e more, Father, please."

She would be sick! He went to the counter to pay. When he turned round
again he saw Fleur standing near the door, holding a handkerchief which
the boy had evidently just handed to her.

"F. F.," he heard her say. "Fleur Forsyte--it's mine all right. Thank
you ever so."

Good God! She had caught the trick from what he'd told her in the
Gallery--monkey!

"Forsyte? Why--that's my name too. Perhaps we're cousins."

"Really! We must be. There aren't any others. I live at Mapledurham;
where do you?"

"Robin Hill."

Question and answer had been so rapid that all was over before he could
lift a finger. He saw Irene's face alive with startled feeling, gave the
slightest shake of his head, and slipped his arm through Fleur's.

"Come along!" he said.

She did not move.

"Didn't you hear, Father? Isn't it queer--our name's the same. Are we
cousins?"

"What's that?" he said. "Forsyte? Distant, perhaps."

"My name's Jolyon, sir. Jon, for short."

"Oh! Ah!" said Soames. "Yes. Distant. How are you? Very good of you.
Good-bye!"

He moved on.

"Thanks awfully," Fleur was saying. "Au revoir!"

"Au revoir!" he heard the boy reply.

II

FINE FLEUR FORSYTE

Emerging from the "pastry-cook's," Soames' first impulse was to vent his
nerves by saying to his daughter: 'Dropping your hand-kerchief!' to which
her reply might well be: 'I picked that up from you!' His second impulse
therefore was to let sleeping dogs lie. But she would surely question
him. He gave her a sidelong look, and found she was giving him the same.
She said softly:

"Why don't you like those cousins, Father?" Soames lifted the corner of
his lip.

"What made you think that?"

"Cela se voit."

'That sees itself!' What a way of putting it! After twenty years of a
French wife Soames had still little sympathy with her language; a
theatrical affair and connected in his mind with all the refinements of
domestic irony.

"How?" he asked.

"You must know them; and you didn't make a sign. I saw them looking at
you."

"I've never seen the boy in my life," replied Soames with perfect truth.

"No; but you've seen the others, dear."

Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her Aunt
Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie and his wife, been talking? Every
breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept from her at home, and
Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't have a whi