"I don't, Annette."
Did Father know that he called her mother "Annette"? Always on the side
of her Father--as children are ever on one side or the other in houses
where relations are a little strained--she stood, uncertain. Her mother
was speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly metallic voice--one word she
caught: "Demain." And Profond's answer: "All right." Fleur frowned. A
little sound came out into the stillness. Then Profond's voice: "I'm
takin' a small stroll."
Fleur darted through the window into the morning-room. There he came
from the drawing-room, crossing the verandah, down the lawn; and the
click of billiard-balls which, in listening for other sounds, she had
ceased to hear, began again. She shook herself, passed into the hall,
and opened the drawing-room door. Her mother was sitting on the sofa
between the windows, her knees crossed, her head resting on a cushion,
her lips half parted, her eyes half closed. She looked extraordinarily
handsome.
"Ah! Here you are, Fleur! Your father is beginning to fuss."
"Where is he?"
"In the picture-gallery. Go up!"
"What are you going to do to-morrow, Mother?"
"To-morrow? I go up to London with your aunt."
"I thought you might be. Will you get me a quite plain parasol?"
"What colour?"
"Green. They're all going back, I suppose."
"Yes, all; you will console your father. Kiss me, then."
Fleur crossed the room, stooped, received a kiss on her forehead, and
went out past the impress of a form on the sofa-cushions in the other
corner. She ran up-stairs.
Fleur was by no means the old-fashioned daughter who demands the
regulation of her parents' lives in accordance with the standard imposed
upon herself. She claimed to regulate her own life, not those of others;
besides, an unerring instinct for what was likely to advantage her own
case was already at work. In a disturbed domestic atmosphere the heart
she had set on Jon would have a better chance. None the less was she
offended, as a flower by a crisping wind. If that man had really been
kissing her mother it was--serious, and her father ought to know.
"Demain!" "All right!" And her mother going up to Town! She turned
into her bedroom and hung out of the window to cool her face, which had
suddenly grown very hot. Jon must be at the station by now! What did her
father know about Jon? Probably everything--pretty nearly!
She changed her dress, so as to look as if she had been in some time,
and ran up to the gallery.
Soames was standing stubbornly still before his Alfred Stevens--the
picture he loved best. He did not turn at the sound of the door, but she
knew he had heard, and she knew he was hurt. She came up softly behind
him, put her arms round his neck, and poked her face over his shoulder
till her cheek lay against his. It was an advance which had never yet
failed, but it failed her now, and she augured the worst. "Well," he
said stonily, "so you've come!"