‘You’re my only comfort,’ said Soames suddenly, ‘and you go on like that.’
Fleur’s heart began to beat.
‘Like what, dear?’
Again Soames gave her a look which, but for the affection in it, might have been called furtive.
‘You know what I told you,’ he said. ‘I don’t choose to have anything to do with that branch of the family.’
‘Yes, ducky, but I don’t know why I shouldn’t.’
Soames turned on his heel.
‘I’m not going into the reasons,’ he said; ‘you ought to trust me, Fleur!’
The way he spoke those words affected Fleur, but she thought of Jon, and was silent, tapping her foot against the wainscot. Unconsciously she had assumed a modern attitude, with one leg twisted in and out of the other, with her chin on one bent wrist, her other arm across her chest, and its hand hugging her elbow; there was not a line of her that was not involuted, and yet – in spite of all – she retained a certain grace.
‘You knew my wishes,’ Soames went on, ‘and yet you stayed on there four days. And I suppose that boy came with you today.’
Fleur kept her eyes on him.
‘I don’t ask you anything,’ said Soames; ‘I make no inquisition where you’re concerned.’
Fleur suddenly stood up, leaning out at the window with her chin on her hands. The sun had sunk behind trees, the pigeons were perched, quite still, on the edge of the dove-cot; the click of the billiard-balls mounted, and a faint radiance shone out below where Jack Cardigan had turned the light up.
‘Will it make you any happier,’ she said suddenly, ‘if I promise you not to see him for say – the next six weeks?’ She was not prepared for a sort of tremble in the blankness of his voice.
‘Six weeks? Six years – sixty years more like. Don’t delude yourself, Fleur; don’t delude yourself!’
Fleur turned in alarm.
‘Father, what is it?’
Soames came close enough to see her face.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘that you’re foolish enough to have any feeling beyond caprice. That would be too much!’ And he laughed.
Fleur, who had never heard him laugh like that, thought:
‘Then it is deep! Oh! what is it?’ And putting her hand through his arm she said lightly:
‘No, of course, caprice. Only, I like my caprices and I don’t like yours, dear.’
‘Mine!’ said Soames bitterly, and turned away.
The light outside had chilled, and threw a chalky whiteness on the river. The trees had lost all gaiety of colour. She felt a sudden hunger for Jon’s face, for his hands, and the feel of his lips again on hers. And pressing her arm tight across her breast she forced out a little light laugh.
‘O la! la! What a small fuss! as Profond would say. Father, I don’t like that man.’
She saw him stop, and take something out of his breast pocket.
‘You don’t?’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Nothing,’ murmured Fleur; ‘just caprice!’
‘No,’ said Soames; ‘not caprice!’ And he tore what was in his hands across. ‘You’re right. I don’t like him either!’
‘Look!’ said Fleur softly. ‘There he goes! I hate his shoes: they don’t make any noise.’
Down in the failing light Prosper Profond moved, his hands in his side pockets, whistling softly in his beard; he stopped, and glanced up at the sky, as if saying: ‘I don’t think much of that small moon.’
Fleur drew back. ‘Isn’t he a great cat?’ she whispered; and the sharp click of the billiard-balls rose, as if Jack Cardigan had capped the cat, the moon, caprice, and tragedy with: ‘In off the red!’
Monsieur Profond had resumed his strolling, to a teasing little tune in his beard. What was it? Oh! yes, from Rigoletto: ‘Donna é mobile’. Just what he would think! She squeezed her father’s arm.
‘Prowling!’ she muttered, as he turned the corner of the house. It was past the disillusioned moment which divides the day and night – still and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac scent clinging on the riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst out. Jon would be in London by now; in the Park, perhaps, crossing the Serpentine, thinking of her! A little sound beside her made her turn her eyes; her father was again tearing the paper in his hands. Fleur saw it was a cheque.
‘I shan’t sell him my Gauguin,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what your aunt and Imogen see in him.’
‘Or Mother.’
‘Your mother!’ said Soames.
‘Poor Father!’ she thought. ‘He never looks happy – not really happy. I don’t want to make him worse, but of course I shall have to, when Jon comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!’