Soames, coming up to the City, with the intention of calling in

at Green Street at the end of his day and taking Fleur back home

with him, suffered from rumination. Sleeping partner that he was,

he seldom visited the City now, but he still had a room of his

own at Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte's, and one special clerk and

a half assigned to the management of purely Forsyte affairs. They

were somewhat in flux just now—an auspicious moment for the

disposal of house property. And Soames was unloading the estates

of his father and Uncle Roger, and to some extent of his Uncle

Nicholas. His shrewd and matter-of-course probity in all money

concerns had made him something of an autocrat in connection with

these trusts. If Soames thought this or thought that, one had

better save oneself the bother of thinking too. He guaranteed, as

it were, irresponsibility to numerous Forsytes of the third and

fourth generations. His fellow trustees, such as his cousins

Roger or Nicholas, his cousins-in-law Tweetyman and Spender, or

his sister Cicely's husband, all trusted him; he signed first,

and where he signed first they signed after, and nobody was a

penny the worse. Just now they were all a good many pennies the

better, and Soames was beginning to see the close of certain

trusts, except for distribution of the income from securities as

gilt-edged as was compatible with the period.

Passing the more feverish parts of the City toward the most

perfect backwater in London, he ruminated. Money was

extraordinarily tight; and morality extraordinarily loose! The

War had done it. Banks were not lending; people breaking

contracts all over the place. There was a feeling in the air and

a look on faces that he did not like. The country seemed in for a

spell of gambling and bankruptcies. There was satisfaction in the

thought that neither he nor his trusts had an investment which

could be affected by anything less maniacal than national

repudiation or a levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was in

what he called “English common sense”—or the power to have

things, if not one way then another. He might—like his father

James before him—say he didn't know what things were coming to,

but he never in his heart believed they were. If it rested with

him, they wouldn't—and, after all, he was only an Englishman like

any other, so quietly tenacious of what he had that he knew he

would never really part with it without something more or less

equivalent in exchange. His mind was essentially equilibristic in

material matters, and his way of putting the national situation

difficult to refute in a world composed of human beings. Take his

own case, for example! He was well off. Did that do anybody harm?

He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no more than, perhaps not

so much as, a poor man. He spent no money on vice; breathed no

more air, used no more water to speak of than the mechanic or the

porter. He certainly had pretty things about him, but they had

given employment in the making, and somebody must use them. He

bought pictures, but Art must be encouraged. He was, in fact, an

accidental channel through which money flowed, employing labour.

What was there objectionable in that? In his charge money was in

quicker and more useful flux than it would be in charge of the

State and a lot of slow-fly money-sucking officials. And as to

what he saved each year—it was just as much in flux as what he

didn't save, going into Water Board or Council Stocks, or

something sound and useful. The State paid him no salary for

being trustee of his own or other people's money he did all that

for nothing. Therein lay the whole case against

nationalisation—owners of private property were unpaid, and yet

had every incentive to quicken up the flux. Under

nationalisation—just the opposite! In a country smarting from

officialism he felt that he had a strong case.

It particularly annoyed him, entering that backwater of perfect

peace, to think that a lot of unscrupulous Trusts and

Combinations had been cornering the market in goods of all kinds,

and keeping prices at an artificial height. Such abusers of the

individualistic system were the ruffians who caused all the

trouble, and it was some satisfaction to see them getting into a

stew at last lest the whole thing might come down with a run—and

land them in the soup.

The offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte occupied the ground

and first floors of a house on the right-hand side; and,

ascending to his room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of

paint.'

His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge

bureau with countless pigeonholes. Half-the-clerk stood beside

him, with a broker's note recording investment of the proceeds

from sale of the Bryanston Square house, in Roger Forsyte's

estate. Soames took it, and said:

“Vancouver City Stock. H'm. It's down today!”

With a sort of grating ingratiation old Gradman answered him:

“Ye-es; but everything's down, Mr. Soames.” And half-the-clerk

withdrew.

Soames skewered the document on to a number of other papers and

hung up his hat.

“I want to look at my Will and Marriage Settlement, Gradman.”

Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out

two drafts from the bottom lefthand drawer. Recovering his body,

he raised his grizzle-haired face, very red from stooping.

“Copies, Sir.”

Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to

the stout brindled yard dog they had been wont to keep on his

chain at The Shelter, till one day Fleur had come and insisted it

should be let loose, so that it had at once bitten the cook and

been destroyed. If you let Gradman off his chain, would he bite

the cook?

Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage

Settlement. He had not looked at it for over eighteen years, not

since he remade his Will when his father died and Fleur was born.

He wanted to see whether the words “during coverture” were in.

Yes, they were—odd expression, when you thought of it, and

derived perhaps from horse-breeding! Interest on fifteen thousand

pounds (which he paid her without deducting income tax) so long

as she remained his wife, and afterward during widowhood “dum

casta”—old-fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to insure

the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will made it up to an annuity

of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned

the copies to Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung

the chair, restored the papers to their drawer, and went on

casting up.

“Gradman! I don't like the condition of the country; there are a

lot of people about without any common sense. I want to find a

way by which I can safeguard Miss Fleur against anything which

might arise.”

Gradman wrote the figure “2” on his blotting-paper.

“Ye-es,” he said; “there's a nahsty spirit.”

“The ordinary restraint against anticipation doesn't meet the

case.”

“Nao,” said Gradman.

“Suppose those Labour fellows come in, or worse! It's these

people with fixed ideas who are the danger. Look at Ireland!”

“Ah!” said Gradman.

“Suppose I were to make a settlement on her at once with myself

as beneficiary for life, they couldn't take anything but the

interest from me, unless of course they alter the law.”

Gradman moved his head and smiled.

“Ah!” he said, “they wouldn't do tha-at!”

“I don't know,” muttered Soames; “I don't trust them.”

“It'll take two years, sir, to be valid against death duties.”

Soames sniffed. Two years! He was only sixty-five!

“That's not the point. Draw a form of settlement that passes all

my property to Miss Fleur's children in equal shares, with

antecedent life-interests first to myself and then to her without

power of anticipation, and add a clause that in the event of

anything happening to divert her life-interest, that interest

passes to the trustees, to apply for her benefit, in their

absolute discretion.”

Gradman grated: “Rather extreme at your age, sir; you lose

control.”

“That's my business,” said Soames sharply.

Gradman wrote on a piece of paper:

“Life-interest—anticipation—divert interest—absolute

discretion....” and said:

“What trustees? There's young Mr. Kingson; he's a nice steady

young fellow.”

“Yes, he might do for one. I must have three. There isn't a

Forsyte now who appeals to me.”

“Not young Mr. Nicholas? He's at the Bar. We've given 'im

briefs.”

“He'll never set the Thames on fire,” said Soames.

A smile oozed out on Gradman's face, greasy from countless

mutton-chops, the smile of a man who sits all day.

“You can't expect it, at his age, Mr. Soames.”

“Why? What is he? Forty?”

“Ye-es, quite a young fellow.”

“Well, put him in; but I want somebody who'll take a personal

interest. There's no one that I can see.”

“What about Mr. Valerius, now he's come home?”

“Val Dartie? With that father?”

“We-ell,” murmured Gradman, “he's been dead seven years—the

Statute runs against him.”

“No,” said Soames. “I don't like the connection.” He rose.

Gradman said suddenly:

“If they were makin' a levy on capital, they could come on the

trustees, sir. So there you'd be just the same. I'd think it

over, if I were you.”

“That's true,” said Soames. “I will. What have you done about

that dilapidation notice in Vere Street?”

“I 'aven't served it yet. The party's very old. She won't want to

go out at her age.”

“I don't know. This spirit of unrest touches every one.”

“Still, I'm lookin' at things broadly, sir. She's eighty-one.”

“Better serve it,” said Soames, “and see what she says. Oh! and

Mr. Timothy? Is everything in order in case of—”

“I've got the inventory of his estate all ready; had the

furniture and pictures valued so that we know what reserves to

put on. I shall be sorry when he goes, though. Dear me! It is a

time since I first saw Mr. Timothy!”

“We can't live for ever,” said Soames, taking down his hat.

“Nao,” said Gradman; “but it'll be a pity—the last of the old

family! Shall I take up the matter of that nuisance in Old

Compton Street? Those organs—they're nahsty things.”

“Do. I must call for Miss Fleur and catch the four o'clock.

Good-day, Gradman.”

“Good-day, Mr. Soames. I hope Miss Fleur—”

“Well enough, but gads about too much.”

“Ye-es,” grated Gradman; “she's young.”

Soames went out, musing: “Old Gradman! If he were younger I'd put

him in the trust. There's nobody I can depend on to take a real

interest.”

Leaving the bilious and mathematical exactitude, the preposterous

peace of that backwater, he thought suddenly: 'During coverture!

Why can't they exclude fellows like Profond, instead of a lot of

hard-working Germans?' and was surprised at the depth of

uneasiness which could provoke so unpatriotic a thought. But

there it was! One never got a moment of real peace. There was

always something at the back of everything! And he made his way

toward Green Street.

Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring in his

swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his bureau, and putting

into his waistcoat pocket a bunch of keys so fat that they gave

him a protuberance on the liver side, brushed his old top hat

round with his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended. Thick,

short, and buttoned closely into his old frock coat, he walked

toward Covent Garden market. He never missed that daily promenade

to the Tube for Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on

the way in connection with vegetables and fruit. Generations

might be born, and hats might change, wars be fought, and

Forsytes fade away, but Thomas Gradman, faithful and grey, would

take his daily walk and buy his daily vegetable. Times were not

what they were, and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave

him those nice little plaited baskets to carry the stuff in now,

and these Tubes were convenient things—still he mustn't complain;

his health was good considering his time of life, and after

fifty-four years in the Law he was getting a round eight hundred

a year and a little worried of late, because it was mostly

collector's commission on the rents, and with all this conversion

of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying up, and the

price of living still so high; but it was no good worrying—“The

good God made us all”—as he was in the habit of saying; still,

house property in London—he didn't know what Mr. Roger or Mr.

