother won't mind; she's never been there. And my

father thinks a lot of Goya."

"Oh! yes, he's a painter--isn't he?"

"Only water-colour," said Jon, with honesty.

"When we come to Reading, Jon, get out first and go down to Caversham

lock and wait for me. I'll send the car home and we'll walk by the

towing-path."

Jon seized her hand in gratitude, and they sat silent, with the world

well lost, and one eye on the corridor. But the train seemed to run

twice as fast now, and its sound was almost lost in that of Jon's

sighing.

"We're getting near," said Fleur; "the towing-path's awfully exposed.

One more! Oh! Jon, don't forget me."

Jon answered with his kiss. And very soon, a flushed,

distracted-looking youth could have been seen--as they say--leaping

from the train and hurrying along the platform, searching his pockets

for his ticket.

When at last she rejoined him on the towing-path a little beyond

Caversham lock he had made an effort, and regained some measure of

equanimity. If they had to part, he would not make a scene! A breeze by

the bright river threw the white side of the willow leaves up into the

sunlight, and followed those two with its faint rustle.

"I told our chauffeur that I was train-giddy," said Fleur. "Did you

look pretty natural as you went out?" "I don't know. What is natural?"

"It's natural to you to look seriously happy. When I first saw you I

thought you weren't a bit like other people."

"Exactly what I thought when I saw you. I knew at once I should never

love anybody else."

Fleur laughed.

"We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date, Jon.

Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of all the fun you might have.

You haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And there's me. I

wonder!"

Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things just as

they were going to part?

"If you feel like that," he said, "I can't go. I shall tell Mother that

I ought to try and work. There's always the condition of the world!"

"The condition of the world!"

Jon thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

"But there is," he said; "think of the people starving!"

Fleur shook her head. "No, no, I never, never will make myself

miserable for nothing."

"Nothing! But there's an awful state of things, and of course one ought

to help."

"Oh! yes, I know all that. But you can't help people, Jon; they're

hopeless. When you pull them out of a hole they only get into another.

Look at them, still fighting and plotting and struggling, though

they're dying in heaps all the time. Idiots!"

"Aren't you sorry for them?"

"Oh! sorry--yes, but I'm not going to make myself unhappy about it;

that's no good."

And they were silent, disturbed by this first glimpse of each other's

natures.

"I think people are brutes and idiots," said Fleur stubbornly.

"I think they're poor wretches," said Jon. It was as if they had

quarrelled--and at this supreme and awful moment, with parting visible

out there in that last gap of the willows!

"Well, go and help your poor wretches, and don't think of me."

Jon stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his limbs

trembled. Fleur too had stopped, and was frowning at the river.

"I MUST believe in things," said Jon with a sort of agony; "we're all

meant to enjoy life."

Fleur laughed: "Yes; and that's what you won't do, if you don't take

care. But perhaps your idea of enjoyment is to make yourself wretched.

There are lots of people like that, of course."

She was pale, her eyes had darkened, her lips had thinned. Was it Fleur

thus staring at the water? Jon had an unreal feeling as if he were

passing through the scene in a book where the lover has to choose

between love and duty. But just then she looked round at him. Never was

anything so intoxicating as that vivacious look. It acted on him

exactly as the tug of a chain acts on a dog--brought him up to her with

his tail wagging and his tongue out.

"Don't let's be silly," she said, "time's too short. Look, Jon, you can

just see where I've got to cross the river. There, round the bend,

where the woods begin."

Jon saw a gable, a chimney or two, a patch of wall through the

trees--and felt his heart sink.

"I mustn't dawdle any more. It's no good going beyond the next hedge,

it gets all open. Let's get on to it and say good-bye."

They went side by side, hand in hand, silently towards the hedge, where

the mayflower, both pink and white, was in full bloom.

"My Club's the 'Talisman,' Stratton Street, Piccadilly. Letters there

will be quite safe, and I'm almost always up once a week."

Jon nodded. His face had become extremely set, his eyes stared straight

before him.

"To-day's the twenty-third of May," said Fleur; "on the ninth of July I

shall be in front of the 'Bacchus and Ariadne' at three o'clock; will

you?"

