VII.--FLEUR

To avoid the awkwardness of questions which could not be answered, all
that had been told Jon was:

"There's a girl coming down with Val for the week-end."

For the same reason, all that had been told Fleur was: "We've got a
youngster staying with us."

The two yearlings, as Val called them in his thoughts, met therefore in
a manner which for unpreparedness left nothing to be desired. They were
thus introduced by Holly:

"This is Jon, my little brother; Fleur's a cousin of ours, Jon."

Jon, who was coming in through a French window out of strong sunlight,
was so confounded by the providential nature of this miracle, that he
had time to hear Fleur say calmly: "Oh, how do you do?" as if he had
never seen her, and to understand dimly from the quickest imaginable
little movement of her head that he never had seen her. He bowed
therefore over her hand in an intoxicated manner, and became more silent
than the grave. He knew better than to speak. Once in his early life,
surprised reading by a nightlight, he had said fatuously "I was just
turning over the leaves, Mum," and his mother had replied: "Jon, never
tell stories, because of your face nobody will ever believe them."

The saying had permanently undermined the confidence necessary to the
success of spoken untruth. He listened therefore to Fleur's swift and
rapt allusions to the jolliness of everything, plied her with scones and