g his own physical sensations. He had
been wrong to let the boy get away with that letter; he ought to have
kept him under his eye from the start! Greatly troubled, he got up to
retrace his steps. At the farm-buildings he called again, and looked
into the dark cow-house. There in the cool, and the scent of vanilla
and ammonia, away from flies, the three Alderneys were chewing the
quiet cud; just milked, waiting for evening, to be turned out again
into the lower field. One turned a lazy head, a lustrous eye; Jolyon
could see the slobber on its grey lower lip. He saw everything with
passionate clearness, in the agitation of his nerves--all that in his
time he had adored and tried to paint--wonder of light and shade and
colour. No wonder the legend put Christ into a manger--what more
devotional than the eyes and moon-white horns of a chewing cow in the
warm dusk! He called again. No answer! And he hurried away out of the
coppice, past the pond, up the hill. Oddly ironical--now he came to
think of it--if Jon had taken the gruel of his discovery down in the
coppice where his mother and Bosinney in those old days had made the
plunge of acknowledging their love. Where he himself, on the log seat
the Sunday morning he came back from Paris, had realised to the full
that Irene had become the world to him. That would have been the place
for Irony to tear the veil from before the eyes of Irene's boy! But he
was not here! Where had he got to? One must find the poor chap!

A gleam of sun had come, sharpening to his hurrying senses all the
beauty of the afternoon, of the tall trees and lengthening shadows, of
the blue, and the white clouds, the scent of the hay, and the cooing of
the pigeons; and the flower shapes standing tall. He came to the
rosary, and the beauty of the roses in that sudden sunlight seemed to
him unearthly. "Rose, you Spaniard!" Wonderful three words! There she
had stood by that bush of dark red roses; had stood to read and decide
that Jon must know it all! He knew all now! Had she chosen wrong? He
bent and sniffed a rose, its petals brushed his nose and trembling
lips; nothing so soft as a rose-leaf's velvet, except her neck--Irene!
On across the lawn he went, up the slope, to the oak-tree. Its top
alone was glistening, for the sudden sun was away over the house; the
lower shade was thick, blessedly cool--he was greatly overheated. He
paused a minute with his hand on the rope of the swing--Jolly,
Holly--Jon! The o