“Some people,” said Irene softly, “think the moon on her back is evil; to me she’s always lovely.  Look at those cypress shadows!  Jon, Father says we may go to Italy, you and I, for two months.  Would you like?”

Jon took his hand from under her arm; his sensation was so sharp and so confused.  Italy with his mother!  A fortnight ago it would have been perfection; now it filled him with dismay; he felt that the sudden suggestion had to do with Fleur.  He stammered out: 

“Oh! yes; only—­I don’t know.  Ought I—­now I’ve just begun?  I’d like to think it over.”

Her voice answered, cool and gentle: 

“Yes, dear; think it over.  But better now than when you’ve begun farming seriously.  Italy with you!  It would be nice!”

Jon put his arm round her waist, still slim and firm as a girl’s.

“Do you think you ought to leave Father?” he said feebly, feeling very mean.

“Father suggested it; he thinks you ought to see Italy at least before you settle down to anything.”

The sense of meanness died in Jon; he knew, yes—­he knew—­that his father and his mother were not speaking frankly, no more than he himself.  They wanted to keep him from Fleur.  His heart hardened.  And, as if she felt that process going on, his mother said: 

“Good-night, darling.  Have a good sleep and think it over.  But it would be lovely!”

She pressed him to her so quickly that he did not see her face.  Jon stood feeling exactly as he used to when he was a naughty little boy; sore because he was not loving, and because he was justified in his own eyes.

But Irene, after she had stood a moment in her own room, passed through the dressing-room between it and her husband’s.

“Well?”

“He will think it over, Jolyon.”

Watching her lips that wore a little drawn smile, Jolyon said quietly: 

“You had better let me tell him, and have done with it.  After all, Jon has the instincts of a gentleman.  He has only to understand—­”

“Only!  He can’t understand; that’s impossible.”

“I believe I could have at his age.”

Irene caught his hand.  “You were always more of a realist than Jon; and never so innocent.”

“That’s true,” said Jolyon.  “It’s queer, isn’t it?  You and I would tell our stories to the world without a particle of shame; but our own boy stumps us.”

“We’ve never cared whether the world approves or not.”

“Jon would not disapprove of us!”

“Oh!  Jolyon, yes.  He’s in love, I feel he’s in love.  And he’d say:  ’My mother once married without love!  How could she have!’ It’ll seem to him a crime!  And so it was!”

Jolyon took her hand, and said with a wry smile: 

“Ah! why on earth are we born young?  Now, if only we were born old and grew younger year by year, we should understand how things happen, and drop all our cursed intolerance.  But you know if the boy is really in love, he won’t forget, even if he goes to Italy.  We’re a tenacious breed; and he’ll know by instinct why he’s being sent.  Nothing will really cure him but the shock of being told.”