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.