“Go and see her?” he thought, “or ask her to come down here?

What’s her life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake

up things at this time of day.” Again the figure of his cousin

standing with a hand on a front door of a fine olive-green leaped

out, vivid, like one of those figures from old-fashioned clocks

when the hour strikes; and his words sounded in Jolyon’s ears

clearer than any chime: “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told you

once, I tell you again: We are not at home.” The repugnance he

had then felt for Soames—for his flat-cheeked, shaven face full

of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure

slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not

digest—came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase.

“I dislike him,” he thought, “I dislike him to the very roots of

me. And that’s lucky; it’ll make it easier for me to back his

wife.” Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally

averse from what he termed “ructions”; unless angered, he

conformed deeply to that classic description of the she-dog,

“Er’d ruther run than fight.” A little smile became settled in

his beard. Ironical that Soames should come down here—to this

house, built for himself! How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin

of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls and

stairway, appraising everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought:

“I believe the fellow even now would like to be living here. He

could never leave off longing for what he once owned! Well, I

must act, somehow or other; but it’s a bore—a great bore.”

Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene

would see him.

The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower

so wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms.

Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at

the close of the summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who

was not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new

motorcars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically. He

counted these vehicles from his hansom, and made the proportion

of them one in twenty. “They were one in thirty about a year

ago,” he thought; “they’ve come to stay. Just so much more

rattling round of wheels and general stink”—for he was one of

those rather rare Liberals who object to anything new when it

takes a material form; and he instructed his driver to get down

to the river quickly, out of the traffic, desiring to look at the

water through the mellowing screen of plane-trees. At the little

block of flats which stood back some fifty yards from the

Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and went up to the first

floor.

Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!

The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once

apparent to him remembering the threadbare refinement in that

tiny flat eight years ago when he announced her good fortune.

Everything was now fresh, dainty, and smelled of flowers. The

general effect was silvery with touches of black, hydrangea

colour, and gold. “A woman of great taste,” he thought. Time had

dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte. But with Irene

Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his impression.

She appeared to him not a day older, standing there in

mole-coloured velvet corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold

hair, with outstretched hand and a little smile.

“Won’t you sit down?”

He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of

embarrassment.

“You look absolutely unchanged,” he said.

“And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon.”

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still

a comfort to him.

“I’m ancient, but I don’t feel it. That’s one thing about

painting, it keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and

had to have plague to kill him off. Do you know, the first time I

ever saw you I thought of a picture by him?”

“When did you see me for the first time?”

“In the Botanical Gardens.”

“How did you know me, if you’d never seen me before?”

“By someone who came up to you.” He was looking at her hardily,

but her face did not change; and she said quietly:

“Yes; many lives ago.”

“What is _your_ recipe for youth, Irene?”

“People who don’t _live_ are wonderfully preserved.”

H’m! a bitter little saying! People who don’t live! But an

opening, and he took it. “You remember my Cousin Soames?”

He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went

on:

“He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce.

Do you?”

“I?” The word seemed startled out of her. “After twelve years?

It’s rather late. Won’t it be difficult?”

Jolyon looked hard into her face. “Unless....” he said.

“Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since.”

What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words?

Relief, surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!

“And yet,” he said, “I suppose you would give a good deal to be

free, too?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter, now?”

“But if you were to love again?”

“I should love.” In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the

whole philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.

“Well! Is there anything you would like me to say to him?”

“Only that I’m sorry he’s not free. He had his chance once. I

don’t know why he didn’t take it.”

“Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know,

unless we want something in their place; and not always then.”

Irene smiled. “Don’t you, Cousin Jolyon?—I think you do.”

“Of course, I’m a bit of a mongrel—not quite a pure Forsyte. I

never take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on,” said

Jolyon uneasily.

“Well, what does Soames want in place of me now?”

“I don’t know; perhaps children.”

She was silent for a little, looking down.

“Yes,” she murmured; “it’s hard. I would help him to be free if I

could.”

Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast;

so was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. She was so

lovely, and so lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!

“Well,” he said, “I shall have to see Soames. If there’s anything

I can do for you I’m always at your service. You must think of me

as a wretched substitute for my father. At all events I’ll let

you know what happens when I speak to Soames. He may supply the

material himself.”

She shook her head.

“You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing. I should like

him to be free; but I don’t see what I can do.”

“Nor I at the moment,” said Jolyon, and soon after took his

leave. He went down to his hansom. Half-past three! Soames would

be at his office still.

“To the Poultry,” he called through the trap. In front of the

Houses of Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling,

“Grave situation in the Transvaal!” but the cries hardly roused

him, absorbed in recollection of that very beautiful figure, of

her soft dark glance, and the words: “I have never had one

since.” What on earth did such a woman do with her life,

back-watered like this? Solitary, unprotected, with every man’s

hand against her or rather—reaching out to grasp her at the least

sign. And year after year she went on like that!

The word “Poultry” above the passing citizens brought him back to

reality.

“Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,” in black letters on a ground the

colour of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went

up the stone stairs muttering: “Fusty musty ownerships! Well, we

couldn’t do without them!”

“I want Mr. Soames Forsyte,” he said to the boy who opened the

door.

“What name?”

“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”

The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte

with a beard, and vanished.

The offices of “Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte” had slowly absorbed

the offices of “Tooting and Bowles,” and occupied the whole of

the first floor.

The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of

managing and articled clerks. The complete retirement of James

some six years ago had accelerated business, to which the final

touch of speed had been imparted when Bustard dropped off, worn

out, as many believed, by the suit of “Fryer _versus_ Forsyte,”

more in Chancery than ever and less likely to benefit its

beneficiaries. Soames, with his saner grasp of actualities, had

never permitted it to worry him; on the contrary, he had long

perceived that Providence had presented him therein with £200 a

year net in perpetuity, and—why not?

When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of

holdings in Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was

going to advise his companies to put on the market at once,

before other companies did the same. He looked round, sidelong,

and said:

“How are you? Just one minute. Sit down, won’t you?” And having

entered three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he

turned towards Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....

“Yes?” he said.

“I have seen her.”

Soames frowned.

“Well?”

“She has remained faithful to memory.”

Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a

dusky yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute!

“I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free. Twelve years is

a long time. You know your law, and what chance it gives you.”

Soames uttered a curious little grunt, and the two remained a

full minute without speaking. “Like wax!” thought Jolyon,

watching that close face, where the flush was fast subsiding.

“He’ll never give me a sign of what he’s thinking, or going to

do. Like wax!” And he transferred his gaze to a plan of that

flourishing town, “By-Street on Sea,” the future existence of

which lay exposed on the wall to the possessive instincts of the

firm’s clients. The whimsical thought flashed through him: “I

wonder if I shall get a bill of costs for this—‘To attending Mr.

Jolyon Forsyte in the matter of my divorce, to receiving his

account of his visit to my wife, and to advising him to go and

see her again, sixteen and eightpence.’”

Suddenly Soames said: “I can’t go on like this. I tell you, I

can’t go on like this.” His eyes were shifting from side to side,

like an animal’s when it looks for way of escape. “He really

suffers,” thought Jolyon; “I’ve no business to forget that, just

because I don’t like him.”

“Surely,” he said gently, “it lies with yourself. A man can

always put these things through if he’ll take it on himself.”

Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come

from somewhere very deep.

“Why should I suffer more than I’ve suffered already? Why should

I?”

Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his

instinct rebelled; he could not have said why.

“Your father,” went on Soames, “took an interest in her—why,

goodness knows! And I suppose you do too?” he gave Jolyon a sharp

look. “It seems to me that one only has to do another person a

wrong to get all the sympathy. I don’t know in what way I was to

blame—I’ve never known. I always treated her well. I gave her

everything she could wish for. I wanted her.”

Again Jolyon’s reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head.

“What is it?” he thought; “there must be something wrong in me.

Yet if there is, I’d rather be wrong than right.”

“After all,” said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, “she was

my wife.”

In a flash the thought went through his listener: “There it is!

Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But—human beings! Pah!”

“You have to look at facts,” he said drily, “or rather the want

of them.”

Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.

“The want of them?” he said. “Yes, but I am not so sure.”

“I beg your pardon,” replied Jolyon; “I’ve told you what she

said. It was explicit.”

“My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in

her word. We shall see.”

Jolyon got up.

“Good-bye,” he said curtly.

“Good-bye,” returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to

understand the look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his

cousin’s face. He sought Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of

mind, as though the skin of his moral being had been scraped; and

all the way down in the train he thought of Irene in her lonely

flat, and of Soames in his lonely office, and of the strange

paralysis of life that lay on them both. “In chancery!” he

thought. “Both their necks in chancery—and her’s so pretty!”

