Monsieur Profond smiled.
"Look here, Miss Forsyde, don't worry. It'll be all right. Nothing lasts."
"Things do last," cried Fleur; "with me anyhow--especially likes and dislikes."
"Well, that makes me a bit un'appy."
"I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or unhappy."
"I don't like to annoy other people. I'm goin' on my yacht."
Fleur looked at him, startled.
"Where?"
"Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere," said Monsieur Profond.
Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have anything to break, and yet how dared he break it?
"Good-night, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I'm not so bad really. Good-night!" Fleur left him standing there with his hat raised.
Stealing a look round, she saw him stroll--immaculate and heavy--back toward his Club.
'He can't even love with conviction,' she thought. 'What will Mother do?'
Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker's Almanac. A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation.
She might conquer Jon's prejudice, but without exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each be twenty-one; or some one's consent would be necessary, which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming finally to the word "perjury." But that was nonsense! Who would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to Whitaker. The more she studied the less sure she became; till, idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland. People could be married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go and stay there twenty-one days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could declare themselves married. And what was more--they would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran over her schoolfellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in Edinburgh and was "quite a sport!"
She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to their people: "We are married by Nature, we must now be married by Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No!
Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens. She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy-paste sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June's bell. The Austrian admitted her to the "little meal-room." Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing through her nerves.
Then she heard the bell ring, and, stealing to the window, saw him standing on the doorstep smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue the fluttering of his nerves.
She was sitting on one of the two rush-seated chairs, with her back to the door, when he came in, and she said at once--
"Sit down, Jon, I want to talk seriously."
Jon sat on the table by her side, and without looking at him she went on:
"If you don't want to lose me, we must get married."
Jon gasped.
"Why? Is there anything new?"
"No, but I felt it at Robin Hill, and among my people."
"But--" stammered Jon, "at Robin Hill--it was all smooth--and they've said nothing to me."
"But they mean to stop us. Your mother's face was enough. And my father's."
"Have you seen him since?"
Fleur nodded. What mattered a few supplementary lies?
"But," said Jon eagerly, "I can't see how they can feel like that after all these years."
Fleur looked up at him.
"Perhaps you don't love me enough." "Not love you enough! Why--!"
"Then make sure of me."
"Without telling them?"
"Not till after."
Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely two months ago, when she first saw him--quite two years older!
"It would hurt Mother awfully," he said.
Fleur drew her hand away.
"You've got to choose."
Jon slid off the table on to his knees.
"But why not tell them? They can't really stop us, Fleur!"
"They can! I tell you, they can."
"How?"
"We're utterly dependent--by putting money pressure, and all sorts of other pressure. I'm not patient, Jon."
"But it's deceiving them."
Fleur got up.
"You can't really love me, or you wouldn't hesitate. 'He either fears his fate too much!'"
Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again. She hurried on:
"I've planned it all out. We've only to go to Scotland. When we're married they'll soon come round. People always come round to facts.
Don't you see, Jon?"
"But to hurt them so awfully!"
So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! "All right, then; let me go!"
Jon got up and put his back against the door.