t a bit like other people."

"Exactly what I thought when I saw you. I knew at once I should never
love anybody else."

Fleur laughed.

"We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date, Jon.
Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of all the fun you might have. You
haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And there's me. I wonder!"

Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things just as
they were going to part?

"If you feel like that," he said, "I can't go. I shall tell Mother that
I ought to try and work. There's always the condition of the world!"

"The condition of the world!"

Jon thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

"But there is," he said; "think of the people starving!"

Fleur shook her head. "No, no, I never, never will make myself miserable
for nothing."

"Nothing! But there's an awful state of things, and of course one ought
to help."

"Oh! yes, I know all that. But you can't help people, Jon; they're
hopeless. When you pull them out they only get into another hole. Look
at them, still fighting and plotting and struggling, though they're
dying in heaps all the time. Idiots!"

"Aren't you sorry for them?"

"Oh! sorry--yes, but I'm not going to make myself unhappy about it;
that's no good."

And they were silent, disturbed by this first glimpse of each other's
natures.

"I think people are brutes and idiots," said Fleur stubbornly.

"I think they're poor wretches," said Jon. It was as if they had
quarrelled--and at this supreme and awful moment, with parting visible
out there in that last gap of the willows!

"Well, go and help your poor wretches, and don't think of me."

Jon stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his limbs
trembled. Fleur too had stopped, and was frowning at the river.

"I must believe in things," said Jon with a sort of agony; "we're all
meant to enjoy life."

Fleur laughed. "Yes; and that's what you won't do, if you don't take
care. But perhaps your idea of enjoyment is to make yourself wretched.
There are lots of people like that, of course."

She was pale, her eyes had darkened, her lips had thinned. Was it Fleur
thus staring at the water? Jon had an unreal feeling as if he were
passing through the scene in a book where the lover has to choose
between love and duty. But just then she looked round at him. Never was
anything so intoxicating as that vivacious look. It acted on him exactly
as the tug of a chain acts on a dog