CHAPTER IX VAL HEARS THE NEWS

The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous

feature in the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke

two and kept one, it was the latter event which caused him, if

anything, the greater surprise, while jogging back to town from

Robin Hill after his ride with Holly. She had been even prettier

than he had thought her yesterday, on her silver-roan,

long-tailed “palfrey”. and it seemed to him, self-critical in the

brumous October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only

his boots had shone throughout their two-hour companionship. He

took out his new gold “hunter”—present from James—and looked not

at the time, but at sections of his face in the glittering back

of its opened case. He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and

it displeased him, for it must have displeased her. Crum never

had any spots. Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade

of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not had the faintest desire to

unbosom himself to Holly about his father. His father lacked

poetry, the stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time

in his nineteen years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that

almost mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the

woman of uncertain age—both seemed to Val completely “off,” fresh

from communion with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of

his. She rode “Jolly well,” too, so that it had been all the more

flattering that she had let him lead her where he would in the

long gallops of Richmond Park, though she knew them so much

better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was mystified by

the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say “an awful

lot of fetching things” if he had but the chance again, and the

thought that he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and

to Oxford on the twelfth—“to that beastly exam,” too—without the

faintest chance of first seeing her again, caused darkness to

settle on his spirit even more quickly than on the evening. He

should write to her, however, and she had promised to answer.

Perhaps, too, she would come up to Oxford to see her brother.

That thought was like the first star, which came out as he rode

into Padwick’s livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.

He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden

some twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him

chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the

favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, “Put the

gee down to my account,” he walked away, a little wide at the

knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty little cane. “I

don’t feel a bit inclined to go out,” he thought. “I wonder if

mother will stand fizz for my last night!” With “fizz” and

recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother

scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his

Uncle Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his

uncle said:

“He’d better be told.”

At those words, which meant something about his father, of

course, Val’s first thought was of Holly. Was it anything

beastly? His mother began speaking.

“Your father,” she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while

her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, “your

father, my dear boy, has—is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to

South America. He—he’s left us.”

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he

fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then,

suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched

within him, and he _was_ sorry. One’s father belonged to one,

could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he

always been the “bounder” of the Pandemonium promenade. There

were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at

school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

“But why?” he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he

had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and

he burst out:

“All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?”

“A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.”

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his

uncle—that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a

guarantee against the consequences of having a father, even

against the Dartie blood in his own veins. The flat-checked

visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.

“It won’t be public, will it?”

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued

to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public

Press.

“Can’t it be done quietly somehow? It’s so disgusting for—for

mother, and—and everybody.”

“Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure.”

“Yes—but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn’t want to

marry again.”

Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his

schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of—Holly!

Unbearable! What was to be gained by it?

“Do you, Mother?” he said sharply.

Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the

one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire

chair in which she had been sitting. She saw that her son would

be against her unless he was told everything; and, yet, how could

she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she

stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this

embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not

wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!

Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth

surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his

nephew, he began:

“You don’t understand what your mother has had to put up with

these twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val.” And

glancing up sideways at Winifred, he added:

“Shall I tell him?”

Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against

her! Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father!

Clenching her lips, she nodded.

Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:

“He has always been a burden round your mother’s neck. She has

paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk,

abused and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires

with a dancer.” And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those

words on the boy, he went on quickly:

“He took your mother’s pearls to give to her.”

Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred

cried out:

“That’ll do, Soames—stop!”

In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For

debts, drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the

pearls—no! That was too much! And suddenly he found his mother’s

hand squeezing his.

“You see,” he heard Soames say, “we can’t have it all begin over

again. There’s a limit; we must strike while the iron’s hot.”

Val freed his hand.

“But—you’re—never going to bring out that about the pearls! I

couldn’t stand that—I simply couldn’t!”

Winifred cried out:

“No, no, Val—oh no! That’s only to show you how impossible your

father is!” And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out

a cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh!

it was unbearable—just as he was going up to Oxford!

“Can’t mother be protected without?” he said. “I could look after

her. It could always be done later if it was really necessary.”

A smile played for a moment round Soames’ lips, and became

bitter.

“You don’t know what you’re talking of; nothing’s so fatal as

delay in such matters.”

“Why?”

“I tell you, boy, nothing’s so fatal. I know from experience.”

His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him

round-eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of

feeling. Oh! Yes—he remembered now—there had been an Aunt Irene,

and something had happened—something which people kept dark; he

had heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.

“I don’t want to speak ill of your father,” Soames went on

doggedly, “but I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll be

back on your mother’s hands before a year’s over. You can imagine

what that will mean to her and to all of you after this. The only

thing is to cut the knot for good.”

In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at

his mother’s face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight

into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered

most.

“All right, mother,” he said; “we’ll back you up. Only I’d like

to know when it’ll be. It’s my first term, you know. I don’t want

to be up there when it comes off.”

“Oh! my dear boy,” murmured Winifred, “it _is_ a bore for you.”

So, by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face,

was the most poignant regret. “When will it be, Soames?”

“Can’t tell—not for months. We must get restitution first.”

“What the deuce is that?” thought Val. “What silly brutes lawyers

are! Not for months! I know one thing: I’m not going to dine in!”

And he said:

“Awfully sorry, mother, I’ve got to go out to dinner now.”

Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully;

they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the

expression of feeling.

Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and

depressed. And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover

that he had only eighteen-pence. One couldn’t dine off

eighteen-pence, and he was very hungry. He looked longingly at

the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the

best with his father! Those pearls! There was no getting over

them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the

hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were

only two places where he could go—his grandfather’s in Park Lane,

and Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less

deplorable? At his grandfather’s he would probably get a better

dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy’s they gave you a

jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided

on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford

without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly

fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been there,

of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn’t help that.

He rang the bell.

“Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d’you think?”

“They’re just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad

to see you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you

nowadays.”

Val grinned.

“Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let’s have

fizz.”

Warmson smiled faintly—in his opinion Val was a young limb.

“I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val.”

“I say,” Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, “I’m not at

school any more, you know.”

Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond

the stag’s-horn coat stand, with the words:

“Mr. Valerus, ma’am.”

“Confound him!” thought Val, entering.

A warm embrace, a “Well, Val!” from Emily, and a rather quavery

“So there you are at last!” from James, restored his sense of

dignity.

“Why didn’t you let us know? There’s only saddle of mutton.

Champagne, Warmson,” said Emily. And they went in.

At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which

so many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily

at the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the

loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children

were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. “I hope I shall kick the

bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,” he thought. “Poor

old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!” And lowering his voice while

his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the

soup, he said to Emily:

“It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.”

“Yes, dear boy.”

“Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything

to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on

it?”

“Hush, my dear!” murmured Emily; “we’re keeping it from your

grandfather.”

James’ voice sounded from the other end.

“What’s that? What are you talking about?”

“About Val’s college,” returned Emily. “Young Pariser was there,

James; you remember—he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo

afterwards.”

James muttered that he did not know—Val must look after himself

up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his

grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully

glimmered.

“What I’m afraid of,” said Val to his plate, “is of being hard

up, you know.”

By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear

of insecurity for his grandchildren.

“Well,” said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,

“you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.”

“Of course,” murmured Val; “if it is good. How much will it be,

Grandfather?”

“Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at

your age.”

Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. “I

don’t know what your young cousin has,” said James; “he’s up

there. His father’s a rich man.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Val hardily.

“I?” replied James, flustered. “I’ve got so many expenses. Your

father....” and he was silent.

“Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there

with Uncle Soames—ripping stables.”

“Ah!” murmured James profoundly. “That house—I knew how it would

be!” And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.

His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the

Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a

whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of

Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and

said:

“Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?” And, receiving her

nod, went on: “I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What

became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully

worked-up about something to-night.”

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught

James’ ear.

“What’s that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his

lips. “Who’s been seeing her? I knew we hadn’t heard the last of

that.”

“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody’s been seeing

anybody.”

James put down his fork.

“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you’d tell me of it.

Is Soames getting a divorce?”

“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much

too sensible.”

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white

whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.

“She—she was always....” he said, and with that enigmatic remark

the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later,

when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury,

and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and

his grandfather’s kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips

pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to

weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.

“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on

mother’s getting a divorce?”

“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an

exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He’s sure to

know best.”

“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I

remember she was jolly good-looking.”

“She—er....” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don’t talk about

it.”

“Well, I don’t want everybody at Oxford to know about our

affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it’s a brutal idea. Why couldn’t

father be prevented without its being made public?”

Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of

divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those

whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain

notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it

no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and

a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to

its substance.

“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she’s quite free,

Val. Good-night, my dear boy; and don’t wear loud waistcoats up

at Oxford, they’re not the thing just now. Here’s a little

present.”

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his

heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park

Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were

rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his

pocket an impulse to “see life” beset him; but he had not gone

forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly’s shy face,

and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before

him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure

of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I’m going

home!”

CHAPTER X SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and

summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many

looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that

Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat,

and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take

them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he

could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She

was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable

words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the

veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that

there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood;

yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers

to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to

produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions,

so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture

he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care,

making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that

his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three

times he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any

knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone

was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected,

too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would

take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter

went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the

dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured

pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of

pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little.

His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,

and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone

through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked

out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame

Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette

would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to

the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame

Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in

greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather

pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure.

Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open

french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in

sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when

youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered

the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special

Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee

served on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted

creme de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with

just a suspicion of “the conscious beauty” creeping into them.

“Yes,” thought Soames, “another year of London and that sort of

life, and she’ll be spoiled.”

Madame was in sedate French raptures. “_Adorable! Le soleil est

si bon!_ How everything is _chic_, is it not, Annette? Monsieur

is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up

at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the

river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so

ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a

sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards

Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an

autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother’s black

amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought:

“How—when—where—can I say—what?” They did not yet even know that

he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his

every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand

that he wished for Annette’s hand, it would be dropping into some

other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the

Transvaal.

“There’ll be war,” he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

“_Ces pauvres gens bergers!_” Could they not be left to

themselves?

Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British

could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a

little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the

Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had

spoken to her of that.

“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand

in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty

go.”

“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”

“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these

threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by

Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she

said:

“I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She

was sensible!

“Of course,” he said, “we must act with moderation. I’m no jingo.

We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my

pictures?” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon

perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve,

that remarkable study of a “Hay-cart going Home,” as if it were a

lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view

the jewel of his collection—an Israels whose price he had watched

ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top

value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view

it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin

taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked

predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At the

end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather

ashamed—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte

stopped before it.

“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!” Soames took advantage of that

moment. Very gently touching Annette’s arm, he said:

“How do you like my place, Annette?”

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full,

looked down, and murmured:

“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!”

“Perhaps some day—” Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those

cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate

curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One

must be sure of one’s ground—much surer! “If I hold off,” he

thought, “it will tantalise her.” And he crossed over to Madame

Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

“Yes, that’s quite a good example of his later work. You must

come again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come

and spend a night.”

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By

moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

“Thou art sentimental, _Maman!_”

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of

the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there

was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use

sentiment? And yet...!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train.

To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette’s

fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through

the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan,” he

said to the coachman; “I’ll walk.” And he strode out into the

darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing

see-saw within him. “_Bon soir, monsieur!_” How softly she had

said it. To know what was in her mind! The French—they were like

cats—one could tell nothing! But—how pretty! What a perfect young

thing to hold in one’s arms! What a mother for his heir! And he

thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a

French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play

with it and buffet it confound them!

The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows

deepened in the water. “I will and must be free,” he thought. “I

won’t hang about any longer. I’ll go and see Irene. If you want

things done, do them yourself. I must live again—live and move

and have my being.” And in echo to that queer biblicality

church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.

CHAPTER XI AND VISITS THE PAST

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to

do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than

anything he had yet undertaken in his life—save perhaps his

birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly

because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had

failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine

to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old

Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived.

He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read

the name, “Mrs. Irene Heron”—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so

she used that again, did she?—he stepped back into the road to

look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming

through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being

played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a

grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano,

making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not

enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret,

at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she

playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more

undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his

tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. “_I_ have no cause to be

afraid,” he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was

he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal

meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that

fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back

into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his

heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell.

When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by

the scent which came—that perfume—from away back in the past,

bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used

to enter, of a house he used to own—perfume of dried rose-leaves

and honey!

“Say, Mr. Forsyte,” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.”

He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where

the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls,

carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all

ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: “Shall I go in with my

overcoat on, or take it off?” The music ceased; the maid said

from the doorway:

“Will you walk in, sir?”

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still

silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had

risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys

as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for

a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano-candle

fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow. She was in a

black evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her

shoulders—he did not remember ever having seen her in black, and

the thought passed through him: “She dresses even when she’s

alone.”

“You!” he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal

served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never

thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so

passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not

seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had

imagined himself speaking and acting, half as man of business,

half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the presence not

of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and

elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of

defensive irony welled up in him.

“Yes, it’s a queer visit! I hope you’re well.”

“Thank you. Will you sit down?”

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a

window-seat, sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap.

Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes,

hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with

silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

“You have not changed,” he said.

“No? What have you come for?”

“To discuss things.”

“I have heard what you want from your cousin.”

“Well?”

“I am willing. I have always been.”

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her

figure watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A

thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred,

and....

“Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on

which I can act. The law must be complied with.”

“I have none to give you that you don’t know of.”

“Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?”

“I don’t suppose you will believe anything I say; but it’s the

truth.”

Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed;

now he perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was

more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little

fuller—no! She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as

it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been

sheer passive resistance. “Ah!” he thought, “that’s her

independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!”

“I suppose you’re comfortably off now?” he said.

“Thank you, yes.”

“Why didn’t you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of

everything.”

A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.

“You are still my wife,” said Soames. Why he said that, what he

meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a

truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She

rose from the window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly

still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she

turned to the window and threw it open.

“Why do that?” he said sharply. “You’ll catch cold in that dress.

I’m not dangerous.” And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it—faintly, bitterly.

“It was—habit.”

“Rather odd habit,” said Soames as bitterly. “Shut the window!”

She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this

woman—this—wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat

there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and

moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her

eyes met his unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what

a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair!

And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.

“You had better tell me,” he said; “it’s to your advantage to be

free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old.”

“I _have_ told you.”

“Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing—nobody?”

“Nobody. You must go to your own life.”

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to

the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in

their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.

“That won’t do,” he said. “You deserted me. In common justice

it’s for you....”

He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:

“Yes. Why didn’t you divorce me then? Should I have cared?”

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity.

What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite

alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she

had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while

he stared at her.

“Why couldn’t you have made me a good wife?” he said.

“Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will

find some way perhaps. You needn’t mind my name, I have none to

lose. Now I think you had better go.”

A sense of defeat—of being defrauded of his self-justification,

and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself,

beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he

reached up, took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl,

reversed it, and said:

“Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at

Jobson’s.” And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many

years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained

staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past. Her

voice roused him.

“Take it. I don’t want it.”

Soames put it back on the shelf.

“Will you shake hands?” he said.

A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold

to his rather feverish touch. “She’s made of ice,” he

thought—“she was always made of ice!” But even as that thought

darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of

her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had

never been for him, were struggling to show its presence. And he

turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a

whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the

empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows

of the plane-tree leaves—confused, flurried, sore at heart, and

vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose

consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought

suddenly assailed him if instead of, “I think you had better go,”

she had said, “I think you had better stay!” What should he have

felt, what would he have done? That cursed attraction of her was

there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and

bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a

sign, a touch. “I was a fool to go!” he muttered. “I’ve advanced

nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!” Memory, flown back

to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.

She had not deserved to keep her beauty—the beauty he had owned

and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of

his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated

the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life,

wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the

mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to

upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no

wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last

twelve years. So Bosinney—cursed be his memory!—had lived on all

this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of

that knowledge or no.

Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline

ran: “Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!” Suzerainty! “Just

like her!” he thought: “she always did. Suzerainty! I still have

it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little

flat!”

CHAPTER XII ON FORSYTE ’CHANGE

Soames belonged to two clubs, “The Connoisseurs,” which he put on

his cards and seldom visited, and “The Remove,” which he did not

put on his cards and frequented. He had joined this Liberal

institution five years ago, having made sure that its members

were now nearly all sound Conservatives in heart and pocket, if

not in principle. Uncle Nicholas had put him up. The fine

reading-room was decorated in the Adam style.

On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news

about the Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down

seven-sixteenths since the morning. He was turning away to seek

the reading-room when a voice behind him said:

“Well, Soames, that went off all right.”

It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away

collar, with a black tie passed through a ring. Heavens! How

young and dapper he looked at eighty-two!

“I think Roger’d have been pleased,” his uncle went on. “The

thing was very well done. Blackley’s? I’ll make a note of them.

Buxton’s done me no good. These Boers are upsetting me—that

fellow Chamberlain’s driving the country into war. What do you

think?”

“Bound to come,” murmured Soames.

Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very

rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his

lips. This business had revived all his Liberal principles.

“I mistrust that chap; he’s a stormy petrel. House-property will

go down if there’s war. You’ll have trouble with Roger’s estate.

I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He

was an opinionated beggar.”

“There was a pair of you!” thought Soames. But he never argued

with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as “a

long-headed chap,” and the legal care of their property.

“They tell me at Timothy’s,” said Nicholas, lowering his voice,

“that Dartie has gone off at last. That’ll be a relief to your

father. He was a rotten egg.”

Again Soames nodded. If there was a subject on which the Forsytes

really agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.

“You take care,” said Nicholas, “or he’ll turn up again. Winifred

had better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving

what’s gone bad.”

Soames looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the

interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a

personal allusion in those words.

“I’m advising her,” he said shortly.

“Well,” said Nicholas, “the brougham’s waiting; I must get home.

I’m very poorly. Remember me to your father.”

And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down

the steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat

by the junior porter.

“I’ve never known Uncle Nicholas other than ‘very poorly,’” mused

Soames, “or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family!

Judging by him, I’ve got thirty-eight years of health before me.