James would say if they could see it being sold like this—seemed

to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soames—he worried. Life and

lives in being and twenty-one years after—beyond that you

couldn't go; still, he kept his health wonderfully—and Miss Fleur

was a pretty little thing—she was; she'd marry; but lots of

people had no children nowadays—he had had his first child at

twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married while he was at Cambridge,

had his child the same year—gracious Peter! That was back in '69,

a long time before old Mr. Jolyon—fine judge of property—had

taken his Will away from Mr. James—dear, yes! Those were the days

when they were buyin' property right and left, and none of this

khaki and fallin' over one another to get out of things; and

cucumbers at twopence; and a melon—the old melons, that made your

mouth water! Fifty years since he went into Mr. James' office,

and Mr. James had said to him: “Now, Gradman, you're only a

shaver—you pay attention, and you'll make your five hundred a

year before you've done.” And he had, and feared God, and served

the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable diet at night. And, buying a

copy of John Bull—not that he approved of it, an extravagant

affair—he entered the Tube elevator with his mere brown-paper

parcel, and was borne down into the bowels of the earth.

VI.—SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE

On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to

go into Dumetrius' in Suffolk Street about the possibility of the

Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the war to

have the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby

had died, his son and grandson had been killed—a cousin was

coming into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because

of the condition of England, others said because he had asthma.

If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become

prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out whether

Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He

therefore confined himself to discussing with Dumetrius whether

Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a

picture to be anything except a picture; and the future of Johns,

with a side-slip into Buxton Knights. It was only when leaving

that he added: “So they're not selling the Bolderby Old Crome,

after all?” In sheer pride of racial superiority, as he had

calculated would be the case, Dumetrius replied:

“Oh! I shall get it, Mr. Forsyte, sir!”

The flutter of his eyelid fortified Soames in a resolution to

write direct to the new Bolderby, suggesting that the only

dignified way of dealing with an Old Crome was to avoid dealers.

He therefore said, “Well, good-day!” and went, leaving Dumetrius

the wiser.

At Green Street he found that Fleur was out and would be all the

evening; she was staying one more night in London. He cabbed on

dejectedly, and caught his train.

He reached his house about six o'clock. The air was heavy, midges

biting, thunder about. Taking his letters he went up to his

dressing-room to cleanse himself of London.

An uninteresting post. A receipt, a bill for purchases on behalf

of Fleur. A circular about an exhibition of etchings. A letter

beginning:

“SIR,

“I feel it my duty...”

That would be an appeal or something unpleasant. He looked at

once for the signature. There was none! Incredulously he turned

the page over and examined each corner. Not being a public man,

Soames had never yet had an anonymous letter, and his first

impulse was to tear it up, as a dangerous thing; his second to

read it, as a thing still more dangerous.

“SIR,

“I feel it my duty to inform you that having no interest in the

matter your lady is carrying on with a foreigner—”

Reaching that word Soames stopped mechanically and examined the

postmark. So far as he could pierce the impenetrable disguise in

which the Post Office had wrapped it, there was something with a

“sea” at the end and a “t” in it. Chelsea? No! Battersea?

Perhaps! He read on.

“These foreigners are all the same. Sack the lot. This one meets

your lady twice a week. I know it of my own knowledge—and to see

an Englishman put on goes against the grain. You watch it and see

if what I say isn't true. I shouldn't meddle if it wasn't a dirty

foreigner that's in it.

“Yours obedient.”

The sensation with which Soames dropped the letter was similar to

that he would have had entering his bedroom and finding it full

of black-beetles. The meanness of anonymity gave a shuddering

obscenity to the moment. And the worst of it was that this shadow

had been at the back of his mind ever since the Sunday evening

when Fleur had pointed down at Prosper Profond strolling on the

lawn, and said: “Prowling cat!” Had he not in connection

therewith, this very day, perused his Will and Marriage

Settlement? And now this anonymous ruffian, with nothing to gain,

apparently, save the venting of his spite against foreigners, had

wrenched it out of the obscurity in which he had hoped and wished

it would remain. To have such knowledge forced on him, at his

time of life, about Fleur's mother! He picked the letter up from

the carpet, tore it across, and then, when it hung together by

just the fold at the back, stopped tearing, and reread it. He was

taking at that moment one of the decisive resolutions of his

life. He would not be forced into another scandal. No! However he

decided to deal with this matter—and it required the most

far-sighted and careful consideration he would do nothing that

might injure Fleur. That resolution taken, his mind answered the

helm again, and he made his ablutions. His hands trembled as he

dried them. Scandal he would not have, but something must be done

to stop this sort of thing! He went into his wife's room and

stood looking around him. The idea of searching for anything

which would incriminate, and entitle him to hold a menace over

her, did not even come to him. There would be nothing—she was

much too practical. The idea of having her watched had been

dismissed before it came—too well he remembered his previous

experience of that. No! He had nothing but this torn-up letter

from some anonymous ruffian, whose impudent intrusion into his

private life he so violently resented. It was repugnant to him to

make use of it, but he might have to. What a mercy Fleur was not

at home to-night! A tap on the door broke up his painful

cogitations.

“Mr. Michael Mont, sir, is in the drawing-room. Will you see

him?”

“No,” said Soames; “yes. I'll come down.”

Anything that would take his mind off for a few minutes!

Michael Mont in flannels stood on the verandah smoking a

cigarette. He threw it away as Soames came up, and ran his hand

through his hair.

Soames' feeling toward this young man was singular. He was no

doubt a rackety, irresponsible young fellow according to old

standards, yet somehow likeable, with his extraordinarily

cheerful way of blurting out his opinions.

“Come in,” he said; “have you had tea?”

Mont came in.

“I thought Fleur would have been back, sir; but I'm glad she

isn't. The fact is, I—I'm fearfully gone on her; so fearfully

gone that I thought you'd better know. It's old-fashioned, of

course, coming to fathers first, but I thought you'd forgive

that. I went to my own Dad, and he says if I settle down he'll

see me through. He rather cottons to the idea, in fact. I told

him about your Goya.”

“Oh!” said Soames, inexpressibly dry. “He rather cottons?”

“Yes, sir; do you?”

Soames smiled faintly.

“You see,” resumed Mont, twiddling his straw hat, while his hair,

ears, eyebrows, all seemed to stand up from excitement, “when

you've been through the War you can't help being in a hurry.”

“To get married; and unmarried afterward,” said Soames slowly.

“Not from Fleur, sir. Imagine, if you were me!”

Soames cleared his throat. That way of putting it was forcible

enough.

“Fleur's too young,” he said.

“Oh! no, sir. We're awfully old nowadays. My Dad seems to me a

perfect babe; his thinking apparatus hasn't turned a hair. But

he's a Baronight, of course; that keeps him back.”

“Baronight,” repeated Soames; “what may that be?”

“Bart, sir. I shall be a Bart some day. But I shall live it down,

you know.”

“Go away and live this down,” said Soames.

Young Mont said imploringly: “Oh! no, sir. I simply must hang

around, or I shouldn't have a dog's chance. You'll let Fleur do

what she likes, I suppose, anyway. Madame passes me.”

“Indeed!” said Soames frigidly.

“You don't really bar me, do you?” and the young man looked so

doleful that Soames smiled.

“You may think you're very old,” he said; “but you strike me as

extremely young. To rattle ahead of everything is not a proof of

maturity.”

“All right, sir; I give you our age. But to show you I mean

business—I've got a job.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Joined a publisher; my governor is putting up the stakes.”

Soames put his hand over his mouth—he had so very nearly said:

“God help the publisher!” His grey eyes scrutinised the agitated

young man.

“I don't dislike you, Mr. Mont, but Fleur is everything to me:

Everything—do you understand?”

“Yes, sir, I know; but so she is to me.”

“That's as may be. I'm glad you've told me, however. And now I

think there's nothing more to be said.”

“I know it rests with her, sir.”

“It will rest with her a long time, I hope.”

“You aren't cheering,” said Mont suddenly.

“No,” said Soames, “my experience of life has not made me anxious

to couple people in a hurry. Good-night, Mr. Mont. I shan't tell

Fleur what you've said.”

“Oh!” murmured Mont blankly; “I really could knock my brains out

for want of her. She knows that perfectly well.”

“I dare say.” And Soames held out his hand. A distracted squeeze,

a heavy sigh, and soon after sounds from the young man's

motor-cycle called up visions of flying dust and broken bones.

'The younger generation!' he thought heavily, and went out on to

the lawn. The gardeners had been mowing, and there was still the

smell of fresh-cut grass—the thundery air kept all scents close

to earth. The sky was of a purplish hue—the poplars black. Two or

three boats passed on the river, scuttling, as it were, for

shelter before the storm. 'Three days' fine weather,' thought

Soames, 'and then a storm!' Where was Annette? With that chap,

for all he knew—she was a young woman! Impressed with the queer

charity of that thought, he entered the summerhouse and sat down.

The fact was—and he admitted it—Fleur was so much to him that his

wife was very little—very little; French—had never been much more

than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to that side of

things! It was odd how, with all this ingrained care for

moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional

eggs into one basket. First Irene—now Fleur. He was dimly

conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd

dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal once, but

now—now it should save him! He cared so much for Fleur that he

would have no further scandal. If only he could get at that

anonymous letter-writer, he would teach him not to meddle and

stir up mud at the bottom of water which he wished should remain

stagnant!... A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops of

rain spattered on the thatch above him. He remained indifferent,

tracing a pattern with his finger on the dusty surface of a

little rustic table. Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for

her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at my time of life.' A

lonely business—life! What you had you never could keep to

yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in. One could

make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose

from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and

dropped—Nature was a queer thing! The thunder rumbled and

crashed, travelling east along a river, the paling flashes

flicked his eyes; the poplar tops showed sharp and dense against

the sky, a heavy shower rustled and rattled and veiled in the

little house wherein he sat, indifferent, thinking.

When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the

wet path to the river bank.

Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the

birds well, and stood watching the dignity in the curve of those

white necks and formidable snake-like heads. 'Not dignified—what

I have to do!' he thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse

befell. Annette must be back by now from wherever she had gone,

for it was nearly dinner-time, and as the moment for seeing her

approached, the difficulty of knowing what to say and how to say

it had increased. A new and scaring thought occurred to him.

Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she

did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The

image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a

marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He

had better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel

represented—-! But what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing

that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the

world—unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl!

That expression Annette had caught from him: “Je m'en fiche!” A

fatalistic chap! A continental—a cosmopolitan—a product of the

age! If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that

he did not know it.

The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into

some distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss,

wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam

away. The other followed. Their white bodies, their stately

necks, passed out of his sight, and he went toward the house.

Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he

thought as he went up-stairs 'Handsome is as handsome does.'

Handsome! Except for remarks about the curtains in the

drawing-room, and the storm, there was practically no

conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of

quantity and perfection of quality. Soames drank nothing. He

followed her into the drawing-room afterward, and found her

smoking a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows.

She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with

her knees crossed and her blue eyes half-closed; grey-blue smoke

issued from her red, rather full lips, a fillet bound her

chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes

with very high heels showing off her instep. A fine piece in any

room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep

into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said:

“I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in.”

He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the

cream-panelled wall close by.

What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his

life—except Fleur—and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But

if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David

Cox, he took out the torn letter.

“I've had this.”

Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.

Soames handed her the letter.

“It's torn, but you can read it.” And he turned back to the David

Cox—a sea-piece, of good tone—but without movement enough. 'I

wonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll

astonish him yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette

holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side

under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyes. She dropped

the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said:

“Dirrty!”

“I quite agree,” said Soames; “degrading. Is it true?”

A tooth fastened on her red lower lip. “And what if it were?”

She was brazen!

“Is that all you have to say?”

“No.”

“Well, speak out!”

“What is the good of talking?”

Soames said icily: “So you admit it?”

“I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should

not ask. It is dangerous.”

Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger.

“Do you remember,” he said, halting in front of her, “what you

were when I married you? Working at accounts in a restaurant.”

“Do you remember that I was not half your age?”

Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back

to the David Cox.

“I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up

this—friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it affects

Fleur.”

“Ah!—Fleur!”

“Yes,” said Soames stubbornly; “Fleur. She is your child as well

as mine.”

“It is kind to admit that!”

“Are you going to do what I say?”

“I refuse to tell you.”

“Then I must make you.”

Annette smiled.

“No, Soames,” she said. “You are helpless. Do not say things that

you will regret.”

Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to

vent that emotion, and could not. Annette went on:

“There shall be no more such letters, I promise you. That is

enough.”

Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by

this woman who had deserved he did not know what.

“When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they

had better be quiet about each other. There are things one does

not drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be

quiet, then; not for my sake for your own. You are getting old; I

am not, yet. You have made me ver-ry practical”

Soames, who had passed through all the sensations of being

choked, repeated dully:

“I require you to give up this friendship.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then—then I will cut you out of my Will.”

Somehow it did not seem to meet the case. Annette laughed.

“You will live a long time, Soames.”

“You—you are a bad woman,” said Soames suddenly.

Annette shrugged her shoulders.

“I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it

is true; but I am not a bad woman. I am sensible—that is all. And

so will you be when you have thought it over.”

“I shall see this man,” said Soames sullenly, “and warn him off.”

“Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of

me as you want; and you wish the rest of me to be dead. I admit

nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you

had better be quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal;

none. Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do.”

She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and

opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the tumult of his

feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her,

and this was a revelation of their relationship, startling to one

little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another

word he went out and up to the picture-gallery. This came of

marrying a Frenchwoman! And yet, without her there would have

been no Fleur! She had served her purpose.

'She's right,' he thought; 'I can do nothing. I don't even know

that there's anything in it.' The instinct of self-preservation

warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with

want of air. Unless one believed there was something in a thing,

there wasn't.

That night he went into her room. She received him in the most

matter-of-fact way, as if there had been no scene between them.

And he returned to his own room with a curious sense of peace. If

one didn't choose to see, one needn't. And he did not choose—in

future he did not choose. There was nothing to be gained by

it—nothing! Opening the drawer he took from the sachet a

handkerchief, and the framed photograph of Fleur. When he had

looked at it a little he slipped it down, and there was that

other one—that old one of Irene. An owl hooted while he stood in

his window gazing at it. The owl hooted, the red climbing roses

seemed to deepen in colour, there came a scent of lime-blossom.

God! That had been a different thing! Passion—Memory! Dust!

VII.—JUNE TAKES A HAND

One who was a sculptor, a Slav, a sometime resident in New York,

an egoist, and impecunious, was to be found of an evening in June

Forsyte's studio on the bank of the Thames at Chiswick. On the

evening of July 6, Boris Strumolowski—several of whose works were

on show there because they were as yet too advanced to be on show

anywhere else—had begun well, with that aloof and rather

Christ-like silence which admirably suited his youthful, round,

broad cheek-boned countenance framed in bright hair banged like a

girl's. June had known him three weeks, and he still seemed to

her the principal embodiment of genius, and hope of the future; a

sort of Star of the East which had strayed into an unappreciative

West. Until that evening he had conversationally confined himself

to recording his impressions of the United States, whose dust he

had just shaken from off his feet—a country, in his opinion, so

barbarous in every way that he had sold practically nothing

there, and become an object of suspicion to the police; a

country, as he said, without a race of its own, without liberty,

equality, or fraternity, without principles, traditions, taste,

without—in a word—a soul. He had left it for his own good, and

come to the only other country where he could live well. June had

dwelt unhappily on him in her lonely moments, standing before his

creations—frightening, but powerful and symbolic once they had

been explained! That he, haloed by bright hair like an early

Italian painting, and absorbed in his genius to the exclusion of

all else—the only sign of course by which real genius could be

told—should still be a “lame duck” agitated her warm heart almost

to the exclusion of Paul Post. And she had begun to take steps to

clear her Gallery, in order to fill it with Strumolowski

masterpieces. She had at once encountered trouble. Paul Post had

kicked; Vospovitch had stung. With all the emphasis of a genius

which she did not as yet deny them, they had demanded another six

weeks at least of her Gallery. The American stream, still flowing

in, would soon be flowing out. The American stream was their

right, their only hope, their salvation—since nobody in this

“beastly” country cared for Art. June had yielded to the

demonstration. After all Boris would not mind their having the

full benefit of an American stream, which he himself so violently

despised.

This evening she had put that to Boris with nobody else present,

except Hannah Hobdey, the mediaeval black-and-whitist, and Jimmy

Portugal, editor of the Neo-Artist. She had put it to him with

that sudden confidence which continual contact with the

neo-artistic world had never been able to dry up in her warm and

generous nature. He had not broken his Christ-like silence,

however, for more than two minutes before she began to move her

blue eyes from side to side, as a cat moves its tail. This—he

said—was characteristic of England, the most selfish country in

the world; the country which sucked the blood of other countries;

destroyed the brains and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians,

Boers, and Burmese, all the best races in the world; bullying,

hypocritical England! This was what he had expected, coming to,

such a country, where the climate was all fog, and the people all

tradesmen perfectly blind to Art, and sunk in profiteering and

the grossest materialism. Conscious that Hannah Hobdey was

murmuring, “Hear, hear!” and Jimmy Portugal sniggering, June grew

crimson, and suddenly rapped out:

“Then why did you ever come? We didn't ask you.”

The remark was so singularly at variance with all she had led him

to expect from her, that Strumolowski stretched out his hand and

took a cigarette.

“England never wants an idealist,” he said.

But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset;

old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it were, from bed.

“You come and sponge on us,” she said, “and then abuse us. If you

think that's playing the game, I don't.”

She now discovered that which others had discovered before

her—the thickness of hide beneath which the sensibility of genius

is sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face

became the incarnation of a sneer.

“Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owing—a tenth

part of what is owing. You will repent to say that, Miss

Forsyte.”

“Oh, no,” said June, “I shan't.”

“Ah! We know very well, we artists—you take us to get what you

can out of us. I want nothing from you”—and he blew out a cloud

of June's smoke.

Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame

within her. “Very well, then, you can take your things away.”

And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only

got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare. In front of these

people, too; it's positively disgusting!'

Young Strumolowski shook his head violently; his hair, thick,

smooth, close as a golden plate, did not fall off.

“I can live on nothing,” he said shrilly; “I have often had to

for the sake of my Art. It is you bourgeois who force us to spend

money.”

The words hit June like a pebble, in the ribs. After all she had

done for Art, all her identification with its troubles and lame

ducks. She was struggling for adequate words when the door was

opened, and her Austrian murmured:

“A young lady, gnadiges Fraulein.”

“Where?”

“In the little meal-room.”

With a glance at Boris Strumolowski, at Hannah Hobdey, at Jimmy

Portugal, June said nothing, and went out, devoid of equanimity.

Entering the “little meal-room,” she perceived the young lady to

be Fleur—looking very pretty, if pale. At this disenchanted

moment a little lame duck of her own breed was welcome to June,

so homoeopathic by instinct.

The girl must have come, of course, because of Jon; or, if not,

at least to get something out of her. And June felt just then

that to assist somebody was the only bearable thing.

“So you've remembered to come,” she said.

“Yes. What a jolly little duck of a house! But please don't let

me bother you, if you've got people.”

“Not at all,” said June. “I want to let them stew in their own

juice for a bit. Have you come about Jon?”

“You said you thought we ought to be told. Well, I've found out.”

“Oh!” said June blankly. “Not nice, is it?”

They were standing one on each side of the little bare table at

which June took her meals. A vase on it was full of Iceland

poppies; the girl raised her hand and touched them with a gloved

finger. To her new-fangled dress, frilly about the hips and tight

below the knees, June took a sudden liking—a charming colour,

flax-blue.

'She makes a picture,' thought June. Her little room, with its

whitewashed walls, its floor and hearth of old pink brick, its

black paint, and latticed window athwart which the last of the

sunlight was shining, had never looked so charming, set off by

this young figure, with the creamy, slightly frowning face. She

remembered with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked

in those old days when her heart was set on Philip Bosinney, that

dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene's

allegiance to this girl's father. Did Fleur know of that, too?

“Well,” she said, “what are you going to do?”

It was some seconds before Fleur answered.

“I don't want Jon to suffer. I must see him once more to put an

end to it.”

“You're going to put an end to it!”

“What else is there to do?”

The girl seemed to June, suddenly, intolerably spiritless.

“I suppose you're right,” she muttered. “I know my father thinks

so; but—I should never have done it myself. I can't take things

lying down.”

How poised and watchful that girl looked; how unemotional her

voice sounded!

“People will assume that I'm in love.”

“Well, aren't you?”

Fleur shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have known it,' thought

June; 'she's Soames' daughter—fish! And yet—he!'

“What do you want me to do then?” she said with a sort of

disgust.

