It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin, pale
low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck with the pale
look of everything; her father's face, her mother's shoulders; the pale
panelled walls, the pale grey velvety carpet, the lamp-shade, even the
soup was pale. There was not one spot of colour in the room, not even
wine in the pale glasses, for no one drank it. What was not pale
was black--her father's clothes, the butler's clothes, her retriever
stretched out exhausted in the window, the curtains black with a
cream pattern. A moth came in, and that was pale. And silent was that
half-mourning dinner in the heat.
Her father called her back as she was following her mother out.
She sat down beside him at the table, and, unpinning the pale
honeysuckle, put it to her nose.
"I've been thinking," he said.
"Yes, dear?"
"It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for it. I
don't know if you understand how much you are to me I've never spoken
of it, I didn't think it necessary; but--but you're everything. Your
mother--" he paused, staring at his finger-bowl of Venetian glass.
"Yes?"'
"I've only you to look to. I've never had--never wanted anything else,
since you were born."
"I know," Fleur murmured.
Soames moistened his lips.
"You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for you.
You're mistaken. I'm helpless."
Fleur did not speak.
"Quite apart from my own feelings," went on Soames with more resolution,
"those two are not amenable to anything I can say. They--they hate me,
as people always hate those whom they have injured." "But he--Jon--"
"He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to her
what you mean to me. It's a deadlock."
"No," cried Fleur, "no, Father!"
Soames leaned back, the image of pale patience, as if resolved on the
betrayal of no emotion.
"Listen!" he said. "You're putting the feelings of two months--two
months--against the feelings of thirty-five years! What chance do you
think you have? Two months--your very first love affair, a matter of
half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks, a few kisses--against,
against what you can't imagine, what no one could who hasn't been
through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! It's midsummer madness!"
Fleur tore the honeysuckle into little, slow bits.
"The madness is in letting the past spoil it all.
"What do we care about the past? It's our lives, not yours."
Soames raised his hand to his forehead, where suddenly she saw moisture
shining.