Well, I’m not going to waste them.” And going over to a mirror he

stood looking at his face. Except for a line or two, and three or

four grey hairs in his little dark moustache, had he aged any

more than Irene? The prime of life—he and she in the very prime

of life! And a fantastic thought shot into his mind. Absurd!

Idiotic! But again it came. And genuinely alarmed by the

recurrence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which

presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine.

Eleven stone! He had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What

age was she? Nearly thirty-seven—not too old to have a child—not

at all! Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered

her birthday well—he had always observed it religiously, even

that last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was

almost certain she was faithless. Four birthdays in his house. He

had looked forward to them, because his gifts had meant a

semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth. Except,

indeed, that last birthday—which had tempted him to be too

religious! And he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves

on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend

the sense. And then he thought suddenly: “I could send her a

present for her birthday. After all, we’re Christians!

Couldn’t!—couldn’t we join up again!” And he uttered a deep sigh

sitting there. Annette! Ah! but between him and Annette was the

need for that wretched divorce suit! And how?

“A man can always work these things, if he’ll take it on

himself,” Jolyon had said.

But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole

career as a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair! It was

quixotic! Twelve years’ separation in which he had taken no steps

to free himself put out of court the possibility of using her

conduct with Bosinney as a ground for divorcing her. By doing

nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced, even if the evidence

could now be gathered, which was more than doubtful. Besides, his

own pride would never let him use that old incident, he had

suffered from it too much. No! Nothing but fresh misconduct on

her part—but she had denied it; and—almost—he had believed her.

Hung up! Utterly hung up!

He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of

constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this

going on in him! And, taking coat and hat again, he went out,

moving eastward. In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some

special commotion travelling towards him out of the mouth of the

Strand. It materialised in newspaper men calling out so loudly

that no words whatever could be heard. He stopped to listen, and

one came by.

“Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war!”

Soames bought the paper. There it was in the stop press...! His

first thought was: “The Boers are committing suicide.” His

second: “Is there anything still I ought to sell?” If so he had

missed the chance—there would certainly be a slump in the city

to-morrow. He swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance. That

ultimatum was insolent—sooner than let it pass he was prepared to

lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it

would take three months at least to bring them to heel. There

weren’t the troops out there; always behind time, the Government!

Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking

everybody up? Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he

thought with alarm of his father. They would cry it down Park

Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got in and told the man to drive

there.

James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating

the news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by

after-thought to say:

“What do you think of it, Warmson?”

The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames

had taken off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in

a low voice: “Well, sir, they ’aven’t a chance, of course; but

I’m told they’re very good shots. I’ve got a son in the

Inniskillings.”

“You, Warmson? Why, I didn’t know you were married.”

“No, sir. I don’t talk of it. I expect he’ll be going out.”

The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so

little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the

slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one

personally. Born in the year of the Crimean War, he had only come

to consciousness by the time the Indian Mutiny was over; since

then the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely

professional, quite unconnected with the Forsytes and all they

stood for in the body politic. This war would surely be no

exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of the

Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other—it had

always been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction

about the Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform

with silver about it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he

remembered, had once on a time joined the Militia, but had given

it up because his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about

his “wasting his time peacocking about in a uniform.” Recently he

had heard somewhere that young Nicholas’ eldest, very young

Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. “No,” thought Soames, mounting

the stairs slowly, “there’s nothing in that!”

He stood on the landing outside his parents’ bed and dressing

rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a

reassuring word. Opening the landing window, he listened. The

rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the

thought, “If these motor-cars increase, it’ll affect house

property,” he was about to pass on up to the room always kept

ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing

call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the house! He

knocked on his mother’s door and went in.

His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the

white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink,

and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and

pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned

shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and

distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the

window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down,

squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room

reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.

“All right!” said Soames, “it’s not a fire. The Boers have

declared war—that’s all.”

Emily stopped her spraying.

“Oh!” was all she said, and looked at James.

Soames, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently

from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were

working in him.

“H’m!” he muttered suddenly, “I shan’t live to see the end of

this.”

“Nonsense, James! It’ll be over by Christmas.”

“What do you know about it?” James answered her with asperity.

“It’s a pretty mess at this time of night, too!” He lapsed into

silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him

to say: “I can’t tell—I don’t know; I knew how it would be!” But

he did not. The grey eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in

the room; then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the

knees were drawn up suddenly to a great height.

“They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow

Gladstone and his Majuba.”

The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice,

something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said: “I shall

never see the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have

to die before I know she’s won.” And in spite of the feeling that

James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched.

Soames went up to the bedside and stroked his father’s hand which

had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with

veins.

“Mark my words!” said James, “consols will go to par. For all I

know, Val may go and enlist.”

“Oh, come, James!” cried Emily, “you talk as if there were

danger.”

Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.

“Well,” he muttered, “I told you how it would be. I don’t know,

I’m sure—nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my

boy?”

The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal

degree of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping

in the house, Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.

The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy’s

had known for many a year. On national occasions, such as this,

it was, indeed, almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that

there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it

necessary to assure each other that there was none.

Nicholas was there early. He had seen Soames the night

before—Soames had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was

in his dotage—why, he must be seventy-five if he was a day!

(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said? He had had a

fit after Majuba. These Boers were a grasping lot! The

dark-haired Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the

contradictious touch which became the free spirit of a daughter

of Roger, chimed in:

“Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the Uitlanders?” What

price, indeed! A new expression, and believed to be due to her

brother George.

Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Dear

Mrs. MacAnder’s boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could

call him grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her _mots_,

scandalising, and so frequently repeated:

“Well, his father’s a Scotchman, and his mother’s a cat.”

Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as

for Nicholas, he pouted—witticism of which he was not the author

was hardly to his taste. Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived,

followed almost immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son,

Nicholas rose.

“Well, I must be going,” he said, “Nick here will tell you

what’ll win the race.” And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a

pillar of accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was

no more addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he

departed. Dear Nicholas! What race was that? Or was it only one

of his jokes? He was a wonderful man for his age! How many lumps

would dear Marian take? And how were Giles and Jesse? Aunt Juley

supposed their Yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the

coast, though of course the Boers had no ships. But one never

knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially

since that dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so

terribly that he had made no investments for months afterwards.

It was the ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after

everything had been done for them—Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he

was so nice, Mrs. MacAnder had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner

sent out to talk to them—such a clever man! She didn’t know what

they wanted.

But at this moment occurred one of those sensations—so precious

at Timothy’s—which great occasions sometimes bring forth:

“Miss June Forsyte.”

Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from

smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at

the return of a prodigal June! Well, this _was_ a surprise! Dear

June—after all these years! And how well she was looking! Not

changed at all! It was almost on their lips to add, “And how is

your dear grandfather?” forgetting in that giddy moment that poor

dear Jolyon had been in his grave for seven years now.

Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June,

with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like

flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a

bead-worked seat, for all the world as if ten years had not

elapsed since she had been to see them—ten years of travel and

independence and devotion to lame ducks. Those ducks of late had

been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors, so that her

impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic

outlook had become intense. Indeed, she had almost ceased to

believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a

sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort

to the roomful. She had not expected to meet any of them but “the

poor old things”; and why she had come to see _them_ she hardly

knew, except that, while on her way from Oxford Street to a

studio in Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with

compunction as two long-neglected old lame ducks.

Aunt Juley broke the hush again. “We’ve just been saying, dear,

how dreadful it is about these Boers! And what an impudent thing

of that old Kruger!”

“Impudent!” said June. “I think he’s quite right. What business

have we to meddle with them? If he turned out all those wretched

Uitlanders it would serve them right. They’re only after money.”

The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:

“What? Are you a pro-Boer?” (undoubtedly the first use of that

expression).

“Well! Why can’t we leave them alone?” said June, just as, in the

open doorway, the maid said “Mr. Soames Forsyte.” Sensation on

sensation! Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how

June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly

suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that

old and lamentable affair of her fiance Bosinney with Soames’

wife. They were seen to just touch each other’s hands, and look

each at the other’s left eye only. Aunt Juley came at once to the

rescue:

“Dear June is so original. Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers

are not to blame.”

“They only want their independence,” said June; “and why

shouldn’t they have it?”

“Because,” answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side,

“they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty.”

“Suzerainty!” repeated June scornfully; “we shouldn’t like

anyone’s suzerainty over us.”

“They got advantages in payment,” replied Soames; “a contract is

a contract.”

“Contracts are not always just,” fumed out June, “and when

they’re not, they ought to be broken. The Boers are much the

weaker. We could afford to be generous.”

Soames sniffed. “That’s mere sentiment,” he said.

Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of

disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:

“What lovely weather it has been for the time of year?”

But June was not to be diverted.

“I don’t know why sentiment should be sneered at. It’s the best

thing in the world.” She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley

had to intervene again:

“Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames?”

Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed

her. Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases

would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they

all knew of June’s predilection for “genius” not yet on its legs,

and her contempt for “success” unless she had had a finger in

securing it.

“One or two,” he muttered.