"I will."

"If you feel as bad as I it's all right. Let those people pass!"

A man and woman airing their children went by strung out in Sunday

fashion.

The last of them passed the wicket gate.

"Domesticity!" said Fleur, and blotted herself against the hawthorn

hedge. The blossom sprayed out above her head, and one pink cluster

brushed her cheek. Jon put up his hand jealously to keep it off.

"Good-bye, Jon!" For a second they stood with hands hard clasped. Then

their lips met for the third time, and when they parted Fleur broke

away and fled through the wicket gate. Jon stood where she had left

him, with his forehead against that pink cluster. Gone! For an

eternity--for seven weeks all but two days! And here he was, wasting

the last sight of her! He rushed to the gate. She was walking swiftly

on the heels of the straggling children. She turned her head, he saw

her hand make a little flitting gesture; then she sped on, and the

trailing family blotted her out from his view.

The words of a comic song--

"Paddington groan--worst ever known--

He gave a sepulchral Paddington groan--"

came into his head, and he sped incontinently back to Reading station.

All the way up to London and down to Wansdon he sat with "The Heart of

the Trail" open on his knee, knitting in his head a poem so full of

feeling that it would not rhyme.

XII

CAPRICE

Fleur sped on. She had need of rapid motion; she was late, and wanted

all her wits about her when she got in. She passed the islands, the

station, and hotel, and was about to take the ferry, when she saw a

skiff with a young man standing up in it, and holding to the bushes.

"Miss Forsyte," he said; "let me put you across. I've come on purpose."

She looked at him in blank amazement.

"It's all right, I've been having tea with your people. I thought I'd

save you the last bit. It's on my way, I'm just off back to Pangbourne.

My name's Mont. I saw you at the picture-gallery--you remember--when

your father invited me to see his pictures."

"Oh!" said Fleur; "yes--the handkerchief."

To this young man she owed Jon; and, taking his hand, she stepped down

into the skiff. Still emotional, and a little out of breath, she sat

silent; not so the young man. She had never heard any one say so much

in so short a time. He told her his age, twenty-four, his weight, ten

stone eleven; his place of residence, not far away; described his

sensations under fire, and what it felt like to be gassed; criticised

the Juno, mentioned his own conception of that goddess; commented on

the Goya copy, said Fleur was not too awfully like it; sketched in

rapidly the condition of England; spoke of Monsieur Profond--or

whatever his name was--as "an awful sport"; thought her father had some

ripping pictures and some rather "dug-up"; hoped he might row down

again and take her on the river because he was quite trustworthy;

inquired her opinion of Tchekov, gave her his own; wished they could go

to the Russian ballet together some time--considered the name Fleur

Forsyte simply topping; cursed his people for giving him the name of

Michael on the top of Mont; outlined his father, and said that if she

wanted a good book she should read "Job"; his father was rather like

Job while Job still had land.

"But Job didn't have land," Fleur murmured; "he only had flocks and

herds and moved on."

"Ah!" answered Michael Mont, "I wish my gov'nor would move on. Not that

I want his land. Land's an awful bore in these days, don't you think?"

"We never have it in my family," said Fleur. "We have everything else.

I believe one of my great-uncles once had a sentimental farm in Dorset,

because we came from there originally, but it cost him more than it

made him happy."

"Did he sell it?"

"No; he kept it."

"Why?"

"Because nobody would buy it."

"Good for the old boy!"

"No, it wasn't good for him. Father says it soured him. His name was

Swithin."

"What a corking name!"

"Do you know," said Fleur, "that we're getting farther off, not nearer?

This river flows."

"Splendid!" cried Mont, dipping his sculls vaguely; "it's good to meet

a girl who's got wit."

"But better to meet a young man who's got it in the plural."

Young Mont raised a hand to tear his hair.

"Look out!" cried Fleur. "Your scull!"

"All right! It's thick enough to bear a scratch."

"Do you mind sculling?" said Fleur severely, "I want to get in."

"Ah! but when you get in, you see, I shan't see you any more to-day.