“Could I see Jon here to-morrow on his way down to Holly's? He'd

come if you sent him a line to-night. And perhaps afterward you'd

let them know quietly at Robin Hill that it's all over, and that

they needn't tell Jon about his mother.”

“All right!” said June abruptly. “I'll write now, and you can

post it. Half-past two tomorrow. I shan't be in, myself.”

She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she

looked round with the finished note Fleur was still touching the

poppies with her gloved finger.

June licked a stamp. “Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of

course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky.”

Fleur took the note. “Thanks awfully!”

'Cold-blooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her

father, to love, and not to be loved by the daughter of—Soames!

It was humiliating!

“Is that all?”

Fleur nodded; her frills shook and trembled as she swayed toward

the door.

“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!... Little piece of fashion!” muttered June, closing

the door. “That family!” And she marched back toward her studio.

Boris Strumolowski had regained his Christ-like silence and Jimmy

Portugal was damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf

he ran the Neo-Artist. Among the condemned were Eric Cobbley, and

several other “lame-duck” genii who at one time or another had

held first place in the repertoire of June's aid and adoration.

She experienced a sense of futility and disgust, and went to the

window to let the river-wind blow those squeaky words away.

But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with

Hannah Hobdey, she sat down and mothered young Strumolowski for

half an hour, promising him a month, at least, of the American

stream; so that he went away with his halo in perfect order. 'In

spite of all,' June thought, 'Boris is wonderful.'

VIII.—THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH

To know that your hand is against every one's is—for some

natures—to experience a sense of moral release. Fleur felt no

remorse when she left June's house. Reading condemnatory

resentment in her little kinswoman's blue eyes-she was glad that

she had fooled her, despising June because that elderly idealist

had not seen what she was after.

End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only

just beginning. And she smiled to herself on the top of the bus

which carried her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed

out by spasms of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to

manage Jon? She had taken the bit between her teeth, but could

she make him take it too? She knew the truth and the real danger

of delay—he knew neither; therein lay all the difference in the

world.

'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?'

This hideous luck had no right to spoil their love; he must see

that! They could not let it! People always accepted an

accomplished fact in time! From that piece of philosophy—profound

enough at her age—she passed to another consideration less

philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage,

and he found out afterward that she had known the truth. What

then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better

to tell him? But the memory of his mother's face kept intruding

on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him;

more power perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It was too

great a risk. Deep-sunk in these instinctive calculations she was

carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She got

down there, and walked back on the Green Park side. The storm had

washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to her

frills, and to avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of the

Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur Profond with a

tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she

heard her name called, and saw “that prowler” coming up. He took

off his hat—a glossy “bowler” such as she particularly detested.

“Good evenin'. Miss Forsyde. Isn't there a small thing I can do

for you?”

“Yes, pass by on the other side.”

“I say! Why do you dislike me?”

“Do I?”

“It looks like it.”

“Well, then, because you make me feel life isn't worth living.”

Monsieur Profond smiled.

“Look here, Miss Forsyde, don't worry. It'll be all right.

Nothing lasts.”

“Things do last,” cried Fleur; “with me anyhow—especially likes

and dislikes.”

“Well, that makes me a bit un'appy.”

“I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or

unhappy.”

“I don't like to annoy other people. I'm goin' on my yacht.”

Fleur looked at him, startled.

“Where?”

“Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere,” said Monsieur

Profond.

Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to

convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have

anything to break, and yet how dared he break it?

“Good-night, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I'm not so

bad really. Good-night!” Fleur left him standing there with his

hat raised. Stealing a look round, she saw him stroll—immaculate

and heavy—back toward his Club.

'He can't even love with conviction,' she thought. 'What will

Mother do?'

Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and

unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker's Almanac. A

Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of

any situation. She might conquer Jon's prejudice, but without

exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing

would happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must

each be twenty-one; or some one's consent would be necessary,

which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in

directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts,

coming finally to the word “perjury.” But that was nonsense! Who

would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married

for love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to

Whitaker. The more she studied the less sure she became; till,

idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland. People could be

married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go

and stay there twenty-one days, then Jon could come, and in front

of two people they could declare themselves married. And what was

more—they would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran

over her schoolfellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in

Edinburgh and was “quite a sport!”

She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with

her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some

girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon

need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to

their people: “We are married by Nature, we must now be married

by Law.” But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding

dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it.

Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an

opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary

Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to

Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took

a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens.

She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and

broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy-paste

sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June's bell.

The Austrian admitted her to the “little meal-room.” Now that she

knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had

increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or

dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a

child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and

all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must

and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over

the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in

it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept

passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and,

stealing to the window, saw him standing on the doorstep

smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue

the fluttering of his nerves.

She was sitting on one of the two rush-seated chairs, with her

back to the door, when he came in, and she said at once—

“Sit down, Jon, I want to talk seriously.”

Jon sat on the table by her side, and without looking at him she

went on:

“If you don't want to lose me, we must get married.”

Jon gasped.

“Why? Is there anything new?”

“No, but I felt it at Robin Hill, and among my people.”

“But—” stammered Jon, “at Robin Hill—it was all smooth—and

they've said nothing to me.”

“But they mean to stop us. Your mother's face was enough. And my

father's.”

“Have you seen him since?”

Fleur nodded. What mattered a few supplementary lies?

“But,” said Jon eagerly, “I can't see how they can feel like that

after all these years.”

Fleur looked up at him.

“Perhaps you don't love me enough.” “Not love you enough! Why—!”

“Then make sure of me.”

“Without telling them?”

“Not till after.”

Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely

two months ago, when she first saw him—quite two years older!

“It would hurt Mother awfully,” he said.

Fleur drew her hand away.

“You've got to choose.”

Jon slid off the table on to his knees.

“But why not tell them? They can't really stop us, Fleur!”

“They can! I tell you, they can.”

“How?”

“We're utterly dependent—by putting money pressure, and all sorts

of other pressure. I'm not patient, Jon.”

“But it's deceiving them.”

Fleur got up.

“You can't really love me, or you wouldn't hesitate. 'He either

fears his fate too much!'”

Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again.

She hurried on:

“I've planned it all out. We've only to go to Scotland. When

we're married they'll soon come round. People always come round

to facts. Don't you see, Jon?”

“But to hurt them so awfully!”

So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! “All right,

then; let me go!”

Jon got up and put his back against the door.

“I expect you're right,” he said slowly; “but I want to think it

over.”

She could see that he was seething with feelings he wanted to

express; but she did not mean to help him. She hated herself at

this moment and almost hated him. Why had she to do all the work

to secure their love? It wasn't fair. And then she saw his eyes,

adoring and distressed.

“Don't look like that! I only don't want to lose you, Jon.”

“You can't lose me so long as you want me.”

“Oh, yes, I can.”

Jon put his hands on her shoulders.

“Fleur, do you know anything you haven't told me?”

It was the point-blank question she had dreaded. She looked

straight at him, and answered: “No.” She had burnt her boats; but

what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And

throwing her arms round his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She

was winning! She felt it in the beating of his heart against her,

in the closing of his eyes. “I want to make sure! I want to make

sure!” she whispered. “Promise!”

Jon did not answer. His face had the stillness of extreme

trouble. At last he said:

“It's like hitting them. I must think a little, Fleur. I really

must.”

Fleur slipped out of his arms.

“Oh! Very well!” And suddenly she burst into tears of

disappointment, shame, and overstrain. Followed five minutes of

acute misery. Jon's remorse and tenderness knew no bounds; but he

did not promise. Despite her will to cry, “Very well, then, if

you don't love me enough-goodbye!” she dared not. From birth

accustomed to her own way, this check from one so young, so

tender, so devoted, baffled and surprised her. She wanted to push

him away from her, to try what anger and coldness would do, and

again she dared not. The knowledge that she was scheming to rush

him blindfold into the irrevocable weakened everything—weakened

the sincerity of pique, and the sincerity of passion; even her

kisses had not the lure she wished for them. That stormy little

meeting ended inconclusively.

“Will you some tea, gnadiges Fraulein?”

Pushing Jon from her, she cried out:

“No-no, thank you! I'm just going.”

And before he could prevent her she was gone.

She went stealthily, mopping her gushed, stained cheeks,

frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so

fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the

more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more “the will to

have” worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart—like some

burrowing tick!

No one was at Green Street. Winifred had gone with Imogen to see

a play which some said was allegorical, and others “very

exciting, don't you know.” It was because of what others said

that Winifred and Imogen had gone. Fleur went on to Paddington.

Through the carriage the air from the brick-kilns of West Drayton

and the late hayfields fanned her still gushed cheeks. Flowers

had seemed to be had for the picking; now they were all thorned

and prickled. But the golden flower within the crown of spikes

seemed to her tenacious spirit all the fairer and more desirable.

IX.—THE FAT IN THE FIRE

On reaching home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it

penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her

mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father

contemplating fate in the vinery. Neither of them had a word to

throw to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because

of Profond?' To her mother she said:

“What's the matter with Father?”

Her mother answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

To her father:

“What's the matter with Mother?”

Her father answered:

“Matter? What should be the matter?” and gave her a sharp look.

“By the way,” murmured Fleur, “Monsieur Profond is going a

'small' voyage on his yacht, to the South Seas.”

Soames examined a branch on which no grapes were growing.

“This vine's a failure,” he said. “I've had young Mont here. He

asked me something about you.”

“Oh! How do you like him, Father?”

“He—he's a product—like all these young people.”

“What were you at his age, dear?”

Soames smiled grimly.

“We went to work, and didn't play about—flying and motoring, and

making love.”

“Didn't you ever make love?”

She avoided looking at him while she said that, but she saw him

well enough. His pale face had reddened, his eyebrows, where

darkness was still mingled with the grey, had come close

together.

“I had no time or inclination to philander.”

“Perhaps you had a grand passion.”

Soames looked at her intently.

“Yes—if you want to know—and much good it did me.” He moved away,

along by the hot-water pipes. Fleur tiptoed silently after him.

“Tell me about it, Father!”

Soames became very still.

“What should you want to know about such things, at your age?”

“Is she alive?”

He nodded.

“And married?”

“Yes.”

“It's Jon Forsyte's mother, isn't it? And she was your wife

first.”

It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came

from his anxiety that she should not know of that old wound to

his pride. But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm

wince as if struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice!

