Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say, fourth
generation, at Wansdon under the Downs, a week-end prolonged unto the
ninth day had stretched the crossing threads of tenacity almost to
snapping-point. Never had Fleur been so "fine," Holly so watchful, Val
so stable-secretive, Jon so silent and disturbed. What he learned of
farming in that week might have been balanced on the point of a penknife
and puffed off. He, whose nature was essentially averse from intrigue,
and whose adoration of Fleur disposed him to think that any need for
concealing it was "skittles," chafed and fretted, yet obeyed, taking
what relief he could in the few moments when they were alone.
On Thursday, while they were standing in the bay window of the
drawing-room, dressed for dinner, she said to him:
"Jon, I'm going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if you were
to go home on Saturday you could come up on Sunday and take me down, and
just get back here by the last train, after. You were going home anyway,
weren't you?"
Jon nodded.
"Anything to be with you," he said; "only why need I pretend--"
Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm:
"You have no instinct, Jon; you must leave things to me. It's serious
about our people. We've simply got to be secret at present, if we want
to be together." The door was opened, and she added loudly: "You are a
duffer, Jon."
Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this subterfuge
about a feeling so natural, so overwhelming, and so sweet.
On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was leaning out
of his window, half miserable, and half lost in a dream of Paddington
station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a finger-nail tapping on his
door. He rushed to it and listened. Again the sound. It was a nail. He
opened. Oh! What a lovely thing came in!
"I wanted to show you my fancy dress," it said, and struck an attitude
at the foot of his bed.
Jon drew a long breath and leaned against the door. The apparition
wore white muslin on its head, a fichu round its bare neck over a
wine-coloured dress, fulled out below its slender waist.
It held one arm akimbo, and the other raised, right-angled, holding a
fan which touched its head.
"This ought to be a basket of grapes," it whispered, "but I haven't got
it here. It's my Goya dress. And this is the attitude in the picture. Do
you like it?"
"It's a dream."
The apparition pirouetted. "Touch it, and see."