Fini, as the French girl said when she jumped on her bed after saying

her prayers. Don't you bless the day that gave you a French mother, and

a name like yours?"

"I like my name, but Father gave it me. Mother wanted me called

Marguerite."

"Which is absurd. Do you mind calling me M. M. and letting me call you

F. F.? It's in the spirit of the age."

"I don't mind anything, so long as I get in." Mont caught a little

crab, and answered: "That was a nasty one!"

"Please row."

"I am." And he did for several strokes, looking at her with rueful

eagerness. "Of course, you know," he ejaculated, pausing, "that I came

to see you, not your father's pictures."

Fleur rose.

"If you don't row, I shall get out and swim."

"Really and truly? Then I could come in after you."

"Mr. Mont, I'm late and tired; please put me on shore at once."

When she stepped out on to the garden landing-stage he rose, and

grasping his hair with both hands, looked at her.

Fleur smiled.

"Don't!" cried the irrepressible Mont. "I know you're going to say:

'Out, damned hair!'"

Fleur whisked round, threw him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. M.

M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked at her

wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously

uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and

sunlight slanted on the dove-cot, on their snowy feathers, and beyond

in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiard-balls

came from the ingle-nook--Jack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling,

too, from an eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English

garden. She reached the verandah, and was passing in, but stopped at

the sound of voices from the drawing-room to her left. Mother! Profond!

From behind the verandah screen which fenced the ingle-nook she heard

these words!

"I don't, Annette."

Did Father know that he called her mother "Annette"? Always on the side

of her father--as children are ever on one side or the other in houses

where relations are a little strained--she stood, uncertain. Her mother

was speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly metallic voice--one word

she caught: "Demain." And Profond's answer: "All right." Fleur frowned.

A little sound came out into the stillness. Then Profond's voice: "I'm

takin' a small stroll."

Fleur darted through the window into the morning room. There he

came--from the drawing-room, crossing the verandah, down the lawn; and

the click of billiard-balls which, in listening for other sounds, she

had ceased to hear, began again. She shook herself, passed into the

hall, and opened the drawing-room door. Her mother was sitting on the

sofa between the windows, her knees crossed, her head resting on a

cushion, her lips half parted, her eyes half closed. She looked

extraordinarily handsome.

"Ah! Here you are, Fleur! Your father is beginning to fuss."

"Where is he?"

"In the picture-gallery. Go up!"

"What are you going to do to-morrow, Mother?"

"To-morrow? I go up to London with your aunt. Why?"

"I thought you might be. Will you get me a quite plain parasol?"

"What color?"

"Green. They're all going back, I suppose."

"Yes, all; you will console your father. Kiss me, then."

Fleur crossed the room, stooped, received a kiss on her forehead, and

went out past the impress of a form on the sofa-cushions in the other

corner. She ran up-stairs.

Fleur was by no means the old-fashioned daughter who demands the

regulation of her parents' lives in accordance with the standard

imposed on herself. She claimed to regulate her own life, not those of

others; besides, an unerring instinct for what was likely to advantage

her own case was already at work. In a disturbed domestic atmosphere

the heart she had set on Jon would have a better chance. None the less

was she offended, as a flower by a crisping wind. If that man had

really been kissing her mother it was--serious, and her father ought to

know.

"Demain!" "All right!" And her mother going up to Town! She turned in

to her bedroom and hung out of the window to cool her face, which had

suddenly grown very hot. Jon must be at the station by now! What did

her father know about Jon! Probably everything--pretty nearly!

She changed her dress, so as to look as if she had been in some time,

and ran up to the gallery.

Soames was standing stubbornly still before his Alfred Stevens--the

picture he loved best. He did not turn at the sound of the door, but

she knew he had heard, and she knew he was hurt. She came up softly

behind him, put her arms round his neck, and poked her face over his

shoulder, till her cheek lay against his. It was an advance which had

never yet failed, but it failed her now, and she augured the worst.

"Well," he said stonily, "so you've come!"

"Is that all," murmured Fleur, "from a bad parent?" and rubbed her

cheek against his.

