rror," said Fleur, when they had gone half a
mile. "I'm hungry."

Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their tongues
were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes and previous
existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely
height. There remained but one thing solid in Jon's past--his mother;
but one thing solid in Fleur's--her father; and of these figures, as
though seen in the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.

The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of
far sea came into view, a sparrow-hawk hovered in the sun's eye so that
the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red. Jon had a
passion for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch them;
keen-sighted, and with a memory for what interested him, on birds he was
almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were none--its
great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early
hour; they came out willingly again into the sun on the far side. It was
Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people treated them. It
was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to flog people who did
that. Jon was astonished to find her so humanitarian. She knew a dog,
it seemed, which some farmer near her home kept chained up at the end of
his chicken run, in all weathers, till it had almost lost its voice from
barking!

"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing didn't
bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I do think men
are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's nearly bitten
me both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but it always runs
back home at last, and they chain it up again. If I had my way, I'd
chain that man up." Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him
on his forehead with the word 'Brute'; that would teach him!"

Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy.

"It's their sense of property," he said, "which makes people chain
things. The last generation thought of nothing but property; and that's
why there was the War."

"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and mine
quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got it--at least, I
suppose your people have."

"Oh! yes, luckily; I don't suppose I shall be any good at making money."

"If you were, I don't believe I should like you."

Jon slipped his hand tremulously u