Twisting the car sharp round at the gate, he said:
"When is young Jon coming?"
"To-day."
"Is there anything you want for him? I could bring it down on Saturday."
"No; but you might come by the same train as Fleur--one-forty."
Val gave the Ford full rein; he still drove like a man in a new country
on bad roads, who refuses to compromise, and expects heaven at every
hole.
"That's a young woman who knows her way about," he said. "I say, has it
struck you?"
"Yes," said Holly.
"Uncle Soames and your Dad--bit awkward, isn't it?"
"She won't know, and he won't know, and nothing must be said, of course.
It's only for five days, Val."
"Stable secret! Righto!" If Holly thought it safe, it was. Glancing
slyly round at him, she said: "Did you notice how beautifully she asked
herself?"
"No!"
"Well, she did. What do you think of her, Val?"
"Pretty and clever; but she might run out at any corner if she got her
monkey up, I should say."
"I'm wondering," Holly murmured, "whether she is the modern young woman.
One feels at sea coming home into all this."
"You? You get the hang of things so quick."
Holly slid her hand into his coat-pocket.
"You keep one in the know," said Val encouraged. "What do you think of
that Belgian fellow, Profond?"
"I think he's rather 'a good devil.'"
Val grinned.
"He seems to me a queer fish for a friend of our family. In fact,
our family is in pretty queer waters, with Uncle Soames marrying a
Frenchwoman, and your Dad marrying Soames's first. Our grandfathers
would have had fits!"
"So would anybody's, my dear."
"This car," Val said suddenly, "wants rousing; she doesn't get her hind
legs under her uphill. I shall have to give her her head on the slope if
I'm to catch that train."
There was that about horses which had prevented him from ever really
sympathising with a car, and the running of the Ford under his guidance
compared with its running under that of Holly was always noticeable. He
caught the train.
"Take care going home; she'll throw you down if she can. Good-bye,
darling."
"Good-bye," called Holly, and kissed her hand.
In the train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between thoughts of
Holly, his morning paper, the look of the bright day, and his dim memory
of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of a small square book,
all names, pedigrees, tap-roots, and notes about the make and shape
of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent on the acquisition of a certain
strain of blood, and he was subduing resolutely as yet the Dartie
hankering for a Nutter. On getting back to England, after the profitable
sale of his South African farm and stud, and observing that the sun
seldom shone, Val had said to himself: "I've absolutely got to have an
interest in life, or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's
not enough, I'll breed and I'll train." With just that extra pinch of
shrewdness and decision imparted by long residence in a new country, Val
had seen the weak point of modern breeding. They were all hypnotised by
fashion and high price. He should buy for looks, and let names go hang!
And here he was already, hypnotised by the prestige of a certain strain
of blood! Half-consciously, he thought: 'There's something in this
damned climate which makes one go round in a ring. All the same, I must
have a strain of Mayfly blood.'