“Who told you that? If your aunt! I can't bear the affair talked

of.”

“But, darling,” said Fleur, softly, “it's so long ago.”

“Long ago or not, I....”

Fleur stood stroking his arm.

“I've tried to forget,” he said suddenly; “I don't wish to be

reminded.” And then, as if venting some long and secret

irritation, he added: “In these days people don't understand.

Grand passion, indeed! No one knows what it is.”

“I do,” said Fleur, almost in a whisper.

Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round.

“What are you talking of—a child like you!”

“Perhaps I've inherited it, Father.”

“What?”

“For her son, you see.”

He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They

stood staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the

mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming

along fast.

“This is crazy,” said Soames at last, between dry lips.

Scarcely moving her own, she murmured:

“Don't be angry, Father. I can't help it.”

But she could see he wasn't angry; only scared, deeply scared.

“I thought that foolishness,” he stammered, “was all forgotten.”

“Oh, no! It's ten times what it was.”

Soames kicked at the hot-water pipe. The hapless movement touched

her, who had no fear of her father—none.

“Dearest!” she said. “What must be, must, you know.”

“Must!” repeated Soames. “You don't know what you're talking of.

Has that boy been told?”

The blood rushed into her cheeks.

“Not yet.”

He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little

raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes.

“It's most distasteful to me,” he said suddenly; “nothing could

be more so. Son of that fellow! It's—it's—perverse!”

She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say “son of

that woman,” and again her intuition began working.

Did the ghost of that grand passion linger in some corner of his

heart?

She slipped her hand under his arm.

“Jon's father is quite ill and old; I saw him.”

“You—?”

“Yes, I went there with Jon; I saw them both.”

“Well, and what did they say to you?”

“Nothing. They were very polite.”

“They would be.” He resumed his contemplation of the pipe-joint,

and then said suddenly:

“I must think this over—I'll speak to you again to-night.”

She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving

him still looking at the pipe-joint. She wandered into the

fruit-garden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without

impetus to pick and eat. Two months ago—she was light-hearted!

Even two days ago—light-hearted, before Prosper Profond told her.

Now she felt tangled in a web-of passions, vested rights,

oppressions and revolts, the ties of love and hate. At this dark

moment of discouragement there seemed, even to her hold-fast

nature, no way out. How deal with it—how sway and bend things to

her will, and get her heart's desire? And, suddenly, round the

corner of the high box hedge, she came plump on her mother,

walking swiftly, with an open letter in her hand. Her bosom was

heaving, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur

thought: 'The yacht! Poor Mother!'

Annette gave her a wide startled look, and said:

“J'ai la migraine.”

“I'm awfully sorry, Mother.”

“Oh, yes! you and your father—sorry!”

“But, Mother—I am. I know what it feels like.”

Annette's startled eyes grew wide, till the whites showed above

them.

“Poor innocent!” she said.

Her mother—so self-possessed, and commonsensical—to look and

speak like this! It was all frightening! Her father, her mother,

herself! And only two months back they had seemed to have

everything they wanted in this world.

Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must

ignore the sight.

“Can't I do anything for your head, Mother?”

Annette shook that head and walked on, swaying her hips.

'It's cruel,' thought Fleur, 'and I was glad! That man! What do

men come prowling for, disturbing everything! I suppose he's

tired of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What

business!' And at that thought, so natural and so peculiar, she

uttered a little choked laugh.

She ought, of course, to be delighted, but what was there to be

delighted at? Her father didn't really care! Her mother did,

perhaps? She entered the orchard, and sat down under a

cherry-tree. A breeze sighed in the higher boughs; the sky seen

through their green was very blue and very white in cloud—those

heavy white clouds almost always present in river landscape.

Bees, sheltering out of the wind, hummed softly, and over the

lush grass fell the thick shade from those fruit-trees planted by

her father five-and-twenty, years ago. Birds were almost silent,

the cuckoos had ceased to sing, but wood-pigeons were cooing. The

breath and drone and cooing of high summer were not for long a

sedative to her excited nerves. Crouched over her knees she began

to scheme. Her father must be made to back her up. Why should he

mind so long as she was happy? She had not lived for nearly

nineteen years without knowing that her future was all he really

cared about. She had, then, only to convince him that her future

could not be happy without Jon. He thought it a mad fancy. How

foolish the old were, thinking they could tell what the young

felt! Had not he confessed that he—when young—had loved with a

grand passion? He ought to understand! 'He piles up his money for

me,' she thought; 'but what's the use, if I'm not going to be

happy?' Money, and all it bought, did not bring happiness. Love

only brought that. The ox-eyed daisies in this orchard, which

gave it such a moony look sometimes, grew wild and happy, and had

their hour. 'They oughtn't to have called me Fleur,' she mused,

'if they didn't mean me to have my hour, and be happy while it

lasts.' Nothing real stood in the way, like poverty, or

disease—sentiment only, a ghost from the unhappy past! Jon was

right. They wouldn't let you live, these old people! They made

mistakes, committed crimes, and wanted their children to go on

paying! The breeze died away; midges began to bite. She got up,

plucked a piece of honeysuckle, and went in.

It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin,

pale low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck

with the pale look of everything; her father's face, her mother's

shoulders; the pale panelled walls, the pale grey velvety carpet,

the lamp-shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of

colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one

drank it. What was not pale was black—her father's clothes, the

butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the

window, the curtains black with a cream pattern. A moth came in,

and that was pale. And silent was that half-mourning dinner in

the heat.

Her father called her back as she was following her mother out.

She sat down beside him at the table, and, unpinning the pale

honeysuckle, put it to her nose.

“I've been thinking,” he said.

“Yes, dear?”

“It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for

it. I don't know if you understand how much you are to me I've

never spoken of it, I didn't think it necessary; but—but you're

everything. Your mother—” he paused, staring at his finger-bowl

of Venetian glass.

“Yes?”'

“I've only you to look to. I've never had—never wanted anything

else, since you were born.”

“I know,” Fleur murmured.

Soames moistened his lips.

“You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for

you. You're mistaken. I'm helpless.”

Fleur did not speak.

“Quite apart from my own feelings,” went on Soames with more

resolution, “those two are not amenable to anything I can say.

They—they hate me, as people always hate those whom they have

injured.” “But he—Jon—”

“He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to

her what you mean to me. It's a deadlock.”

“No,” cried Fleur, “no, Father!”

Soames leaned back, the image of pale patience, as if resolved on

the betrayal of no emotion.

“Listen!” he said. “You're putting the feelings of two months—two

months—against the feelings of thirty-five years! What chance do

you think you have? Two months—your very first love affair, a

matter of half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks, a few

kisses—against, against what you can't imagine, what no one could

who hasn't been through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! It's

midsummer madness!”

Fleur tore the honeysuckle into little, slow bits.

“The madness is in letting the past spoil it all.

“What do we care about the past? It's our lives, not yours.”

Soames raised his hand to his forehead, where suddenly she saw

moisture shining.

“Whose child are you?” he said. “Whose child is he? The present

is linked with the past, the future with both. There's no getting

away from that.”

She had never heard philosophy pass those lips before. Impressed

even in her agitation, she leaned her elbows on the table, her

chin on her hands.

“But, Father, consider it practically. We want each other.

There's ever so much money, and nothing whatever in the way but

sentiment. Let's bury the past, Father.”

His answer was a sigh.

“Besides,” said Fleur gently, “you can't prevent us.”

“I don't suppose,” said Soames, “that if left to myself I should

try to prevent you; I must put up with things, I know, to keep

your affection. But it's not I who control this matter. That's

what I want you to realise before it's too late. If you go on

thinking you can get your way and encourage this feeling, the

blow will be much heavier when you find you can't.”

“Oh!” cried Fleur, “help me, Father; you can help me, you know.”

Soames made a startled movement of negation. “I?” he said

bitterly. “Help? I am the impediment—the just cause and

impediment—isn't that the jargon? You have my blood in your

veins.”

He rose.

“Well, the fat's in the fire. If you persist in your wilfulness

you'll have yourself to blame. Come! Don't be foolish, my

child—my only child!”

Fleur laid her forehead against his shoulder.

All was in such turmoil within her. But no good to show it! No

good at all! She broke away from him, and went out into the

twilight, distraught, but unconvinced. All was indeterminate and

vague within her, like the shapes and shadows in the garden,

except—her will to have. A poplar pierced up into the dark-blue

sky and touched a white star there. The dew wetted her shoes, and

chilled her bare shoulders. She went down to the river bank, and

stood gazing at a moonstreak on the darkening water. Suddenly she

smelled tobacco smoke, and a white figure emerged as if created

by the moon. It was young Mont in flannels, standing in his boat.

She heard the tiny hiss of his cigarette extinguished in the

water.

“Fleur,” came his voice, “don't be hard on a poor devil! I've

been waiting hours.”

“For what?”

“Come in my boat!”

“Not I.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not a water-nymph.”

“Haven't you any romance in you? Don't be modern, Fleur!”

He appeared on the path within a yard of her.

“Go away!”

“Fleur, I love you. Fleur!”

Fleur uttered a short laugh.

“Come again,” she said, “when I haven't got my wish.”

“What is your wish?”

“Ask another.”

“Fleur,” said Mont, and his voice sounded strange, “don't mock

me! Even vivisected dogs are worth decent treatment before

they're cut up for good.”

Fleur shook her head; but her lips were trembling.

“Well, you shouldn't make me jump. Give me a cigarette.”

Mont gave her one, lighted it, and another for himself.

“I don't want to talk rot,” he said, “but please imagine all the

rot that all the lovers that ever were have talked, and all my

special rot thrown in.”

“Thank you, I have imagined it. Good-night!” They stood for a

moment facing each other in the shadow of an acacia-tree with

very moonlit blossoms, and the smoke from their cigarettes

mingled in the air between them.

“Also ran: 'Michael Mont'.” he said. Fleur turned abruptly toward

the house. On the lawn she stopped to look back. Michael Mont was

whirling his arms above him; she could see them dashing at his

head; then waving at the moonlit blossoms of the acacia. His

voice just reached her. “Jolly-jolly!” Fleur shook herself. She

couldn't help him, she had too much trouble of her own! On the

verandah she stopped very suddenly again. Her mother was sitting

in the drawing-room at her writing bureau, quite alone. There was

nothing remarkable in the expression of her face except its utter

immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went upstairs. At the

door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up

and down, up and down the picture-gallery.

