onately humane and tolerant, yet subject to
instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable. And
during all this companionable month he never quite lost that feeling with
which he had set out on the first day as if to visit an adored work of
art, a well-nigh impersonal desire. The future--inexorable pendant to
the present he took care not to face, for fear of breaking up his
untroubled manner; but he made plans to renew this time in places still
more delightful, where the sun was hot and there were strange things to
see and paint. The end came swiftly on the 20th of January with a
telegram:

"Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry. JOLLY."

Jolyon received it just as he was setting out to meet her at the Louvre.
It brought him up with a round turn. While he was lotus-eating here, his
boy, whose philosopher and guide he ought to be, had taken this great
step towards danger, hardship, perhaps even death. He felt disturbed to
the soul, realising suddenly how Irene had twined herself round the roots
of his being. Thus threatened with severance, the tie between them--for
it had become a kind of tie--no longer had impersonal quality. The
tranquil enjoyment of things in common, Jolyon perceived, was gone for
ever. He saw his feeling as it was, in the nature of an infatuation.
Ridiculous, perhaps, but so real that sooner or later it must disclose
itself. And now, as it seemed to him, he could not, must not, make any
such disclosure. The news of Jolly stood inexorably in the way. He was
proud of this enlistment; proud of his boy for going off to fight for the
country; for on Jolyon's pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had left its mark.
And so the end was reached before the beginning! Well, luckily he had
never made a sign!

When he came into the Gallery she was standing before the 'Virgin of the
Rocks,' graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious. 'Have I to give up
seeing that?' he thought. 'It's unnatural, so long as she's willing that
I should see her.' He stood, unnoticed, watching her, storing up the
image of her figure, envying the picture on which she was bending that
long scrutiny. Twice she turned her head towards the entrance, and he
thought: 'That's for me!' At last he went forward.

"Look!" he said.

She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.

That sigh, too, was for him! His position was really cruel! To be loyal
to his son he must just shake her hand and go. To be loyal to the
f