But you know there's a feud between our families?"

Jon stammered: "Feud? Why?"

"It's ever so romantic and silly. That's why I pretended we hadn't
met. Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a walk before
breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about things, don't you?"

Jon murmured a rapturous assent.

"Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful"

Jon said fervently: "Yes, she is."

"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. I
don't like Greek things a bit."

"What! Not Euripides?"

"Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I think
beauty's always swift. I like to look at one picture, for instance, and
then run off. I can't bear a lot of things together. Look!" She held
up her blossom in the moonlight. "That's better than all the orchard, I
think."

And, suddenly, with her other hand she caught Jon's.

"Of all things in the world, don't you think caution's the most awful?
Smell the moonlight!"

She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that of all
things in the world caution was the worst, and bending over, kissed the
hand which held his.

"That's nice and old-fashioned," said Fleur calmly. "You're frightfully
silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift." She let go his hand.
"Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on purpose?"

"No!" cried Jon, intensely shocked.

"Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're doing
this on purpose too." And again she ran like a ghost among the trees.
Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his heart, and over all
the moonlit white unearthly blossom. They came out where they had gone
in, Fleur walking demurely.

"It's quite wonderful in there," she said dreamily to Holly.

Jon preserved silence, hoping against hope that she might be thinking it
swift.

She bade him a casual and demure good-night, which made him think he had
been dreaming....

In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a shapeless
garment, with the white flower still in her hair, she looked like a
mousme, sitting cross-legged on her bed, writing by candlelight.

"DEAREST CHERRY,

"I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, only the feeling is
really lower down. He's a second cousin-such a child, about six months
older and ten years younger than I am. Boys always fall in love with
their seniors, and girls with their juniors or with old men of forty.