But June’s face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing

its chance. Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of

Eric Cobbley—her last lame duck? And she promptly opened her

attack: Did Soames know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the

coming man.

Oh, yes, Soames knew his work. It was in his view “splashy,” and

would never get hold of the public.

June blazed up.

“Of course it won’t; that’s the last thing one would wish for. I

thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer.”

“Of course Soames is a connoisseur,” Aunt Juley said hastily; “he

has wonderful taste—he can always tell beforehand what’s going to

be successful.”

“Oh!” gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, “I

hate that standard of success. Why can’t people buy things

because they like them?”

“You mean,” said Francie, “because _you_ like them.”

And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently

that Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn’t

know if they were any use.

“Well, good-bye, Auntie,” said June; “I must get on,” and kissing

her aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said “Good-bye”

again, and went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if

everyone had sighed.

The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:

“Mr. James Forsyte.”

James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat

which gave him a fictitious bulk.

Everyone stood up. James was so old; and he had not been at

Timothy’s for nearly two years.

“It’s hot in here,” he said.

Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help

admiring the glossy way his father was turned out. James sat

down, all knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.

“What’s the meaning of that?” he said.

Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew

that he was referring to June. His eyes searched his son’s face.

“I thought I’d come and see for myself. What have they answered

Kruger?”

Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.

“‘Instant action by our Government—state of war existing!’”

“Ah!” said James, and sighed. “I was afraid they’d cut and run

like old Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time.”

All stared at him. James! Always fussy, nervous, anxious! James

with his continual, “I told you how it would be!” and his

pessimism, and his cautious investments. There was something

uncanny about such resolution in this the oldest living Forsyte.

“Where’s Timothy?” said James. “He ought to pay attention to

this.”

Aunt Juley said she didn’t know; Timothy had not said much at

lunch to-day. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the

room, and Francie said rather maliciously:

“The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James.”

“H’m!” muttered James. “Where do you get your information? Nobody

tells me.”

Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest)

was now going to drill regularly.

“Ah!” muttered James, and stared before him—his thoughts were on

Val. “He’s got to look after his mother,” he said, “he’s got no

time for drilling and that, with that father of his.” This

cryptic saying produced silence, until he spoke again.

“What did June want here?” And his eyes rested with suspicion on

all of them in turn. “Her father’s a rich man now.” The

conversation turned on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last. It

was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now

that his wife was dead; his water-colours were on the line, and

he was a successful man. Francie went so far as to say:

“I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear.”

Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day,

where James was sitting. He had always been very amiable; what

did Soames think?

Knowing that Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, all felt the delicacy of

this question, and looked at Soames with interest. A faint pink

had come up in his cheeks.

“He’s going grey,” he said.

Indeed! Had Soames seen him? Soames nodded, and the pink

vanished.

James said suddenly: “Well—I don’t know, I can’t tell.”

It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that

there was something behind everything, that nobody responded. But

at this moment Aunt Hester returned.

“Timothy,” she said in a low voice, “Timothy has bought a map,

and he’s put in—he’s put in three flags.”

Timothy had...! A sigh went round the company.

If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well!—it showed

what the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good

as over.

CHAPTER XIII JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS

Jolyon stood at the window in Holly’s old night nursery,

converted into a studio, not because it had a north light, but

for its view over the prospect away to the Grand Stand at Epsom.

He shifted to the side window which overlooked the stableyard,

and whistled down to the dog Balthasar who lay for ever under the

clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged his tail. “Poor old

boy!” thought Jolyon, shifting back to the other window.

He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to

prosecute trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever

acute, disturbed in his sense of compassion which was easily

excited, and with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty

had received some definite embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of

the old oak-tree, its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been

plentiful and hot this summer. As with trees, so with men’s

lives! “_I_ ought to live long,” thought Jolyon; “I’m getting

mildewed for want of heat. If I can’t work, I shall be off to

Paris.” But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how

could he go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do.

“I’m her trustee. I can’t leave her unprotected,” he thought. It

had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still

see Irene in her little drawing-room which he had only twice

entered. Her beauty must have a sort of poignant harmony! No

literal portrait would ever do her justice; the essence of her

was—ah I what?... The noise of hoofs called him back to the other

window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed

“palfrey.” She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather

silent lately; getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her

future, as they all did—youngsters!

Time was certainly the devil! And with the feeling that to waste

this swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took

up his brush. But it was no use; he could not concentrate his

eye—besides, the light was going. “I’ll go up to town,” he

thought. In the hall a servant met him.

“A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron.”

Extraordinary coincidence! Passing into the picture-gallery, as

it was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window.

She came towards him saying:

“I’ve been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden.

I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon.”

“You couldn’t trespass here,” replied Jolyon; “history makes that

impossible. I was just thinking of you.”

Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere

spirituality—serener, completer, more alluring.

“History!” she answered; “I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was

for ever. Well, it isn’t. Only aversion lasts.”

Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?

“Yes!” he said, “aversion’s deeper than love or hate because it’s

a natural product of the nerves, and we don’t change them.”

“I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a

thing that frightened me. He said: ‘You are still my wife!’”

“What!” ejaculated Jolyon. “You ought not to live alone.” And he

continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where

Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was

why so many people looked on it as immoral.

“What more?”

“He asked me to shake hands.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. When he came in I’m sure he didn’t want to; he changed

while he was there.”

“Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone.”

“I know no woman I could ask; and I can’t take a lover to order,

Cousin Jolyon.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Jolyon. “What a damnable position! Will you

stay to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted

to go up this evening.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music,

contrasting the English and French characters and the difference

in their attitude to Art. But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges

of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept

pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the

turn of her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him

now and then, the lure of her whole figure, made a deeper

impression than the remarks they exchanged. Unconsciously he held

himself straighter, walked with a more elastic step.

In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what

she did with her days.

Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano,

translated from the French.

She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which

supplemented her income a little. She seldom went out in the

evening. “I’ve been living alone so long, you see, that I don’t

mind it a bit. I believe I’m naturally solitary.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Jolyon. “Do you know many people?”

“Very few.”

At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door

of her mansions. Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:

“You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must

let me know everything that happens. Good-bye, Irene.”

“Good-bye,” she answered softly.

Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked

her to dine and go to the theatre with him. Solitary, starved,

hung-up life that she had! “Hotch Potch Club,” he said through

the trap-door. As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a

man in top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to

the wall that he seemed to be scraping it.

“By Jove!” thought Jolyon; “Soames himself! What’s _he_ up to

now?” And, stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and

retraced his steps to where he could see the entrance to the

mansions. Soames had halted in front of them, and was looking up

at the light in her windows. “If he goes in,” thought Jolyon,

“what shall I do? What have I the right to do?” What the fellow

had said was true. She was still his wife, absolutely without

protection from annoyance! “Well, if he goes in,” he thought, “I

follow.” And he began moving towards the mansions. Again Soames

advanced; he was in the very entrance now. But suddenly he

stopped, spun round on his heel, and came back towards the river.

“What now?” thought Jolyon. “In a dozen steps he’ll recognise

me.” And he turned tail. His cousin’s footsteps kept pace with

his own. But he reached his cab, and got in before Soames had

turned the corner. “Go on!” he said through the trap. Soames’

figure ranged up alongside.

“Hansom!” he said. “Engaged? Hallo!”

“Hallo!” answered Jolyon. “You?”

The quick suspicion on his cousin’s face, white in the lamplight,

decided him.

“I can give you a lift,” he said, “if you’re going West.”

“Thanks,” answered Soames, and got in.

“I’ve been seeing Irene,” said Jolyon when the cab had started.

“Indeed!”

“You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand.”

“I did,” said Soames; “she’s my wife, you know.”

The tone, the half-lifted sneering lip, roused sudden anger in

Jolyon; but he subdued it.

“You ought to know best,” he said, “but if you want a divorce

it’s not very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can’t run with

the hare and hunt with the hounds?”

“You’re very good to warn me,” said Soames, “but I have not made

up my mind.”

“_She_ has,” said Jolyon, looking straight before him; “you can’t

take things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Look here!” said Jolyon, “she’s in a damnable position, and I am

the only person with any legal say in her affairs.”

“Except myself,” retorted Soames, “who am also in a damnable

position. Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made

for me. I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan’t

require her to return to me.”

“What!” exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole

body.

“I don’t know what you may mean by ‘what,’” answered Soames

coldly; “your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her

income; please bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her

by a divorce, I retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at

all sure that I shan’t require to exercise them.”

“My God!” ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.

“Yes,” said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice.

“I’ve not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, ‘The man of

property’. I’m not called names for nothing.”

“This is fantastic,” murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn’t

force his wife to live with him. Those days were past, anyway!

And he looked around at Soames with the thought: “Is he real,

this man?” But Soames looked very real, sitting square yet almost

elegant with the clipped moustache on his pale face, and a tooth

showing where a lip was lifted in a fixed smile. There was a long

silence, while Jolyon thought: “Instead of helping her, I’ve made

things worse.” Suddenly Soames said:

“It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many

ways.”

