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 pa.s.s!"

A man and woman airing their children went by strung out in Sunday fashion.

The last of them pa.s.sed the wicket gate.

"Domesticity!" said Fleur, and blotted herself against the hawthorn hedge. The blossom sprayed out above her head, and one pink cl.u.s.ter 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 cl.u.s.ter. 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 pa.s.sed 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 ga.s.sed; criticised the Juno, mentioned his own conception of that G.o.ddess; 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 n.o.body 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."