three
days off full; the freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur
and he had met on some desert island without a past--and Nature for
their house! Jon had still his high regard for desert islands, where
breadfruit grew, and the water was blue above the coral. The night was
deep, was free--there was enticement in it; a lure, a promise, a refuge
from entanglement, and love! Milksop tied to his mother's--! His cheeks
burned. He shut the window, drew curtains over it, switched off the
lighted sconce, and went up-stairs.

The door of his room was open, the light turned up; his mother, still
in her evening gown, was standing at the window. She turned, and said:

"Sit down, Jon; let's talk." She sat down on the window-seat, Jon on
his bed. She had her profile turned to him, and the beauty and grace of
her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the neck, the
strange and as it were remote refinement of her, moved him. His mother
never belonged to her surroundings. She came into them from
somewhere--as it were! What was she going to say to him, who had in his
heart such things to say to her?

"I know Fleur came to-day. I'm not surprised." It was as though she had
added: "She is her father's daughter!" And Jon's heart hardened. Irene
went on quietly:

"I have Father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. Would
you like it back, dear?"

Jon shook his head.

"I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't quite do
justice to my criminality."

"Mother!" burst from Jon's lips.

"He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's father
without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, Jon, can play
such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You are fearfully young,
my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be
happy with this girl?"

Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, Jon answered:

"Yes; oh! yes--if YOU could be."

Irene smiled.

"Admiration of beauty, and longing for possession are not love. If
yours were another case like mine, Jon--where the deepest things are
stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!"

"Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father, but
she's not. I've seen him."

Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something wavered;
there was such irony and experience in that smile.

"You are a giver, Jon; she is a taker."

That unworthy doubt, that haunting uncertainty ag