At those words such a turmoil began taking place in Jolyon that

he could barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed

up with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with

that something in the national character which had always been to

him revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural

and yet which seemed to him inexplicable—their intense belief in

contracts and vested rights, their complacent sense of virtue in

the exaction of those rights. Here beside him in the cab was the

very embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were, of the possessive

instinct—his own kinsman, too! It was uncanny and intolerable!

“But there’s something more in it than that!” he thought with a

sick feeling. “The dog, they say, returns to his vomit! The sight

of her has reawakened something. Beauty! The devil’s in it!”

“As I say,” said Soames, “I have not made up my mind. I shall be

obliged if you will kindly leave her quite alone.”

Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed

the thought of one now.

“I can give you no such promise,” he said shortly.

“Very well,” said Soames, “then we know where we are. I’ll get

down here.” And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign

of farewell. Jolyon travelled on to his Club.

The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he

paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his

father were alive! _He_ could have done so much! But why could he

not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old

enough?—turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters

and a son. “Queer,” he thought. “If she were plain I shouldn’t be

thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when you’re

sensitive to it!” And into the Club reading-room he went with a

disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one

summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and

secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of

June, the diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he

had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him

against. And now! He was almost in want of a warning himself.

“It’s deuced funny!” he thought, “really deuced funny!”

CHAPTER XIV SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS

It is so much easier to say, “Then we know where we are,” than to

mean anything particular by the words. And in saying them Soames

did but vent the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of

the cab in a state of wary anger—with himself for not having seen

Irene, with Jolyon for having seen her; and now with his

inability to tell exactly what he wanted.

He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain

seated beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he

thought: “I wouldn’t trust that fellow Jolyon a yard. Once

outcast, always outcast!” The chap had a natural sympathy

with—with—laxity (he had shied at the word sin, because it was

too melodramatic for use by a Forsyte).

Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a

child between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken

away from him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday

desire had seemed simple—just his freedom and Annette. “I’ll go

and dine there,” he thought. To see her might bring back his

singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, clear his mind.

The restaurant was fairly full—a good many foreigners and folk

whom, from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic.

Scraps of conversation came his way through the clatter of plates

and glasses. He distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the

British Government blamed. “Don’t think much of their clientèle,”

he thought. He went stolidly through his dinner and special

coffee without making his presence known, and when at last he had

finished, was careful not to be seen going towards the sanctum of

Madame Lamotte. They were, as he entered, having supper—such a

much nicer-looking supper than the dinner he had eaten that he

felt a kind of grief—and they greeted him with a surprise so

seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion: “I

believe they knew I was here all the time.” He gave Annette a

look furtive and searching. So pretty, seemingly so candid; could

she be angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:

“I’ve been dining here.”

Really! If she had only known! There were dishes she could have

recommended; what a pity! Soames was confirmed in his suspicion.

“I must look out what I’m doing!” he thought sharply.

“Another little cup of very special coffee, _monsieur;_ a

liqueur, Grand Marnier?” and Madame Lamotte rose to order these

delicacies.

Alone with Annette Soames said, “Well, Annette?” with a defensive

little smile about his lips.

The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his

nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has

when a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a

curious sense of power, as if he could have said to her, “Come

and kiss me,” and she would have come. And yet—it was strange—but

there seemed another face and form in the room too; and the itch

in his nerves, was it for that—or for this? He jerked his head

towards the restaurant and said: “You have some queer customers.

Do you like this life?”

Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played

with her fork.

“No,” she said, “I do not like it.”

“I’ve got her,” thought Soames, “if I want her. But do I want

her?” She was graceful, she was pretty—very pretty; she was

fresh, she had taste of a kind. His eyes travelled round the

little room; but the eyes of his mind went another journey—a

half-light, and silvery walls, a satinwood piano, a woman

standing against it, reined back as it were from him—a woman with

white shoulders that he knew, and dark eyes that he had sought to

know, and hair like dull dark amber. And as in an artist who

strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose

in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never

satisfied.

“Well,” he said calmly, “you’re young. There’s everything before

_you_.”

Annette shook her head.

“I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I am

not so in love with work as mother.”

“Your mother is a wonder,” said Soames, faintly mocking; “she

will never let failure lodge in her house.”

Annette sighed. “It must be wonderful to be rich.”

“Oh! You’ll be rich some day,” answered Soames, still with that

faint mockery; “don’t be afraid.”

Annette shrugged her shoulders. “_Monsieur_ is very kind.” And

between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.

“Yes, my dear,” thought Soames, “they’re very pretty.”

Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that

colloquy. Soames did not stay long.

Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a

feeling of property improperly owned, he mused. If only Irene had

given him a son, he wouldn’t now be squirming after women! The

thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner

consciousness. A son—something to look forward to, something to

make the rest of life worth while, something to leave himself to,

some perpetuity of self. “If I had a son,” he thought bitterly,

“a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used. One

woman’s much the same as another, after all.” But as he walked he

shook his head. No! One woman was not the same as another. Many a

time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted

married life; and he had always failed. He was failing now. He

was trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was

not, she had not the lure of that old passion. “And Irene’s my

wife,” he thought, “my legal wife. I have done nothing to put her

away from me. Why shouldn’t she come back to me? It’s the right

thing, the lawful thing. It makes no scandal, no disturbance. If

it’s disagreeable to her—but why _should_ it be? I’m not a leper,

and she—she’s no longer in love!” Why should he be put to the

shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the

Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only

waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally

owned her? To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry

into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away

to the world was intensely alluring. “No,” he mused, “I’m glad I

went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene

will come back I’ll be as considerate as she wishes; she could

live her own life; but perhaps—perhaps she would come round to

me.” There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along by the

railings of the Green Park, towards his father’s house, he went,

trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant

moonlight.

PART II

CHAPTER I THE THIRD GENERATION

Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a

November afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up. Jolly had just

changed out of boating flannels and was on his way to the

“Frying-pan,” to which he had recently been elected. Val had just

changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire—a

bookmaker’s in Cornmarket.

“Hallo!” said Jolly.

“Hallo!” replied Val.

The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having

invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen

each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.

Over a tailor’s in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged

young beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose

parents are dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts

are vicious. At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers

attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single

bankruptcy is good as a feast. Already famous for having the only

roulette table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating

his expectations at a dazzling rate. He out-crummed Crum, though

of a sanguine and rather beefy type which lacked the latter’s

fascinating languor. For Val it had been in the nature of baptism

to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature of confirmation

to get back into college, after hours, through a window whose

bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight,

glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught

sight, through a cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite.

“_Rouge gagne, impair, et manque!_” He had not seen him again.

“Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea,” said Jolly, and they

went in.

A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an

unseizable resemblance between these second cousins of the third

generations of Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though

Jolly’s eyes were darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.

“Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please,” said Jolly.

“Have one of my cigarettes?” said Val. “I saw you last night. How

did you do?”

“I didn’t play.”

“I won fifteen quid.”

Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he

had once heard his father make—“When you’re fleeced you’re sick,

and when you fleece you’re sorry”—Jolly contented himself with:

“Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap. He’s an

awful fool.”

“Oh! I don’t know,” said Val, as one might speak in defence of a

disparaged god; “he’s a pretty good sport.”

They exchanged whiffs in silence.

“You met my people, didn’t you?” said Jolly. “They’re coming up

to-morrow.”

Val grew a little red.

“Really! I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester

November handicap.”

“Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races.”

“You can’t make any money over them,” said Val.

“I hate the ring,” said Jolly; “there’s such a row and stink. I

like the paddock.”

“I like to back my judgment,” answered Val.

Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father’s.

“I haven’t got any. I always lose money if I bet.”

“You have to buy experience, of course.”

“Yes, but it’s all messed-up with doing people in the eye.”

“Of course, or they’ll do you—that’s the excitement.”

Jolly looked a little scornful.

“What do you do with yourself? Row?”

“No—ride, and drive about. I’m going to play polo next term, if I

can get my granddad to stump up.”

“That’s old Uncle James, isn’t it? What’s he like?”

“Older than forty hills,” said Val, “and always thinking he’s

going to be ruined.”

“I suppose my granddad and he were brothers.”

“I don’t believe any of that old lot were sportsmen,” said Val;

“they must have worshipped money.”

“Mine didn’t!” said Jolly warmly.

Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.

“Money’s only fit to spend,” he said; “I wish the deuce I had

more.”

Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had

inherited from old Jolyon: One didn’t talk about money! And again

there was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered

buns.

“Where are your people going to stay?” asked Val, elaborately

casual.

“‘Rainbow.’ What do you think of the war?”

“Rotten, so far. The Boers aren’t sports a bit. Why don’t they

come out into the open?”

“Why should they? They’ve got everything against them except

their way of fighting. I rather admire them.”

“They can ride and shoot,” admitted Val, “but they’re a lousy

lot. Do you know Crum?”

“Of Merton? Only by sight. He’s in that fast set too, isn’t he?

