“Yes,” and Soames took out his cheque-book. “May I have a taxi called? If you hang the still-lifes a little closer together, this won’t be missed.”

With that doubtful phrase in their ears, they exchanged goods, and Soames, with the Morland, returned to Green Street in a cab. He wondered a little on the way whether or not the Marquess had ‘done’ him, by talking about a transaction between gentlemen. Agreeable old chap in his way, but quick as a bird, looking through his thumb and finger like that!…

And now, in his daughter’s ‘parlour’ he said: “What’s this about Michael electrifying slum kitchens?”

Fleur smiled, and Soames did not approve of its irony.

“Michael’s over head and ears.”

“In debt?”

“Oh, no! Committed himself to a slum scheme, just as he did to Foggartism. I hardly see him.”

Soames made a sound within himself. Young Jon Forsyte lurked now behind all his thoughts of her. Did she really resent Michael’s absorption in public life, or was it pretence—an excuse for having a private life of her own?

“The slums want attending to, no doubt,” he said. “He must have something to do.”

Fleur shrugged.

“Michael’s too good to live.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Soames; “but he’s—er—rather trustful.”

“That’s not your failing, is it, Dad? You don’t trust ME a bit.”

“Not trust you!” floundered Soames. “Why not?”

“Exactly!”

Soames sought refuge in the Fragonard. Sharp! She had seen into him!

“I suppose June wants me to buy a picture,” he said.

“She wants you to have me painted.”

“Does she? What’s the name of her lame duck?”

“Blade, I think.”

“Never heard of him!”

“Well, I expect you will.”

“Yes,” muttered Soames; “she’s like a limpet. It’s in the blood.”

“The Forsyte blood? You and I, then, too, dear.”

Soames turned from the Fragonard and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Yes; you and I, too.”

“Isn’t that nice?” said Fleur.

In doubting Fleur’s show of resentment at Michael’s new “stunt,” Soames was near the mark. She did not resent it at all. It kept his attention off herself, it kept him from taking up birth control, for which she felt the country was not yet quite prepared, and it had a popular appeal denied to Foggartism. The slums were under one’s nose, and what was under the nose could be brought to the attention even of party politics. Being a town proposition, slums would concern six-sevenths of the vote. Foggartism, based on the country life necessary to national stamina and the growth of food within and overseas, concerned the whole population, but only appealed to one-seventh of the vote. And Fleur, nothing if not a realist, had long grasped the fact that the main business of politicians was to be, and to remain, elected. The vote was a magnet of the first order, and unconsciously swayed every political judgment and aspiration; or, if not, it ought to, for was it not the touchstone of democracy? In the committee, too, which Michael was forming, she saw, incidentally, the best social step within her reach.

“If they want a meeting-place,” she had said, “why not here?”

“Splendid!” answered Michael. “Handy for the House and clubs. Thank you, old thing!”

Fleur had added honestly:

“Oh, I shall be quite glad. As soon as I take Kit to the sea, you can start. Norah Curfew’s letting me her cottage at Loring for three weeks.” She did not add: “And it’s only five miles from Wansdon.”

On the Friday, after lunch, she telephoned to June:

“I’m going to the sea on Monday—I COULD come this afternoon, but I think you said Jon was coming. Is he? Because if so—”

“He’s coming at 4.30, but he’s got to catch a train back at six-twenty.”

“His wife, too?”

“No. He’s just coming to see Harold’s work.”

“Oh!—well—I think I’d better come on Sunday, then.”

“Yes, Sunday will be all right; then Harold will see you. He never goes out on Sunday. He hates the look of it so.”

Putting down the receiver, Fleur took up the time-table. Yes, there was the train! What a coincidence if she happened to take it to make a preliminary inspection of Norah Curfew’s cottage! Not even June, surely, would mention their talk on the ‘phone.

