The midges were biting, and he walked on. Should he tell Anne that he had come down with Fleur? Not to tell her was to stress the importance of the incident; but to tell her was somehow disagreeable to him. And then he came on Anne herself, without a hat, sitting on a gate, her hands in the pockets of her jumper. Very lissome and straight she looked.

“Lift me down, Jon!”

He lifted her down in a prolonged manner. And, almost instantly, said:

“Whom do you think I travelled with? Fleur Mont. We ran up against each other at Victoria. She’s taking her boy to Loring next week, to convalesce him.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m in love with you, Jon.” She tilted her chin, so that her straight and shapely nose looked a little more sudden.

“I don’t see—” began Jon.

“You see she’s another. I saw that at Ascot. I reckon I’m old-fashioned, Jon.”

“That’s all right, so am I.”

She turned her eyes on him, eyes not quite civilised, nor quite American, and put her arm round his waist.

“Rondavel’s off his feed. Greenwater’s very upset about it.”

“‘Very,’ Anne.”

“Well, you can’t pronounce ‘very’ as I pronounce it, any more than I can as you do.”

“Sorry. But you told me to remind you. It’s silly, though: why shouldn’t you speak your own lingo?”

“Because I want to speak like you.”

“Want, then, not waunt.”

“Damn!”

“All right, darling. But isn’t your lingo just as good?”

Anne disengaged her arm.

“No, you don’t think that. You’re awfully glad to be through with the American accent—you ARE, Jon.”

“It’s natural to like one’s own country’s best.”

“Well, I do want—there!—to speak English. I’m English by law, now, and by descent, all but one French great-grandmother. If we have children, they’ll be English, and we’re going to live in England. Shall you take Greenhill Farm?”

“Yes. And I’m not going to play at things any more. I’ve played twice, and this time I’m going all out.”

“You weren’t playing in North Carolina.”

“Not exactly. But this is different. It didn’t matter there.—What are peaches, anyway? It does here—it matters a lot. I mean to make it pay.”

“Bully!” said Anne: “I mean—er—splendid. But I never believed you’d say that.”

“Paying the only proof. I’m going in for tomatoes, onions, asparagus, and figs; and I mean to work the arable for all it’s worth; and if I can get any more land, I will.”

“Jon! What energy!” And she caught hold of his chin.

“All right!” said Jon, grimly. “You watch out, and see if I don’t mean it.”

“And you’ll leave the house to me? I’ll make it just too lovely!”

“That’s a bargain.”

“Kiss me, then.”

With her lips parted and her eyes looking into his, with just that suspicion of a squint which made them so enticing, Jon thought: ‘It’s quite simple. The other thing’s absurd. Why, of course!’ He kissed her forehead and lips, but, even while he did so, he seemed to see Fleur trembling up at him, and to hear her words: “Au revoir! It WAS a jolly accident!”

“Let’s go and have a look at Rondavel,” he said.

In his box, when those two went in, the grey colt stood by the far wall, idly contemplating a carrot in the hand of Greenwater.

“Clean off!” said the latter over his shoulder: “It’s goodbye to Goodwood! The colt’s sick.”

What had Fleur said: “Au revoir at Goodwood, if not before!”

“Perhaps it’s just a megrim, Greenwater,” said Anne.

“No, Ma’am; the horse has got a temperature. Well, we’ll win the Middle Park Plate with him yet!”

Jon passed his hand over the colt’s quarter: “Poor old son! Funny! You can tell he’s not fit by the feel of his coat!”

“You can that,” replied Greenwater: “But where’s he got it from? There isn’t a sick horse that I know of anywhere about. If there’s anything in the world more perverse than horses!—We didn’t train him for Ascot, and he goes and wins. We meant him for Goodwood, and he’s gone amiss. Mr. Dartie wants me to give him some South African stuff I never heard of.”

“They have a lot of horse sickness out there,” said Jon.

“See,” said the trainer, stretching his hand up to the colt’s ears; “no kick in him at all! Looks like blackberry sickness out of season. I’d give a good deal to know how he picked it up.”

The two young people left him standing by the colt’s dejected head, his dark, hawk-like face thrust forward, as if trying to read the sensations within his favourite.

That night, Jon went up, bemused by Val’s opinions on Communism, the Labour Party, the qualities inherent in the off-spring of “Sleeping Dove,” with a dissertation on a horse-sickness in South Africa. He entered a dim bedroom. A white figure was standing at the window. It turned when he came near and flung its arms round him.

“Jon, you mustn’t stop loving me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because men do. Besides, it’s not the fashion to be faithful.”

“Bosh!” said Jon, gently; “it’s just as much the fashion as it ever was.”

“I’m glad we shan’t be going to Goodwood. I’m afraid of her. She’s so clever.”

“Fleur?”

“You WERE in love with her, Jon; I feel it in my bones. I wish you’d told me.”

Jon leaned beside her in the window.

“Why?” he said, dully.

She did not answer. They stood side by side in the breathless warmth, moths passed their faces, a night-jar churred in the silence, and now and then, from the stables, came the stamp of a sleepless horse. Suddenly Anne stretched out her hand:

“Over there—somewhere—she’s awake, and wanting you. I’m not happy, Jon.”

“Don’t be morbid, darling!”

“But I’m NOT happy, Jon.”

Like a great child—slim within his arm, her cheek pressed to his, her dark earlock tickling his neck! And suddenly her lips came round to his, vehement.

“Love me!”

But when she was asleep, Jon lay wakeful. Moonlight had crept in and there was a ghost in the room—a ghost in a Goya dress, twirling, holding out its skirts, beckoning with its eyes, and with its lips seeming to whisper: “Me, too! Me, too!”

And, raising himself on his elbow, he looked resolutely at the dark head beside him. No! There was—there should be nothing but that in the room! Reality—reality!

Chapter X.

THAT THING AND THIS THING

On the following Monday at breakfast Val said to Holly: Listen to this!

“That fellow again!”

“Pay no attention, Val.”

“I don’t know,” said Val, glumly. “Some gang or other are taking altogether too much interest in the colt. Greenwater’s very uneasy. I’d better get to the bottom of it, if I can.”

“Consult your uncle, then, first. He’s still at your mother’s.”

Val made a wry face.

“Yes,” said Holly, “but he’ll know what you can do and what you can’t. You really mustn’t deal single-handed with people like that.”

“All right, then. There’s hanky-panky in the wind, I’m sure. Somebody knew all about the colt at Ascot.”

He took the morning train and arrived at his mother’s at lunch time. She and Annette were lunching-out, but Soames, who was lunching-in, crossed a cold hand with his nephew’s.

“Have you still got that young man and his wife staying with you?”

“Yes,” said Val.

“Isn’t he ever going to do anything?”

On being told that Jon was about to do something, Soames grunted.