"All right."
She had put her two hands on his shoulder, and her forehead down on them; the brim of her hat touched his neck, and he felt it quivering. But, in a sort of paralysis, he made no response. She let go of his shoulder and drew away.
"Well, I'll go, if you don't want me. But I never thought you'd have given me up."
"I HAVEN'T," cried Jon, coming suddenly to life. "I can't. I'll try again."
She swayed towards him. "Jon—I love you! Don't give me up! If you do, I don't know what I shall do—I feel so desperate. What does it matter—all that past—compared with THIS?"
She clung to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. But while he kissed her he saw the sheets of that letter fallen down on the floor of his bedroom—his father's white dead face—his mother kneeling before it. Fleur's whisper: "Make her! Promise! Oh! Jon, try!" seemed childish in his ear. He felt curiously old.
"I promise!" he muttered. "Only, you don't understand."
"She wants to spoil our lives, just because—"
"Yes, of what?"
Again that challenge in his voice, and she did not answer. Her arms tightened round him, and he returned her kisses; but even while he yielded, the poison worked in him, the poison of the letter. Fleur did not know, she did not understand—she misjudged his mother; she came from the enemy's camp! So lovely, and he loved her so—yet, even in her embrace, he could not help the memory of Holly's words: "I think she has a 'having' nature," and his mother's: "My darling boy; don't think of me—think of yourself."