ur times. Next
day he wrote it out and enclosed it in one of those letters to Fleur
which he always finished before he went down, so as to have his mind free
and companionable.

About noon that same day, on the tiled terrace of their hotel, he felt a
sudden dull pain in the back of his head, a queer sensation in the eyes,
and sickness. The sun had touched him too affectionately. The next three
days were passed in semi-darkness, and a dulled, aching indifference to
all except the feel of ice on his forehead and his mother's smile. She
never moved from his room, never relaxed her noiseless vigilance, which
seemed to Jon angelic. But there were moments when he was extremely
sorry for himself, and wished terribly that Fleur could see him. Several
times he took a poignant imaginary leave of her and of the earth, tears
oozing out of his eyes. He even prepared the message he would send to
her by his mother--who would regret to her dying day that she had ever
sought to separate them--his poor mother! He was not slow, however, in
perceiving that he had now his excuse for going home.

Toward half-past six each evening came a "gasgacha" of bells--a cascade
of tumbling chimes, mounting from the city below and falling back chime
on chime. After listening to them on the fourth day he said suddenly:

"I'd like to be back in England, Mum, the sun's too hot."

"Very well, darling. As soon as you're fit to travel" And at once he
felt better, and--meaner.

They had been out five weeks when they turned toward home. Jon's head
was restored to its pristine clarity, but he was confined to a hat lined
by his mother with many layers of orange and green silk and he still
walked from choice in the shade. As the long struggle of discretion
between them drew to its close, he wondered more and more whether she
could see his eagerness to get back to that which she had brought him
away from. Condemned by Spanish Providence to spend a day in Madrid
between their trains, it was but natural to go again to the Prado. Jon
was elaborately casual this time before his Goya girl. Now that he was
going back to her, he could afford a lesser scrutiny. It was his mother
who lingered before the picture, saying:

"The face and the figure of the girl are exquisite."

Jon heard her uneasily. Did she understand? But he felt once more that
he was no match for her in self-control and subtlety. She could, in some
supersensitive way, of which he h