At lunch she did not tell Michael she was going—he might want to come, too, or at least to see her off. She knew he would be at ‘the House’ in the afternoon, she would just leave a note to say that she had gone to make sure the cottage would be in order for Monday. And after lunch she bent over and kissed him between the eyes, without any sense of betrayal. A sight of Jon was due to her after these dreary weeks! Any sight of Jon was always due to her who had been defrauded of him. And, as the afternoon drew on, and she put her night things into her dressing-case, a red spot became fixed in each cheek, and she wandered swiftly, her hands restive, her spirit homeless. Having had tea, and left the note giving her address—an hotel at Nettlefold—she went early to Victoria Station. There, having tipped the guard to secure emptiness, she left her bag in a corner seat and took up her stand by the book-stall, where Jon must pass with his ticket. And, while she stood there, examining the fiction of the day, all her faculties were busy with reality. Among the shows and shadows of existence, an hour and a half of real life lay before her. Who could blame her for filching it back from a filching Providence? And if anybody could, she didn’t care! The hands of the station clock moved on, and Fleur gazed at this novel after that, all of them full of young women in awkward situations, and vaguely wondered whether they were more awkward than her own. Three minutes to the time! Wasn’t he coming after all? Had that wretched June kept him for the night? At last in despair she caught up a tome called “Violin Obbligato,” which at least would be modern, and paid for it. And then, as she was receiving her change, she saw him hastening. Turning, she passed through the wicket, walking quickly, knowing that he was walking more quickly. She let him see her first.

“Fleur!”

“Jon! Where are you going?”

“To Wansdon.”

“Oh! And I’m going to Nettlefold, to see a cottage at Loring for my baby. Here’s my bag, in here—quick! We’re off!”

The door was banged to, and she held out both her hands.

“Isn’t this queer, and jolly?”

Jon held the hands, and dropped them rather suddenly.

“I’ve just been to see June. She’s just the same—bless her!”

“Yes, she came round to me the other day; wants me to be painted by her present pet.”

“You might do worse. I said he should paint Anne.”

“Really? Is he good enough for HER?”

And she was sorry; she hadn’t meant to begin like that! Still—must begin somehow—must employ lips which might otherwise go lighting on his eyes, his hair, HIS lips! And she rushed into words: Kit’s measles, Michael’s committee, “Violin Obbligato,” and the Proustian School; Val’s horses, Jon’s poetry, the smell of England—so important to a poet—anything, everything, in a sort of madcap medley.

“You see, Jon, I must talk; I’ve been in prison for a month.” And all the time she felt that she was wasting minutes that might have been spent with lips silent and heart against his, if the heart, as they said, really extended to the centre of the body. And all the time, too, the proboscis of her spirit was scenting, searching for the honey and the saffron of his spirit. Was there any for her, or was it all kept for that wretched American girl he had left behind him, and to whom—alas!—he was returning? But Jon gave her no sign. Unlike the old impulsive Jon, he had learned secrecy. By a whim of memory, whose ways are so inscrutable, she remembered being taken, as a very little girl, to Timothy’s on the Bayswater Road to her great-aunt Hester—an old still figure in black Victorian lace and jet, and a Victorian chair, with a stilly languid voice, saying to her father: “Oh, yes, my dear; your Uncle Jolyon, before he married, was very much in love with our great friend Alice Read; but she was consumptive, you know, and of course he felt he couldn’t marry her—it wouldn’t have been prudent, he felt, because of children. And then she died, and he married Edith Moor.” Funny how that had stuck in her ten-year-old mind! And she stared at Jon. Old Jolyon—as they called him in the family—had been his grandfather. She had seen his photograph in Holly’s album—a domed head, a white moustache, eyes deep-set under the brows, like Jon’s. “It wouldn’t have been prudent!” How Victorian! Was Jon, too, Victorian? She felt as if she would never know what Jon was. And she became suddenly cautious. A single step too far, or too soon, and he might be gone from her again for good! He was not—no, he was not modern! For all she knew, there might be something absolute, not relative, in his “make-up,” and to Fleur the absolute was strange, almost terrifying. But she had not spent six years in social servitude without learning to adjust herself swiftly to the playing of a new part. She spoke in a calmer tone, almost a drawl; her eyes became cool and quizzical. What did Jon think about the education of boys—before he knew where he was, of course, he would be having one himself? It hurt her to say that, and, while saying it, she searched his face; but it told her nothing.