'Yes,' she thought, jolly! Oh, Jon!'

X.—DECISION

When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin

woman with a dark face and the concerned expression of one who

has watched every little good that life once had slip from her,

one by one. “No tea?” she said.

Susceptible to the disappointment in her voice, Jon murmured:

“No, really; thanks.”

“A lil cup—it ready. A lil cup and cigarette.”

Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him!

And with a heavy sense of disproportion he smiled, and said:

“Well—thank you!”

She brought in a little pot of tea with two little cups, and a

silver box of cigarettes on a little tray.

“Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugar—she buy my sugar, my friend's

sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree kind lady. I am happy to

serve her. You her brother?”

“Yes,” said Jon, beginning to puff the second cigarette of his

life.

“Very young brother,” said the Austrian, with a little anxious

smile, which reminded him of the wag of a dog's tail.

“May I give you some?” he said. “And won't you sit down, please?”

The Austrian shook her head.

“Your father a very nice old man—the most nice old man I ever

see. Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he better?”

Her words fell on Jon like a reproach. “Oh Yes, I think he's all

right.”

“I like to see him again,” said the Austrian, putting a hand on

her heart; “he have veree kind heart.”

“Yes,” said Jon. And again her words seemed to him a reproach.

“He never give no trouble to no one, and smile so gentle.”

“Yes, doesn't he?”

“He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my

story; he so sympatisch. Your mother—she nice and well?”

“Yes, very.”

“He have her photograph on his dressing-table. Veree beautiful”

Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and

her reminding words, was like the first and second murderers.

“Thank you,” he said; “I must go now. May—may I leave this with

you?”

He put a ten-shilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and

gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp, and hurried out. He

had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria

looked at every face that passed, as lovers will, hoping against

hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local

train, and set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk

off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat, he

could enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and

again to sprawl on the grass, admire the perfection of a wild

rose or listen to a lark's song. But the war of motives within

him was but postponed—the longing for Fleur, and the hatred of

deception. He came to the old chalk-pit above Wansdon with his

mind no more made up than when he started. To see both sides of a

question vigorously was at once Jon's strength and weakness. He

tramped in, just as the first dinner-bell rang. His things had

already been brought up. He had a hurried bath and came down to

find Holly alone—Val had gone to Town and would not be back till

the last train.

Since Val's advice to him to ask his sister what was the matter

between the two families, so much had happened—Fleur's disclosure

in the Green Park, her visit to Robin Hill, to-day's meeting—that

there seemed nothing to ask. He talked of Spain, his sunstroke,

Val's horses, their father's health. Holly startled him by saying

that she thought their father not at all well. She had been twice

to Robin Hill for the week-end. He had seemed fearfully languid,

sometimes even in pain, but had always refused to talk about

himself.

“He's awfully dear and unselfish—don't you think, Jon?”

Feeling far from dear and unselfish himself, Jon answered:

“Rather!”

“I think, he's been a simply perfect father, so long as I can

remember.”

“Yes,” answered Jon, very subdued.

“He's never interfered, and he's always seemed to understand. I

shall never forget his letting me go to South Africa in the Boer

War when I was in love with Val.”

“That was before he married Mother, wasn't it?” said Jon

suddenly.

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh! nothing. Only, wasn't she engaged to Fleur's father first?”

Holly put down the spoon she was using, and raised her eyes. Her

stare was circumspect. What did the boy know? Enough to make it

better to tell him? She could not decide. He looked strained and

worried, altogether older, but that might be the sunstroke.

“There was something,” she said. “Of course we were out there,

and got no news of anything.” She could not take the risk.

It was not her secret. Besides, she was in the dark about his

feelings now. Before Spain she had made sure he was in love; but

boys were boys; that was seven weeks ago, and all Spain between.

She saw that he knew she was putting him off, and added:

“Have you heard anything of Fleur?”

“Yes.”

His face told her, then, more than the most elaborate

explanations. So he had not forgotten!

She said very quietly: “Fleur is awfully attractive, Jon, but you

know—Val and I don't really like her very much.”

“Why?”

“We think she's got rather a 'having' nature.”

“'Having'. I don't know what you mean. She—she—” he pushed his

dessert plate away, got up, and went to the window.

Holly, too, got up, and put her arm round his waist.

“Don't be angry, Jon dear. We can't all see people in the same

light, can we? You know, I believe each of us only has about one

or two people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it

out. For you I think it's your mother. I once saw her looking at

a letter of yours; it was wonderful to see her face. I think

she's the most beautiful woman I ever saw—Age doesn't seem to

touch her.”

Jon's face softened; then again became tense. Everybody—everybody

was against him and Fleur! It all strengthened the appeal of her

words: “Make sure of me—marry me, Jon!”

Here, where he had passed that wonderful week with her—the tug of

her enchantment, the ache in his heart increased with every

minute that she was not there to make the room, the garden, the

very air magical. Would he ever be able to live down here, not

seeing her? And he closed up utterly, going early to bed. It

would not make him healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it closeted

him with memory of Fleur in her fancy frock. He heard Val's

arrival—the Ford discharging cargo, then the stillness of the

summer night stole back—with only the bleating of very distant

sheep, and a night-Jar's harsh purring. He leaned far out. Cold

moon—warm air—the Downs like silver! Small wings, a stream

bubbling, the rambler roses! God—how empty all of it without her!

In the Bible it was written: Thou shalt leave father and mother

and cleave to—Fleur!

Let him have pluck, and go and tell them! They couldn't stop him

marrying her—they wouldn't want to stop him when they knew how he

felt. Yes! He would go! Bold and open—Fleur was wrong!

The night-jar ceased, the sheep were silent; the only sound in

the darkness was the bubbling of the stream. And Jon in his bed

slept, freed from the worst of life's evils—indecision.

XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES

On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery began

the second anniversary of the resurrection of England's pride and

glory—or, more shortly, the top hat. “Lord's”—that festival which

the War had driven from the field—raised its light and dark blue

flags for the second time, displaying almost every feature of a

glorious past. Here, in the luncheon interval, were all species

of female and one species of male hat, protecting the multiple

types of face associated with “the classes.” The observing

Forsyte might discern in the free or unconsidered seats a certain

number of the squash-hatted, but they hardly ventured on the

grass; the old school—or schools—could still rejoice that the

proletariat was not yet paying the necessary half-crown. Here was

still a close borough, the only one left on a large scale—for the

papers were about to estimate the attendance at ten thousand. And

the ten thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking each

other one question: “Where are you lunching?” Something

wonderfully uplifting and reassuring in that query and the sight

of so many people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power

in the British realm—enough pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon

mayonnaise, strawberries, and bottles of champagne to feed the

lot! No miracle in prospect—no case of seven loaves and a few

fishes—faith rested on surer foundations. Six thousand top hats,

four thousand parasols would be doffed and furled, ten thousand

mouths all speaking the same English would be filled. There was

life in the old dog yet! Tradition! And again Tradition! How

strong and how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey, Trades

Unions take toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but the ten

thousand would be fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon

green turf, wear their top hats, and meet—themselves. The heart

was sound, the pulse still regular. E-ton! E-ton! Har-r-o-o-o-w!

Among the many Forsytes, present on a hunting-ground theirs, by

personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was Soames with his wife

and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no

interest in cricket, but he wanted Fleur to show her frock, and

he wanted to wear his top hat parade it again in peace and plenty

among his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and

Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he could see. They

could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their

good looks; the modern woman had no build, no chest, no anything!

He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had

walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage.

And how they used to lunch on the drag which his mother would

make his father have, because it was so “chic”—all drags and

carriages in those days, not these lumbering great Stands! And

how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed

that people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for

it there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte—whose brothers

Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton—towering up on the

top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a

dark-blue flag with the other, and shouting “Etroow-Harrton!”

Just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always

been; and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to

wear any colour or take any notice. H'm! Old days, and Irene in

grey silk shot with palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur's

face. Rather colourless-no light, no eagerness! That love affair

was preying on her—a bad business! He looked beyond, at his

wife's face, rather more touched up than usual, a little

disdainful—not that she had any business to disdain, so far as he

could see. She was taking Profond's defection with curious

quietude; or was his “small” voyage just a blind? If so, he

should refuse to see it! Having promenaded round the pitch and in

front of the pavilion, they sought Winifred's table in the

Bedouin Club tent. This Club—a new “cock and hen”—had been

founded in the interests of travel, and of a gentleman with an

old Scottish name, whose father had somewhat strangely been

called Levi. Winifred had joined, not because she had travelled,

but because instinct told her that a Club with such a name and

such a founder was bound to go far; if one didn't join at once

one might never have the chance. Its tent, with a text from the

Koran on an orange ground, and a small green camel embroidered

over the entrance, was the most striking on the ground. Outside

it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark blue tie (he had once

played for Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show how that

fellow ought to have hit that ball. He piloted them in. Assembled

in Winifred's corner were Imogen, Benedict with his young wife,

Val Dartie without Holly, Maud and her husband, and, after Soames

and his two were seated, one empty place.

“I'm expecting Prosper,” said Winifred, “but he's so busy with

his yacht.”

Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife's face! Whether

that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it.

It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If

Annette didn't respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur's!

The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan

talking about “mid-off.” He cited all the “great mid-offs” from

the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial

entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had

finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he

heard the words, “I'm a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie,” and saw

that there was no longer any empty place. That fellow was sitting

between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on, with an

occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around

him. He heard the voice of Profond say:

“I think you're mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I'll—I'll bet Miss

Forsyde agrees with me.”

“In what?” came Fleur's clear voice across the table.

“I was sayin', young gurls are much the same as they always

were—there's very small difference.”

“Do you know so much about them?”

That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved

uneasily on his thin green chair.

“Well, I don't know, I think they want their own small way, and I

think they always did.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, but—Prosper,” Winifred interjected comfortably, “the girls

in the streets—the girls who've been in munitions, the little

flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in

the eye.”

At the word “hit” Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in

the silence Monsieur Profond said:

“It was inside before, now it's outside; that's all.”

“But their morals!” cried Imogen.

“Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they've got

more opportunity.”

The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from

Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's mouth, and a creak

from Soames' chair.