Rather La-di-da and Brummagem.”

Val said fixedly: “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh! Sorry!” And they sat awkwardly staring past each other,

having pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was

forming himself unconsciously on a set whose motto was:

“We defy you to bore us. Life isn’t half long enough, and we’re

going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and

dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are

‘the best’—made of wire and whipcord.” And Val was unconsciously

forming himself on a set whose motto was: “We defy you to

interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we

haven’t, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that

no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with

equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything. All is

cigarette smoke. Bismillah!” Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the

English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals;

and at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy

had already in the main adopted the “jumping-Jesus” principle;

though here and there one like Crum—who was an “honourable”—stood

starkly languid for that gambler’s Nirvana which had been the

_summum bonum_ of the old “dandies” and of “the mashers” in the

eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of

blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.

But there was between the cousins another far less obvious

antipathy—coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which

each perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that

old feud persisting still between their branches of the clan,

formed within them by odd words or half-hints dropped by their

elders. And Jolly, tinkling his teaspoon, was musing: “His

tie-pin and his waistcoat and his drawl and his betting—good

Lord!”

And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: “He’s rather a young

beast!”

“I suppose you’ll be meeting your people?” he said, getting up.

“I wish you’d tell them I should like to show them over

B.N.C.—not that there’s anything much there—if they’d care to

come.”

“Thanks, I’ll ask them.”

“Would they lunch? I’ve got rather a decent scout.”

Jolly doubted if they would have time.

“You’ll ask them, though?”

“Very good of you,” said Jolly, fully meaning that they should

not go; but, instinctively polite, he added: “You’d better come

and have dinner with us to-morrow.”

“Rather. What time?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Dress?”

“No.” And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.

Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first

visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent,

looking almost shyly at the brother who was part of this

wonderful place. After lunch she wandered, examining his

household gods with intense curiosity. Jolly’s sitting-room was

panelled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which

had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs—of young

men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her

memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evidence

of his boy’s character and tastes.

Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set

forth to the river. Holly, between her brother and her father,

felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her. That

they might see him to the best advantage they left him at the

Barge and crossed the river to the towing-path. Slight in

build—for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were

beefy—Jolly was rowing “Two” in a trial eight. He looked very

earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the

best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more

struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so

for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows

lush, the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace

clung around the old city; Jolyon promised himself a day’s

sketching if the weather held. The Eight passed a second time,

spurting home along the Barges—Jolly’s face was very set, so as

not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and

waited for him.

“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, “I had to ask that

chap Val Dartie to dine with us to-night. He wanted to give you

lunch and show you B.N.C., so I thought I’d better; then you

needn’t go. I don’t like him much.”

Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.

“Why not?”

“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What

are his people like, Dad? He’s only a second cousin, isn’t he?”

Jolyon took refuge in a smile.

“Ask Holly,” he said; “she saw his uncle.”

“I _liked_ Val,” Holly answered, staring at the ground before

her; “his uncle looked—awfully different.” She stole a glance at

Jolly from under her lashes.

“Did you ever,” said Jolyon with whimsical intention, “hear our

family history, my dears? It’s quite a fairy tale. The first

Jolyon Forsyte—at all events the first we know anything of, and

that would be your great-great-grandfather—dwelt in the land of

Dorset on the edge of the sea, being by profession an

‘agriculturalist,’ as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an

agriculturist—farmers, in fact; your grandfather used to call

them, ‘Very small beer.’” He looked at Jolly to see how his

lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly’s

malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother’s face.

“We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it

was before the Industrial Era began. The second Jolyon

Forsyte—your great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior

Dosset Forsyte—built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten

children, and migrated to London town. It is known that he drank

sherry. We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon’s

wars, and general unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the

third Jolyon, your grandfather, my dears—tea merchant and

chairman of companies, one of the soundest Englishmen who ever

lived—and to me the dearest.” Jolyon’s voice had lost its irony,

and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, “He was just and

tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I

remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that’s

young Val’s grandfather, had a son called Soames—whereby hangs a

tale of no love lost, and I don’t think I’ll tell it you. James

and the other eight children of ‘Superior Dosset,’ of whom there

are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian

England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five

per cent. and your money back—if you know what that means. At all

events they’ve turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million

between them in the course of their long lives. They never did a

wild thing—unless it was your great-uncle Swithin, who I believe

was once swindled at thimble-rig, and was called ‘Four-in-hand

Forsyte’ because he drove a pair. Their day is passing, and their

type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were

pedestrian, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon

Forsyte—a poor holder of the name—”

“No, Dad,” said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.

“Yes,” repeated Jolyon, “a poor specimen, representing, I’m

afraid, nothing but the end of the century, unearned income,

amateurism, and individual liberty—a different thing from

individualism, Jolly. You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man,

and you open the ball of the new century.”

As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly

said: “It’s fascinating, Dad.”

None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave.

The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for

lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private

sitting-room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy,

and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch

a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn’t she wear this “measly

flower”. It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia

from his coat.

“Oh! No, thank you—I couldn’t!” But she took it and pinned it at

her neck, having suddenly remembered that word “showy”. Val’s

buttonhole would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to

like him. Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest

in her presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his

attraction for her?

“I never said anything about our ride, Val.”

“Rather not! It’s just between us.”

By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he

was giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling

too—the wish to make him happy.

“Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely.”

Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;

the lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps.

“Only,” he added, “of course I wish I was in town, and could come

down and see you.”

Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.

“You haven’t forgotten,” he said, suddenly gathering courage,

“that we’re going mad-rabbiting together?”

Holly smiled.

“Oh! That was only make-believe. One can’t do that sort of thing

after one’s grown up, you know.”

“Dash it! cousins can,” said Val. “Next Long Vac.—it begins in

June, you know, and goes on for ever—we’ll watch our chance.”

But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly

shook her head. “It won’t come off,” she murmured.

“Won’t it!” said Val fervently; “who’s going to stop it? Not your

father or your brother.”

At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into

Val’s patent leather and Holly’s white satin toes, where it

itched and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for

open-heartedness.

Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism

between the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became

unconsciously ironical, which is fatal to the expansiveness of

youth. A letter, handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a

silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He went out

with them, smoking his cigar, and walked with his son to the

gates of Christ Church. Turning back, he took out the letter and

read it again beneath a lamp.

“DEAR JOLYON,

“Soames came again to-night—my thirty-seventh birthday. You

were right, I mustn’t stay here. I’m going to-morrow to the

Piedmont Hotel, but I won’t go abroad without seeing you. I

feel lonely and down-hearted.

“Yours affectionately,

“IRENE.”

He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on,

astonished at the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow

said or done?

He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of

spires and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or

dark-shadowed in the strong moonlight. In this very heart of

England’s gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely

woman could be importuned or hunted, but what else could her

letter mean? Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him

again, with public opinion and the Law on his side, too!

“Eighteen-ninety-nine!,” he thought, gazing at the broken glass

shining on the top of a villa garden wall; “but when it comes to

property we’re still a heathen people! I’ll go up to-morrow

morning. I dare say it’ll be best for her to go abroad.” Yet the

thought displeased him. Why should Soames hunt her out of

England! Besides, he might follow, and out there she would be

still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband! “I

must tread warily,” he thought; “that fellow could make himself

very nasty. I didn’t like his manner in the cab the other night.”

His thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could she help? Once on

a time Irene had been her greatest friend, and now she was a

“lame duck,” such as must appeal to June’s nature! He determined

to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station.

Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own

sensations. Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in

like case? No! he would not. The candour of this conclusion

discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had gone up to bed, he

sought his own room. But he could not sleep, and sat for a long

time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the

moonlight on the roofs.

Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and

below Val’s eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to

make Jolly like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong

in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.

And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was

gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing

instead Holly, slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire

when he first went in.

But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand

beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing

a race against him, while his father was calling from the

towpath: “Two! Get your hands away there, bless you!”

CHAPTER II SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH

Of all those radiant firms which emblazon with their windows the

West End of London, Gaves and Cortegal were considered by Soames

the most “attractive” word just coming into fashion. He had never

had his Uncle Swithin’s taste in precious stones, and the

abandonment by Irene when she left his house in 1887 of all the

glittering things he had given her had disgusted him with this

form of investment. But he still knew a diamond when he saw one,

and during the week before her birthday he had taken occasion, on

his way into the Poultry or his way out therefrom, to dally a

little before the greater jewellers where one got, if not one’s

money’s worth, at least a certain cachet with the goods.

Constant cogitation since his drive with Jolyon had convinced him

more and more of the supreme importance of this moment in his

life, the supreme need for taking steps and those not wrong. And,

alongside the dry and reasoned sense that it was now or never

with his self-preservation, now or never if he were to range

himself and found a family, went the secret urge of his senses

roused by the sight of her who had once been a passionately

desired wife, and the conviction that it was a sin against common

sense and the decent secrecy of Forsytes to waste the wife he

had.

