There are various kinds of shocks: to the vertebrae; to the nerves; to
moral sensibility; and, more potent and permanent, to personal dignity.
This last was the shock Jon received, coming thus on his mother. He
became suddenly conscious that he was doing an indelicate thing. To have
brought Fleur down openly--yes! But to sneak her in like this! Consumed
with shame, he put on a front as brazen as his nature would permit.
Fleur was smiling, a little defiantly; his mother's startled face was
changing quickly to the impersonal and gracious. It was she who uttered
the first words:
"I'm very glad to see you. It was nice of Jon to think of bringing you
down to us."
"We weren't coming to the house," Jon blurted out. "I just wanted Fleur
to see where I lived."
His mother said quietly:
"Won't you come up and have tea?"
Feeling that he had but aggravated his breach of breeding, he heard
Fleur answer:
"Thanks very much; I have to get back to dinner. I met Jon by accident,
and we thought it would be rather jolly just to see his home."
How self-possessed she was!
"Of course; but you must have tea. We'll send you down to the station.
My husband will enjoy seeing you."
The expression of his mother's eyes, resting on him for a moment, cast
Jon down level with the ground--a true worm. Then she led on, and Fleur
followed her. He felt like a child, trailing after those two, who were
talking so easily about Spain and Wansdon, and the house up there beyond
the trees and the grassy slope. He watched the fencing of their eyes,
taking each other in--the two beings he loved most in the world.
He could see his father sitting under the oaktree; and suffered in
advance all the loss of caste he must go through in the eyes of that
tranquil figure, with his knees crossed, thin, old, and elegant; already
he could feel the faint irony which would come into his voice and smile.
"This is Fleur Forsyte, Jolyon; Jon brought her down to see the house.
Let's have tea at once--she has to catch a train. Jon, tell them, dear,
and telephone to the Dragon for a car."
To leave her alone with them was strange, and yet, as no doubt his
mother had foreseen, the least of evils at the moment; so he ran up into
the house. Now he would not see Fleur alone again--not for a minute, and
they had arranged no further meeting! When he returned under cover of
the maids and teapots, there was not a trace of awkwardness beneath the
tree; it was all within himself, but not the less for that. They were
talking of the Gallery off Cork Street.