Winifred said: “That's too bad, Prosper.”

“What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don't you think human nature's

always the same?”

Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He

heard his wife reply:

“Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else.” That

was her confounded mockery!

“Well, I don't know much about this small country”—'No, thank

God!' thought Soames—“but I should say the pot was boilin' under

the lid everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did.”

Damn the fellow! His cynicism was—was outrageous!

When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive

promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames knew perfectly that

Annette and that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur

was with Val; she had chosen him, no doubt, because he knew that

boy. He himself had Winifred for partner. They walked in the

bright, circling stream, a little flushed and sated, for some

minutes, till Winifred sighed:

“I wish we were back forty years, old boy!”

Before the eyes of her spirit an interminable procession of her

own “Lord's” frocks was passing, paid for with the money of her

father, to save a recurrent crisis. “It's been very amusing,

after all. Sometimes I even wish Monty was back. What do you

think of people nowadays, Soames?”

“Precious little style. The thing began to go to pieces with

bicycles and motor-cars; the War has finished it.”

“I wonder what's coming?” said Winifred in a voice dreamy from

pigeon-pie. “I'm not at all sure we shan't go back to crinolines

and pegtops. Look at that dress!”

Soames shook his head.

“There's money, but no faith in things. We don't lay by for the

future. These youngsters—it's all a short life and a merry one

with them.”

“There's a hat!” said Winifred. “I don't know—when you come to

think of the people killed and all that in the War, it's rather

wonderful, I think. There's no other country—Prosper says the

rest are all bankrupt, except America; and of course her men

always took their style in dress from us.”

“Is that chap,” said Soames, “really going to the South Seas?”

“Oh! one never knows where Prosper's going!”

“He's a sign of the times,” muttered Soames, “if you like.”

Winifred's hand gripped his arm.

“Don't turn your head,” she said in a low voice, “but look to

your right in the front row of the Stand.”

Soames looked as best he could under that limitation. A man in a

grey top hat, grey-bearded, with thin brown, folded cheeks, and a

certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a

lawn-coloured frock, whose dark eyes were fixed on himself.

Soames looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one

after the other like that! Winifred's voice said in his ear:

“Jolyon looks very ill; but he always had style. She doesn't

change—except her hair.”

“Why did you tell Fleur about that business?”

“I didn't; she picked it up. I always knew she would.”

“Well, it's a mess. She's set her heart upon their boy.”

“The little wretch,” murmured Winifred. “She tried to take me in

about that. What shall you do, Soames?”

“Be guided by events.”

They moved on, silent, in the almost solid crowd.

“Really,” said Winifred suddenly; “it almost seems like Fate.

Only that's so old-fashioned. Look! there are George and

Eustace!”

George Forsyte's lofty bulk had halted before them.

“Hallo, Soames!” he said. “Just met Profond and your wife. You'll

catch 'em if you put on pace. Did you ever go to see old

Timothy?”

Soames nodded, and the streams forced them apart.

“I always liked old George,” said Winifred. “He's so droll.”

“I never did,” said Soames. “Where's your seat? I shall go to

mine. Fleur may be back there.”

Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious

of small, white, distant figures running, the click of the bat,

the cheers and counter-cheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You

could expect nothing of women nowadays! They had the vote. They

were “emancipated,” and much good it was doing them! So Winifred

would go back, would she, and put up with Dartie all over again?

To have the past once more—to be sitting here as he had sat in

'83 and '84, before he was certain that his marriage with Irene

had gone all wrong, before her antagonism had become so glaring

that with the best will in the world he could not overlook it.

The sight of her with that fellow had brought all memory back.

Even now he could not understand why she had been so

impracticable. She could love other men; she had it in her! To

himself, the one person she ought to have loved, she had chosen

to refuse her heart. It seemed to him, fantastically, as he

looked back, that all this modern relaxation of marriage—though

its forms and laws were the same as when he married her—that all

this modern looseness had come out of her revolt; it seemed to

him, fantastically, that she had started it, till all decent

ownership of anything had gone, or was on the point of going. All

came from her! And now—a pretty state of things! Homes! How could

you have them without mutual ownership? Not that he had ever had

a real home! But had that been his fault? He had done his best.

And his rewards were—those two sitting in that Stand, and this

affair of Fleur's!

And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer!

They must find their own way back to the hotel—if they mean to

come!' Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said:

“Drive me to the Bayswater Road.” His old aunts had never failed

him. To them he had meant an ever-welcome visitor. Though they

were gone, there, still, was Timothy!

Smither was standing in the open doorway.

“Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased.”

“How is Mr. Timothy?”

“Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a

great deal. Only this morning he was saying: 'My brother James,

he's getting old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will

talk of them. He troubles about their investments. The other day

he said: 'There's my brother Jolyon won't look at Consols'—he

seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's

such a pleasant change!”

“Well,” said Soames, “just for a few minutes.”

“No,” murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the

singular freshness of the outside day, “we haven't been very

satisfied with him, not all this week. He's always been one to

leave a titbit to the end; but ever since Monday he's been eating

it first. If you notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats

the meat first. We've always thought it such a good sign of Mr.

Timothy at his age to leave it to the last, but now he seems to

have lost all his self-control; and, of course, it makes him

leave the rest. The doctor doesn't make anything of it,

but”—Smither shook her head—“he seems to think he's got to eat it

first, in case he shouldn't get to it. That and his talking makes

us anxious.”

“Has he said anything important?”

“I shouldn't like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned

against his Will. He gets quite pettish—and after having had it

out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the

other day: 'They want my money.' It gave me such a turn, because,

as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does

seem a pity he should be thinking about money at his time of

life. I took my courage in my 'ands. 'You know, Mr. Timothy,' I

said, 'my dear mistress'—that's Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss

Ann that trained me—'she never thought about money,' I said, 'it

was all character with her.' He looked at me, I can't tell you

how funny, and he said quite dry: 'Nobody wants my character.'

Think of his saying a thing like that! But sometimes he'll say

something as sharp and sensible as anything.”

Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hat-rack,

thinking, 'That's got value!' murmured: “I'll go up and see him,

Smither.”

“Cook's with him,” answered Smither above her corsets; “she will

be pleased to see you.”

He mounted slowly, with the thought: 'Shan't care to live to be

that age.'

On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened,

and he saw the round homely face of a woman about sixty.

“Mr. Soames!” she said: “Why! Mr. Soames!”

Soames nodded. “All right, Cook!” and entered.

Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his

chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where a fly was

standing upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing

him.

“Uncle Timothy,” he said, raising his voice. “Uncle Timothy!”

Timothy's eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his

visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing over his

darkish lips.

“Uncle Timothy,” he said again, “is there anything I can do for

you? Is there anything you'd like to say?”

“Ha!” said Timothy.

“I've come to look you up and see that everything's all right.”

Timothy nodded. He seemed trying to get used to the apparition

before him.

“Have you got everything you want?”

“No,” said Timothy.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No,” said Timothy.

“I'm Soames, you know; your nephew, Soames Forsyte. Your brother

James' son.”

Timothy nodded.

“I shall be delighted to do anything I can for you.”

Timothy beckoned. Soames went close to him:

“You—” said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived

tone, “you tell them all from me—you tell them all—” and his

finger tapped on Soames' arm, “to hold on—hold on—Consols are

goin' up,” and he nodded thrice.

“All right!” said Soames; “I will.”

“Yes,” said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling,

he added: “That fly!”

Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish

face, all little puckers from staring at fires.

“That'll do him a world of good, sir,” she said.

A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to

himself, and Soames went out with the cook.

“I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old

days; you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it has been a

pleasure.”

“Take care of him, Cook, he is old.”

And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was

still taking the air in the doorway.

“What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?”

“H'm!” Soames murmured: “He's lost touch.”

“Yes,” said Smither, “I was afraid you'd think that coming fresh

out of the world to see him like.”

“Smither,” said Soames, “we're all indebted to you.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don't say that! It's a pleasure—he's such a

wonderful man.”

“Well, good-bye!” said Soames, and got into his taxi.

'Going up!' he thought; 'going up!'

Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their

sitting-room, and rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And

again that sense of loneliness came over him. These hotels. What

monstrous great places they were now! He could remember when

there was nothing bigger than Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the

Tavistock, and the heads that were shaken over the Langham and

the Grand. Hotels and Clubs—Clubs and Hotels; no end to them now!

And Soames, who had just been watching at Lord's a miracle of

tradition and continuity, fell into reverie over the changes in

that London where he had been born five-and-sixty years before.

Whether Consols were going up or not, London had become a

terrific property. No such property in the world, unless it were

New York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but

any one who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago,

and see it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth.

They had only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he

remembered cobblestones, and stinking straw on the floor of your

cab. And old Timothy—what could he not have told them, if he had

kept his memory! Things were unsettled, people in a funk or in a

hurry, but here were London and the Thames, and out there the

British Empire, and the ends of the earth. “Consols are goin'

up!” He should n't be a bit surprised. It was the breed that

counted. And all that was bull-dogged in Soames stared for a

moment out of his grey eyes, till diverted by the print of a

Victorian picture on the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen

of that little lot! The old hunting or “Rake's Progress” prints

in the old inns were worth looking at—but this sentimental

stuff—well, Victorianism had gone! “Tell them to hold on!” old

Timothy had said. But to what were they to hold on in this modern

welter of the “democratic principle”? Why, even privacy was

threatened! And at the thought that privacy might perish, Soames

pushed back his teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no

more of Nature than the crowd out there owned of the flowers and

trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, no! Private possession

underlay everything worth having. The world had slipped its

sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon slipped theirs

and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the world, like the

dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and

would come back sure enough to the only home worth having—to

private ownership. The world was in its second childhood for the

moment, like old Timothy—eating its titbit first!

He heard a sound behind him, and saw that his wife and daughter

had come in.

“So you're back!” he said.

Fleur did not answer; she stood for a moment looking at him and

her mother, then passed into her bedroom. Annette poured herself

out a cup of tea.

“I am going to Paris, to my mother, Soames.”

“Oh! To your mother?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“I do not know.”

“And when are you going?”

“On Monday.”

Was she really going to her mother? Odd, how indifferent he felt!

Odd, how clearly she had perceived the indifference he would feel

so long as there was no scandal. And suddenly between her and

himself he saw distinctly the face he had seen that

afternoon—Irene's.