In an opinion on Winifred’s case, Dreamer, Q.C.—he would much

have preferred Waterbuck, but they had made him a judge (so late

in the day as to rouse the usual suspicion of a political

job)—had advised that they should go forward and obtain

restitution of conjugal rights, a point which to Soames had never

been in doubt. When they had obtained a decree to that effect

they must wait to see if it was obeyed. If not, it would

constitute legal desertion, and they should obtain evidence of

misconduct and file their petition for divorce. All of which

Soames knew perfectly well. They had marked him ten and one. This

simplicity in his sister’s case only made him the more desperate

about the difficulty in his own. Everything, in fact, was driving

him towards the simple solution of Irene’s return. If it were

still against the grain with her, had _he_ not feelings to

subdue, injury to forgive, pain to forget? He at least had never

injured her, and this was a world of compromise! He could offer

her so much more than she had now. He would be prepared to make a

liberal settlement on her which could not be upset. He often

scrutinised his image in these days. He had never been a peacock

like that fellow Dartie, or fancied himself a woman’s man, but he

had a certain belief in his own appearance—not unjustly, for it

was well-coupled and preserved, neat, healthy, pale, unblemished

by drink or excess of any kind. The Forsyte jaw and the

concentration of his face were, in his eyes, virtues. So far as

he could tell there was no feature of him which need inspire

dislike.

Thoughts and yearnings, with which one lives daily, become

natural, even if far-fetched in their inception. If he could only

give tangible proof enough of his determination to let bygones be

bygones, and to do all in his power to please her, why should she

not come back to him?

He entered Gaves and Cortegal’s therefore, on the morning of

November the 9th, to buy a certain diamond brooch. “Four

twenty-five and dirt cheap, sir, at the money. It’s a lady’s

brooch.” There was that in his mood which made him accept without

demur. And he went on into the Poultry with the flat green

morocco case in his breast pocket. Several times that day he

opened it to look at the seven soft shining stones in their

velvet oval nest.

“If the lady doesn’t like it, sir, happy to exchange it any time.

But there’s no fear of that.” If only there were not! He got

through a vast amount of work, only soother of the nerves he

knew. A cablegram came while he was in the office with details

from the agent in Buenos Aires, and the name and address of a

stewardess who would be prepared to swear to what was necessary.

It was a timely spur to Soames, with his rooted distaste for the

washing of dirty linen in public. And when he set forth by

Underground to Victoria Station he received a fresh impetus

towards the renewal of his married life from the account in his

evening paper of a fashionable divorce suit. The homing instinct

of all true Forsytes in anxiety and trouble, the corporate

tendency which kept them strong and solid, made him choose to

dine at Park Lane. He neither could nor would breathe a word to

his people of his intention—too reticent and proud—but the

thought that at least they would be glad if they knew, and wish

him luck, was heartening.

James was in lugubrious mood, for the fire which the impudence of

Kruger’s ultimatum had lit in him had been cold-watered by the

poor success of the last month, and the exhortations to effort in

_The Times_. He didn’t know where it would end. Soames sought to

cheer him by the continual use of the word Buller. But James

couldn’t tell! There was Colley—and he got stuck on that hill,

and this Ladysmith was down in a hollow, and altogether it looked

to him a “pretty kettle of fish”; he thought they ought to be

sending the sailors—they were the chaps, they did a lot of good

in the Crimea. Soames shifted the ground of consolation. Winifred

had heard from Val that there had been a “rag” and a bonfire on

Guy Fawkes Day at Oxford, and that he had escaped detection by

blacking his face.

“Ah!” James muttered, “he’s a clever little chap.” But he shook

his head shortly afterwards and remarked that he didn’t know what

would become of him, and looking wistfully at his son, murmured

on that Soames had never had a boy. He would have liked a

grandson of his own name. And now—well, there it was!

Soames flinched. He had not expected such a challenge to disclose

the secret in his heart. And Emily, who saw him wince, said:

“Nonsense, James; don’t talk like that!”

But James, not looking anyone in the face, muttered on. There

were Roger and Nicholas and Jolyon; they all had grandsons. And

Swithin and Timothy had never married. He had done his best; but

he would soon be gone now. And, as though he had uttered words of

profound consolation, he was silent, eating brains with a fork

and a piece of bread, and swallowing the bread.

Soames excused himself directly after dinner. It was not really

cold, but he put on his fur coat, which served to fortify him

against the fits of nervous shivering to which he had been

subject all day. Subconsciously, he knew that he looked better

thus than in an ordinary black overcoat. Then, feeling the

morocco case flat against his heart, he sallied forth. He was no

smoker, but he lit a cigarette, and smoked it gingerly as he

walked along. He moved slowly down the Row towards Knightsbridge,

timing himself to get to Chelsea at nine-fifteen. What did she do

with herself evening after evening in that little hole? How

mysterious women were! One lived alongside and knew nothing of

them. What could she have seen in that fellow Bosinney to send

her mad? For there was madness after all in what she had

done—crazy moonstruck madness, in which all sense of values had

been lost, and her life and his life ruined! And for a moment he

was filled with a sort of exaltation, as though he were a man

read of in a story who, possessed by the Christian spirit, would

restore to her all the prizes of existence, forgiving and

forgetting, and becoming the godfather of her future. Under a

tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the moonlight struck

down clear and white, he took out once more the morocco case, and

let the beams draw colour from those stones. Yes, they were of

the first water! But, at the hard closing snap of the case,

another cold shiver ran through his nerves; and he walked on

faster, clenching his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat,

almost hoping she would not be in. The thought of how mysterious

she was again beset him. Dining alone there night after night—in

an evening dress, too, as if she were making believe to be in

society! Playing the piano—to herself! Not even a dog or cat, so

far as he had seen. And that reminded him suddenly of the mare he

kept for station work at Mapledurham. If ever he went to the

stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her

home journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if

longing to be back and lonely in her stable! “I would treat her

well,” he thought incoherently. “I would be very careful.” And

all that capacity for home life of which a mocking Fate seemed

for ever to have deprived him swelled suddenly in Soames, so that

he dreamed dreams opposite South Kensington Station. In the

King’s Road a man came slithering out of a public house playing a

concertina. Soames watched him for a moment dance crazily on the

pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds, then crossed over to

avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery. A night in the

lock-up! What asses people were! But the man had noticed his

movement of avoidance, and streams of genial blasphemy followed

him across the street. “I hope they’ll run him in,” thought

Soames viciously. “To have ruffians like that about, with women

out alone!” A woman’s figure in front had induced this thought.

Her walk seemed oddly familiar, and when she turned the corner

for which he was bound, his heart began to beat. He hastened on

to the corner to make certain. Yes! It was Irene; he could not

mistake her walk in that little drab street. She threaded two

more turnings, and from the last corner he saw her enter her

block of flats. To make sure of her now, he ran those few paces,

hurried up the stairs, and caught her standing at her door. He

heard the latchkey in the lock, and reached her side just as she

turned round, startled, in the open doorway.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, breathless. “I happened to see you.

Let me come in a minute.”

She had put her hand up to her breast, her face was colourless,

her eyes widened by alarm. Then seeming to master herself, she

inclined her head, and said: “Very well.”

Soames closed the door. He, too, had need to recover, and when

she had passed into the sitting-room, waited a full minute,

taking deep breaths to still the beating of his heart. At this

moment, so fraught with the future, to take out that morocco case

seemed crude. Yet, not to take it out left him there before her

with no preliminary excuse for coming. And in this dilemma he was

seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and

justification. This was a scene—it could be nothing else, and he

must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, pathetically

soft:

“Why have you come again? Didn’t you understand that I would

rather you did not?”

He noticed her clothes—a dark brown velvet corduroy, a sable boa,

a small round toque of the same. They suited her admirably. She

had money to spare for dress, evidently! He said abruptly:

“It’s your birthday. I brought you this,” and he held out to her

the green morocco case.

“Oh! No-no!”

Soames pressed the clasp; the seven stones gleamed out on the

pale grey velvet.

“Why not?” he said. “Just as a sign that you don’t bear me

ill-feeling any longer.”

“I couldn’t.”

Soames took it out of the case.

“Let me just see how it looks.”

She shrank back.

He followed, thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the

front of her dress. She shrank again.

Soames dropped his hand.

“Irene,” he said, “let bygones be bygones. If _I_ can, surely you

might. Let’s begin again, as if nothing had been. Won’t you?” His

voice was wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in them

a sort of supplication.

She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall,

gave a little gulp, and that was all her answer. Soames went on:

“Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this

little hole? Come back to me, and I’ll give you all you want. You

shall live your own life; I swear it.”

He saw her face quiver ironically.

“Yes,” he repeated, “but I mean it this time. I’ll only ask one

thing. I just want—I just want a son. Don’t look like that! I

want one. It’s hard.” His voice had grown hurried, so that he

hardly knew it for his own, and twice he jerked his head back as

if struggling for breath. It was the sight of her eyes fixed on

him, dark with a sort of fascinated fright, which pulled him

together and changed that painful incoherence to anger.