The Forsyte Saga - Volume 3 - Page 170/204

To Soames she was a puzzle. He was almost deceived by this careless

gaiety. Almost--because he did not fail to mark her eyes often fixed on

nothing, and the film of light shining from her bedroom window late at

night. What was she thinking and brooding over into small hours when she

ought to have been asleep? But he dared not ask what was in her mind;

and, since that one little talk in the billiard-room, she said nothing

to him.

In this taciturn condition of affairs it chanced that Winifred invited

them to lunch and to go afterward to "a most amusing little play, 'The

Beggar's Opera'" and would they bring a man to make four? Soames, whose

attitude toward theatres was to go to nothing, accepted, because Fleur's

attitude was to go to everything. They motored up, taking Michael Mont,

who, being in his seventh heaven, was found by Winifred "very amusing."

"The Beggar's Opera" puzzled Soames. The people were very unpleasant,

the whole thing very cynical. Winifred was "intrigued"--by the dresses.

The music, too, did not displease her. At the Opera, the night before,

she had arrived too early for the Russian Ballet, and found the stage

occupied by singers, for a whole hour pale or apoplectic from terror

lest by some dreadful inadvertence they might drop into a tune. Michael

Mont was enraptured with the whole thing. And all three wondered what

Fleur was thinking of it. But Fleur was not thinking of it. Her fixed

idea stood on the stage and sang with Polly Peachum, mimed with Filch,

danced with Jenny Diver, postured with Lucy Lockit, kissed, trolled, and

cuddled with Macheath. Her lips might smile, her hands applaud, but the

comic old masterpiece made no more impression on her than if it had

been pathetic, like a modern "Revue." When they embarked in the car

to return, she ached because Jon was not sitting next her instead of

Michael Mont. When, at some jolt, the young man's arm touched hers as

if by accident, she only thought: 'If that were Jon's arm!' When his

cheerful voice, tempered by her proximity, murmured above the sound of

the car's progress, she smiled and answered, thinking: 'If that were

Jon's voice!' and when once he said, "Fleur, you look a perfect angel in

that dress!" she answered, "Oh, do you like it?" thinking, 'If only Jon

could see it!'

During this drive she took a resolution. She would go to Robin Hill and

see him--alone; she would take the car, without word beforehand to him

or to her father. It was nine days since his letter, and she could wait

no longer. On Monday she would go! The decision made her well disposed

toward young Mont. With something to look forward to she could afford to

tolerate and respond. He might stay to dinner; propose to her as usual;

dance with her, press her hand, sigh--do what he liked. He was only a

nuisance when he interfered with her fixed idea. She was even sorry for

him so far as it was possible to be sorry for anybody but herself just

now. At dinner he seemed to talk more wildly than usual about what he

called "the death of the close borough"--she paid little attention, but

her father seemed paying a good deal, with the smile on his face which

meant opposition, if not anger.