It was not his fault that he had fallen in love a second time or married the object of his affections. Nor, so far as he could see, was it his fault that the sight and the sound and the scent and the touch of Fleur had revived some of his former feelings. He was none the less disgusted at his double-heartedness; and he walked now fast, now slow, while the sun shifted over and struck on a neck always sensitive since his touch of the sun in Granada. Presently, he stopped and leaned over a gate. He had not been long enough back in England to have got over its beauty on a fine day. He was always stopping and leaning over gates, or in other ways, as Val called it, mooning!
Though it was already the first day of the Eton and Harrow Match, which his father had been wont to attend so religiously, hay harvest was barely over, and the scent of stacked hay still in the air. The downs lay before him to the south, lighted along their northern slopes. Red Sussex cattle were standing under some trees close to the gate, dribbling, and slowly swishing their tails. And away over there he could see others lingering along the hill-side. Peace lay thick on the land. The corn in that next field had an unearthly tinge, neither green nor gold, under the slanting sunlight. And in the restful beauty of the evening Jon could well perceive the destructiveness of love – an emotion so sweet, restless, and thrilling, that it drained Nature of its colour and peace, made those who suffered from it bores to their fellows and useless to the life of everyday. To work – and behold Nature in her moods! Why couldn’t he get away to that, away from women? why – like Holly’s story of the holiday slum girl, whose family came to see her off by train – why couldn’t he just get away and say: ‘Thank Gawd! I’m shut o’ that lot!’
The midges were biting, and he walked on. Should he tell Anne that he had come down with Fleur? Not to tell her was to stress the importance of the incident; but to tell her was somehow disagreeable to him. And then he came on Anne herself, without a hat, sitting on a gate, her hands in the pockets of her jumper. Very lissome and straight she looked.
‘Lift me down, Jon!’
He lifted her down in a prolonged manner. And, almost instantly, said:
‘Whom do you think I travelled with? Fleur Mont. We ran up against each other at Victoria. She’s taking her boy to Loring next week, to convalesce him.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m in love with you, Jon.’ She tilted her chin, so that her straight and shapely nose looked a little more sudden.
‘I don’t see –’ began Jon.
‘You see, she’s another. I saw that at Ascot. I reckon I’m old-fashioned, Jon.’
‘That’s all right, so am I.’
She turned her eyes on him, eyes not quite civilized, nor quite American, and put her arm round his waist.
‘Rondavel’s off his feed. Greenwater’s very upset about it.’
‘ “Very”, Anne.’
‘Well, you can’t pronounce “very” as I pronounce it, any more than I can as you do.’
‘Sorry. But you told me to remind you. It’s silly, though: why shouldn’t you speak your own lingo?’
‘Because I want to speak like you.’
‘Want, then, not waunt.’
‘Damn!’
‘All right, darling. But isn’t your lingo just as good?’
Anne disengaged her arm.
‘No, you don’t think that. You’re awfully glad to be through with the American accent – you are, Jon.’
‘It’s natural to like one’s own country’s best.’
‘Well, I do want – there! – to speak English. I’m English by law, now, and by descent, all but one French great-grandmother. If we have children, they’ll be English, and we’re going to live in England. Shall you take Green Hill Farm?’
‘Yes. And I’m not going to play at things any more. I’ve played twice, and this time I’m going all out.’
‘You weren’t exactly playing in North Carolina.’
‘Not exactly. But this is different. It didn’t matter there. What are peaches anyway? It does here – it matters a lot. I mean to make it pay.’
‘Bully!’ said Anne: ‘I mean – er – splendid. But I never believed you’d say that.’
‘Paying’s the only proof. I’m going in for tomatoes, onions, asparagus, and figs; and I mean to work the arable for all it’s worth, and if I can get any more land, I will.’
‘Jon! What energy!’ And she caught hold of his chin.
‘All right!’ said Jon, grimly. ‘You watch out, and see if I don’t mean it.’