To leave her alone with them was strange, and yet, as no doubt his mother had foreseen, the least of evils at the moment; so he ran up into the house.  Now he would not see Fleur alone again—­not for a minute, and they had arranged no further meeting!  When he returned under cover of the maids and teapots, there was not a trace of awkwardness beneath the tree; it was all within himself, but not the less for that.  They were talking of the Gallery off Cork Street.

“We back numbers,” his father was saying, “are awfully anxious to find out why we can’t appreciate the new stuff; you and Jon must tell us.”

“It’s supposed to be satiric, isn’t it?” said Fleur.

He saw his father’s smile.

“Satiric?  Oh!  I think it’s more than that.  What do you say, Jon?”

“I don’t know at all,” stammered Jon.  His father’s face had a sudden grimness.

“The young are tired of us, our gods and our ideals.  Off with their heads, they say—­smash their idols!  And let’s get back to-nothing!  And, by Jove, they’ve done it!  Jon’s a poet.  He’ll be going in, too, and stamping on what’s left of us.  Property, beauty, sentiment—­all smoke.  We mustn’t own anything nowadays, not even our feelings.  They stand in the way of—­Nothing.”

Jon listened, bewildered, almost outraged by his father’s words, behind which he felt a meaning that he could not reach.  He didn’t want to stamp on anything!

“Nothing’s the god of to-day,” continued Jolyon; “we’re back where the Russians were sixty years ago, when they started Nihilism.”

“No, Dad,” cried Jon suddenly, “we only want to live, and we don’t know how, because of the Past—­that’s all!”

“By George!” said Jolyon, “that’s profound, Jon.  Is it your own?  The Past!  Old ownerships, old passions, and their aftermath.  Let’s have cigarettes.”

Conscious that his mother had lifted her hand to her lips, quickly, as if to hush something, Jon handed the cigarettes.  He lighted his father’s and Fleur’s, then one for himself.  Had he taken the knock that Val had spoken of?  The smoke was blue when he had not puffed, grey when he had; he liked the sensation in his nose, and the sense of equality it gave him.  He was glad no one said:  “So you’ve begun!” He felt less young.

Fleur looked at her watch, and rose.  His mother went with her into the house.  Jon stayed with his father, puffing at the cigarette.

“See her into the car, old man,” said Jolyon; “and when she’s gone, ask your mother to come back to me.”

Jon went.  He waited in the hall.  He saw her into the car.  There was no chance for any word; hardly for a pressure of the hand.  He waited all that evening for something to be said to him.  Nothing was said.  Nothing might have happened.  He went up to bed, and in the mirror on his dressing-table met himself.  He did not speak, nor did the image; but both looked as if they thought the more.