as with you. Did she put her foot into it?"

"No; but it was all very queer and strained, and Jon could see it was."

Jolyon drew a long breath, and said:

"I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from him.
He'll find out some day."

"The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard
judgment. When you were nineteen what would you have thought of YOUR
mother if she had done what I have?" Yes! There it was! Jon worshipped
his mother; and knew nothing of the tragedies, the inexorable
necessities of life, nothing of the prisoned grief in an unhappy
marriage, nothing of jealousy, or passion--knew nothing at all, as yet!

"What have you told him?" he said at last.

"That they were relations, but we didn't know them; that you had never
cared much for your family, or they for you. I expect he will be asking
YOU."

Jolyon smiled. "This promises to take the place of air-raids," he said.
"After all, one misses them."

Irene looked up at him.

"We've known it would come some day."

He answered her with sudden energy:

"I could never stand seeing Jon blame you. He shan't do that, even in
thought. He has imagination; and he'll understand if it's put to him
properly. I think I had better tell him before he gets to know
otherwise."

"Not yet, Jolyon."

That was like her--she had no foresight, and never went to meet
trouble. Still--who knew?--she might be right. It was ill going against
a mother's instinct. It might be well to let the boy go on, if
possible, till experience had given him some touchstone by which he
could judge the values of that old tragedy; till love, jealousy,
longing, had deepened his charity. All the same, one must take
precautions--every precaution possible! And, long after Irene had left
him, he lay awake turning over those precautions. He must write to
Holly, telling her that Jon knew nothing as yet of family history.
Holly was discreet, she would make sure of her husband, she would see
to it! Jon could take the letter with him when he went to-morrow.

And so the day on which he had put the polish on his material estate
died out with the chiming of the stable clock; and another began for
Jolyon in the shadow of a spiritual disorder which could not be so
rounded off and polished....

But Jon, whose room had once been his day nursery, lay awake too, the
prey of a sensation disputed by those who have never known it, "love at
first sight!" He had felt it beginning in h