Soames shook his head so far as that was possible.

"Why do you keep me on tenterhooks like this, putting me off and off?"

"Darling, it was very harmless."

"Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't."

Fleur dropped her arms.

"Well, then, dear, suppose you tell me; and be quite frank about it."

And she went over to the window-seat.

Her father had turned from his picture, and was staring at his feet. He

looked very grey. 'He has nice small feet,' she thought, catching his

eye, at once averted from her.

"You're my only comfort," said Soames suddenly, "and you go on like

this."

Fleur's heart began to beat.

"Like what, dear?"

Again Soames gave her a look which, but for the affection in it, might

have been called furtive.

"You know what I told you," he said. "I don't choose to have anything

to do with that branch of our family."

"Yes, ducky, but I don't know why _I_ shouldn't."

Soames turned on his heel.

"I'm not going into the reasons," he said; "you ought to trust me,

Fleur!"

The way he spoke those words affected Fleur, but she thought of Jon,

and was silent, tapping her foot against the wainscot. Unconsciously

she had assumed a modern attitude, with one leg twisted in and out of

the other, with her chin on one bent wrist, her other arm across her

chest, and its hand hugging her elbow; there was not a line of her that

was not involuted, and yet--in spite of all--she retained a certain

grace.

"You knew my wishes," Soames went on, "and yet you stayed on there four

days. And I suppose that boy came with you to-day."

Fleur kept her eyes on him.

"I don't ask you anything," said Soames; "I make no inquisition where

you're concerned."

Fleur suddenly stood up, leaning out at the window with her chin on her

hands. The sun had sunk behind trees, the pigeons were perched, quite

still, on the edge of the dove-cot; the click of the billiard-balls

mounted, and a faint radiance shone out below where Jack Cardigan had

turned the light up.

"Will it make you any happier," she said suddenly, "if I promise you

not to see him for say--the next six weeks?" She was not prepared for a

sort of tremble in the blankness of his voice.

"Six weeks? Six years--sixty years more like. Don't delude yourself,

Fleur; don't delude yourself!"

Fleur turned in alarm.

"Father, what is it?"

Soames came close enough to see her face.

"Don't tell me," he said, "that you're foolish enough to have any

feeling beyond caprice. That would be too much!" And he laughed.

Fleur, who had never heard him laugh like that, thought: 'Then it IS

deep! Oh! what is it?' And putting her hand through his arm she said

lightly:

"No, of course; caprice. Only, I like my caprices and I don't like

yours, dear."

"Mine!" said Soames bitterly, and turned away.

The light outside had chilled, and threw a chalky whiteness on the

river. The trees had lost all gaiety of colour. She felt a sudden

hunger for Jon's face, for his hands, and the feel of his lips again on

hers. And pressing her arms tight across her breast she forced out a

little light laugh.

"O la! la! What a small fuss! as Profond would say. Father, I don't

like that man."

She saw him stop, and take something out of his breast pocket.

"You don't?" he said. "Why?"

"Nothing," murmured Fleur; "just caprice!"

"No," said Soames; "not caprice!" And he tore what was in his hands

across. "You're right. _I_ don't like him either!"

"Look!" said Fleur softly. "There he goes! I hate his shoes; they don't

make any noise."

Down in the failing light Prosper Profond moved, his hands in his side

pockets, whistling softly in his beard; he stopped, and glanced up at

the sky, as if saying: "I don't think much of that small moon."

Fleur drew back. "Isn't he a great cat?" she whispered; and the sharp

click of the billiard-balls rose, as if Jack Cardigan had capped the

cat, the moon, caprice, and tragedy with: "In off the red!"

Monsieur Profond had resumed his strolling, to a teasing little tune in

his beard. What was it? Oh! yes, from "Rigoletto": "Donna e mobile."

Just what he would think! She squeezed her father's arm.

"Prowling!" she muttered, as he turned the corner of the house. It was

past that disillusioned moment which divides the day and night--still

and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac scent clinging on

the riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst out. Jon would be in

London by now; in the Park perhaps, crossing the Serpentine, thinking

of her! A little sound beside her made her turn her eyes; her father

was again tearing the paper in his hands. Fleur saw it was a cheque.

