He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no more.
But he missed Fleur, who came down last. He sat opposite her at dinner,
and it was terrible--impossible to say anything for fear of saying
the wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed on her in the only
natural way; in sum, impossible to treat normally one with whom in fancy
he had already been over the hills and far away; conscious, too, all the
time, that he must seem to her, to all of them, a dumb gawk. Yes, it was
terrible! And she was talking so well--swooping with swift wing this
way and that. Wonderful how she had learned an art which he found so
disgustingly difficult. She must think him hopeless indeed!
His sister's eyes, fixed on him with a certain astonishment, obliged him
at last to look at Fleur; but instantly her eyes, very wide and eager,
seeming to say, "Oh! for goodness' sake!" obliged him to look at Val,
where a grin obliged him to look at his cutlet--that, at least, had no
eyes, and no grin, and he ate it hastily.
"Jon is going to be a farmer," he heard Holly say; "a farmer and a
poet."
He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow just
like their father's, laughed, and felt better.
Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing could
have been more favourable, for, in relating it, he regarded Holly, who
in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be regarding with a slight
frown some thought of her own, and Jon was really free to look at her at
last. She had on a white frock, very simple and well made; her arms were
bare, and her hair had a white rose in it. In just that swift moment of
free vision, after such intense discomfort, Jon saw her sublimated, as
one sees in the dark a slender white fruit-tree; caught her like a verse
of poetry flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a tune which floats
out in the distance and dies. He wondered giddily how old she was--she
seemed so much more self-possessed and experienced than himself. Why
mustn't he say they had met? He remembered suddenly his mother's face;
puzzled, hurt-looking, when she answered: "Yes, they're relations,
but we don't know them." Impossible that his mother, who loved beauty,
should not admire Fleur if she did know her.
Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and answered
the advances of this new-found brother-in-law. As to riding (always the
first consideration with Val) he could have the young chestnut, saddle
and unsaddle it himself, and generally look after it when he brought it
in. Jon said he was accustomed to all that at home, and saw that he had
gone up one in his host's estimation.