From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in blossom.
Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in blossom; and
his heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again.
Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was
still young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds sang recklessly in the
shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the leaves above him glistened;
and over the fields was every imaginable tint of early foliage,
burnished by the level sunlight, away to where the distant "smoke-bush"
blue was trailed along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds
had startling individuality that evening, little deep assertions of
gay life. Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo, had
known how to get that startling little ego into each painted flower, and
bird, and beast--the ego, yet the sense of species, the universality of
life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!'
thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur--a mere lover, not a creator.
Still, I shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy
had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been
killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would
do something some day--if the Age didn't spoil him--an imaginative chap!
His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and about as
likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the field: Irene and
the boy; walking from the station, with their arms linked. And getting
up, he strolled down through the new rose garden to meet them....
Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. She sat
there without speaking till he said:
"What is it, my love?"
"We had an encounter to-day."
"With whom?"
"Soames."
Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two years;
conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart moved in a
disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within his chest.
Irene went on quietly:
"He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterward at the
confectioner's where we had tea."
Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder.
"How did he look?"
"Grey; but otherwise much the same."
"And the daughter?"
"Pretty. At least, Jon thought so."
Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wife's face had a strained and
puzzled look.
"You didn't-?" he began.
"No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief and he
picked it up."
Jolyon sat down on his bed. An evil chance!