"I shan't sell him my Gauguin," he said. "I don't know what your aunt

and Imogen see in him."

"Or Mother."

"Your mother!" said Soames.

'Poor Father!' she thought. 'He never looks happy--not really happy. I

don't want to make him worse, but of course I shall have to, when Jon

comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!'

"I'm going to dress," she said.

In her room she had a fancy to put on her "freak" dress. It was of gold

tissue with little trousers of the same, tightly drawn in at the

ankles, a page's cape slung from the shoulders, little gold shoes, and

a gold-winged Mercury helmet; and all over her were tiny gold bells,

especially on the helmet; so that if she shook her head she pealed.

When she was dressed she felt quite sick because Jon could not see her;

it even seemed a pity that the sprightly young man Michael Mont would

not have a view. But the gong had sounded, and she went down.

She made a sensation in the drawing-room. Winifred thought it "Most

amusing." Imogen was enraptured. Jack Cardigan called it "stunning,"

"ripping," "topping," and "corking." Monsieur Profond, smiling with his

eyes, said: "That's a nice small dress!" Her mother, very handsome in

black, sat looking at her, and said nothing. It remained for her father

to apply the test of common sense. "What did you put on that thing for?

You're not going to dance."

Fleur spun round, and the bells pealed.

"Caprice!"

Soames stared at her, and, turning away, gave his arm to Winifred. Jack

Cardigan took her mother. Prosper Profond took Imogen. Fleur went in by

herself, with her bells jingling....

The "small" moon had soon dropped down, and May night had fallen soft

and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its scents the

billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and regrets of men and

women. Happy was Jack Cardigan who snored into Imogen's white shoulder,

fit as a flea; or Timothy in his "mausoleum," too old for anything but

baby's slumber. For so many lay awake, or dreamed, teased by the

crisscross of the world.

The dew fell and the flowers closed; cattle grazed on in the river

meadows, feeling with their tongues for the grass they could not see;

and the sheep on the Downs lay quiet as stones. Pheasants in the tall

trees of the Pangbourne woods, larks on their grassy nests above the

gravel-pit at Wansdon, swallows in the eaves at Robin Hill, and the

sparrows of Mayfair, all made a dreamless night of it, soothed by the

lack of wind. The Mayfly filly, hardly accustomed to her new quarters,

scraped at her straw a little; and the few night-flitting things--bats,

moths, owls--were vigorous in the warm darkness; but the peace of night

lay in the brain of all day-time Nature, colourless and still. Men and

women, alone, riding the hobbyhorses of anxiety or love, burned their

wavering tapers of dream and thought into the lonely hours.

Fleur, leaning out of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled chime

of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the sudden shaking of an aspen's

leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the river, the distant

rumble of a night train, and time and again the sounds which none can

put a name to in the darkness, soft obscure expressions of uncatalogued

emotions from man and beast, bird and machine, or, maybe, from departed

Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, taking night strolls back into a world

which had once suited their embodied spirits. But Fleur heeded not

these sounds, her spirit, far from disembodied, fled with swift wing

from railway-carriage to flowery hedge, straining after Jon, tenacious

of his forbidden image, and the sound of his voice which was taboo. And

she crinkled her nose, retrieving from the perfume of the riverside

night that moment when his hand slipped between the mayflowers and her

cheek. Long she leaned out in her freak dress, keen to burn her wings

at life's candle; while the moths brushed her cheeks on their

pilgrimage to the lamp on her dressing-table, ignorant that in a

Forsyte's house there is no open flame. But at last even she felt

sleepy, and, forgetting her bells, drew quickly in.

Through the open window of his room, alongside Annette's, Soames,

wakeful too, heard their thin faint tinkle, as it might be shaken from

stars, or the dewdrops falling from a flower, if one could hear such

sounds.

'Caprice!' he thought. 'I can't tell. She's wilful. What shall I do?

Fleur!'

And long into the "small" night he brooded.