er manner that she had lighted on his secret, she
refused to think further, and, shaking out the silk handkerchief, entered
the dining-room.

"I chose the softest, Father."

"H'm!" said Soames; "I only use those after a cold. Never mind!"

That evening passed for Fleur in putting two and two together; recalling
the look on her father's face in the confectioner's shop--a look strange
and coldly intimate, a queer look. He must have loved that woman very
much to have kept her photograph all this time, in spite of having lost
her. Unsparing and matter-of-fact, her mind darted to his relations with
her own mother. Had he ever really loved her? She thought not. Jon was
the son of the woman he had really loved. Surely, then, he ought not to
mind his daughter loving him; it only wanted getting used to. And a sigh
of sheer relief was caught in the folds of her nightgown slipping over
her head.

III

MEETINGS

Youth only recognises Age by fits and starts. Jon, for one, had never
really seen his father's age till he came back from Spain. The face of
the fourth Jolyon, worn by waiting, gave him quite a shock--it looked so
wan and old. His father's mask had been forced awry by the emotion of
the meeting, so that the boy suddenly realised how much he must have felt
their absence. He summoned to his aid the thought: 'Well, I didn't want
to go!' It was out of date for Youth to defer to Age. But Jon was by no
means typically modern. His father had always been "so jolly" to him,
and to feel that one meant to begin again at once the conduct which his
father had suffered six weeks' loneliness to cure was not agreeable.

At the question, "Well, old man, how did the great Goya strike you?" his
conscience pricked him badly. The great Goya only existed because he had
created a face which resembled Fleur's.

On the night of their return, he went to bed full of compunction; but
awoke full of anticipation. It was only the fifth of July, and no
meeting was fixed with Fleur until the ninth. He was to have three days
at home before going back to farm. Somehow he must contrive to see her!

In the lives of men an inexorable rhythm, caused by the need for
trousers, not even the fondest parents can deny. On the second day,
therefore, Jon went to Town, and having satisfied his conscience by
ordering what was indispensable in Conduit Street, turned his face toward
Piccadilly. Stratton Street, where her Club was, adjoin