“Will you want money?”

“Thank you; I have enough.”

“Very well. Let us know when you are coming back.”

Annette put down the cake she was fingering, and, looking up

through darkened lashes, said:

“Shall I give Maman any message?”

“My regards.”

Annette stretched herself, her hands on her waist, and said in

French:

“What luck that you have never loved me, Soames!” Then rising,

she too left the room. Soames was glad she had spoken it in

French—it seemed to require no dealing with. Again that other

face—pale, dark-eyed, beautiful still! And there stirred far down

within him the ghost of warmth, as from sparks lingering beneath

a mound of flaky ash. And Fleur infatuated with her boy! Queer

chance! Yet, was there such a thing as chance? A man went down a

street, a brick fell on his head. Ah! that was chance, no doubt.

But this! “Inherited,” his girl had said. She—she was “holding

on”!

PART III

I.—OLD JOLYON WALKS

Twofold impulse had made Jolyon say to his wife at breakfast

“Let's go up to Lord's!”

“Wanted”—something to abate the anxiety in which those two had

lived during the sixty hours since Jon had brought Fleur down.

“Wanted”—too, that which might assuage the pangs of memory in one

who knew he might lose them any day!

Fifty-eight years ago Jolyon had become an Eton boy, for old

Jolyon's whim had been that he should be canonised at the

greatest possible expense. Year after year he had gone to Lord's

from Stanhope Gate with a father whose youth in the

eighteen-twenties had been passed without polish in the game of

cricket. Old Jolyon would speak quite openly of swipes, full

tosses, half and three-quarter balls; and young Jolyon with the

guileless snobbery of youth had trembled lest his sire should be

overheard. Only in this supreme matter of cricket he had been

nervous, for his father—in Crimean whiskers then—had ever

impressed him as the beau ideal. Though never canonised himself,

Old Jolyon's natural fastidiousness and balance had saved him

from the errors of the vulgar. How delicious, after bowling in a

top hat and a sweltering heat, to go home with his father in a

hansom cab, bathe, dress, and forth to the “Disunion” Club, to

dine off white bait, cutlets, and a tart, and go—two “swells,”

old and young, in lavender kid gloves—to the opera or play. And

on Sunday, when the match was over, and his top hat duly broken,

down with his father in a special hansom to the “Crown and

Sceptre,” and the terrace above the river—the golden sixties when

the world was simple, dandies glamorous, Democracy not born, and

the books of Whyte Melville coming thick and fast.

A generation later, with his own boy, Jolly, Harrow-buttonholed

with corn-flowers—by old Jolyon's whim his grandson had been

canonised at a trifle less expense—again Jolyon had experienced

the heat and counter-passions of the day, and come back to the

cool and the strawberry beds of Robin Hill, and billiards after

dinner, his boy making the most heart-breaking flukes and trying

to seem languid and grown-up. Those two days each year he and his

son had been alone together in the world, one on each side—and

Democracy just born!

And so, he had unearthed a grey top hat, borrowed a tiny bit of

light-blue ribbon from Irene, and gingerly, keeping cool, by car

and train and taxi, had reached Lord's Ground. There, beside her

in a lawn-coloured frock with narrow black edges, he had watched

the game, and felt the old thrill stir within him.

When Soames passed, the day was spoiled. Irene's face was

distorted by compression of the lips. No good to go on sitting

here with Soames or perhaps his daughter recurring in front of

them, like decimals. And he said:

“Well, dear, if you've had enough—let's go!”

That evening Jolyon felt exhausted. Not wanting her to see him

thus, he waited till she had begun to play, and stole off to the

little study. He opened the long window for air, and the door,

that he might still hear her music drifting in; and, settled in

his father's old armchair, closed his eyes, with his head against

the worn brown leather. Like that passage of the Cesar Franck

Sonata—so had been his life with her, a divine third movement.

And now this business of Jon's—this bad business! Drifted to the

edge of consciousness, he hardly knew if it were in sleep that he

smelled the scent of a cigar, and seemed to see his father in the

blackness before his closed eyes. That shape formed, went, and

formed again; as if in the very chair where he himself was

sitting, he saw his father, black-coated, with knees crossed,

glasses balanced between thumb and finger; saw the big white

moustaches, and the deep eyes looking up below a dome of forehead

and seeming to search his own, seeming to speak. “Are you facing

it, Jo? It's for you to decide. She's only a woman!” Ah! how well

he knew his father in that phrase; how all the Victorian Age came

up with it! And his answer “No, I've funked it—funked hurting her

and Jon and myself. I've got a heart; I've funked it.” But the

old eyes, so much older, so much younger than his own, kept at

it; “It's your wife, your son; your past. Tackle it, my boy!” Was

it a message from walking spirit; or but the instinct of his sire

living on within him? And again came that scent of cigar

smoke-from the old saturated leather. Well! he would tackle it,

write to Jon, and put the whole thing down in black and white!

And suddenly he breathed with difficulty, with a sense of

suffocation, as if his heart were swollen. He got up and went out

into the air. The stars were very bright. He passed along the

terrace round the corner of the house, till, through the window

of the music-room, he could see Irene at the piano, with

lamp-light falling on her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself

she seemed, her dark eyes staring straight before her, her hands

idle. Jolyon saw her raise those hands and clasp them over her

breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out

of her—it's natural!'

And, careful not to be seen, he stole back.

Next day, after a bad night, he sat down to his task. He wrote

with difficulty and many erasures.

“MY DEAREST BOY,

“You are old enough to understand how very difficult it is for

elders to give themselves away to their young. Especially

when—like your mother and myself, though I shall never think of

her as anything but young—their hearts are altogether set on him

to whom they must confess. I cannot say we are conscious of

having sinned exactly—people in real life very seldom are, I

believe—but most persons would say we had, and at all events our

conduct, righteous or not, has found us out. The truth is, my

dear, we both have pasts, which it is now my task to make known

to you, because they so grievously and deeply affect your future.

Many, very many years ago, as far back indeed as 1883, when she

was only twenty, your mother had the great and lasting misfortune

to make an unhappy marriage—no, not with me, Jon. Without money

of her own, and with only a stepmother—closely related to

Jezebel—she was very unhappy in her home life. It was Fleur's

father that she married, my cousin Soames Forsyte. He had pursued

her very tenaciously and to do him justice was deeply in love

with her. Within a week she knew the fearful mistake she had

made. It was not his fault; it was her error of judgment—her

misfortune.”

So far Jolyon had kept some semblance of irony, but now his

subject carried him away.

“Jon, I want to explain to you if I can—and it's very hard—how it

is that an unhappy marriage such as this can so easily come

about. You will of course say: 'If she didn't really love him how

could she ever have married him?' You would be right if it were

not for one or two rather terrible considerations. From this

initial mistake of hers all the subsequent trouble, sorrow, and

tragedy have come, and so I must make it clear to you if I can.

You see, Jon, in those days and even to this day—indeed, I don't

see, for all the talk of enlightenment, how it can well be

otherwise—most girls are married ignorant of the sexual side of

life. Even if they know what it means they have not experienced

it. That's the crux. It is this actual lack of experience,

whatever verbal knowledge they have, which makes all the

difference and all the trouble. In a vast number of marriages-and

your mother's was one—girls are not and cannot be certain whether

they love the man they marry or not; they do not know until after

that act of union which makes the reality of marriage. Now, in

many, perhaps in most doubtful cases, this act cements and

strengthens the attachment, but in other cases, and your mother's

was one, it is a revelation of mistake, a destruction of such

attraction as there was. There is nothing more tragic in a

woman's life than such a revelation, growing daily, nightly

clearer. Coarse-grained and unthinking people are apt to laugh at

such a mistake, and say, 'What a fuss about nothing!' Narrow and

self-righteous people, only capable of judging the lives of

others by their own, are apt to condemn those who make this

tragic error, to condemn them for life to the dungeons they have

made for themselves. You know the expression: 'She has made her

bed, she must lie on it!' It is a hard-mouthed saying, quite

unworthy of a gentleman or lady in the best sense of those words;

and I can use no stronger condemnation. I have not been what is

called a moral man, but I wish to use no words to you, my dear,

which will make you think lightly of ties or contracts into which

you enter. Heaven forbid! But with the experience of a life

behind me I do say that those who condemn the victims of these

tragic mistakes, condemn them and hold out no hands to help them,

are inhuman, or rather they would be if they had the

understanding to know what they are doing. But they haven't! Let

them go! They are as much anathema to me as I, no doubt, am to

them. I have had to say all this, because I am going to put you

into a position to judge your mother, and you are very young,

without experience of what life is. To go on with the story.

After three years of effort to subdue her shrinking—I was going

to say her loathing and it's not too strong a word, for shrinking

soon becomes loathing under such circumstances—three years of

what to a sensitive, beauty-loving nature like your mother's,

Jon, was torment, she met a young man who fell in love with her.

He was the architect of this very house that we live in now, he

was building it for her and Fleur's father to live in, a new

prison to hold her, in place of the one she inhabited with him in

London. Perhaps that fact played some part in what came of it.

But in any case she, too, fell in love with him. I know it's not

necessary to explain to you that one does not precisely choose

with whom one will fall in love. It comes. Very well! It came. I

can imagine—though she never said much to me about it—the

struggle that then took place in her, because, Jon, she was

brought up strictly and was not light in her ideas—not at all.

However, this was an overwhelming feeling, and it came to pass

that they loved in deed as well as in thought. Then came a

fearful tragedy. I must tell you of it because if I don't you

will never understand the real situation that you have now to

face. The man whom she had married—Soames Forsyte, the father of

Fleur one night, at the height of her passion for this young man,

forcibly reasserted his rights over her. The next day she met her

lover and told him of it. Whether he committed suicide or whether

he was accidentally run over in his distraction, we never knew;

but so it was. Think of your mother as she was that evening when

she heard of his death. I happened to see her. Your grandfather

sent me to help her if I could. I only just saw her, before the

door was shut against me by her husband. But I have never

forgotten her face, I can see it now. I was not in love with her

then, not for twelve years after, but I have never forgotten. My

dear boy—it is not easy to write like this. But you see, I must.

Your mother is wrapped up in you, utterly, devotedly. I don't

wish to write harshly of Soames Forsyte. I don't think harshly of

him. I have long been sorry for him; perhaps I was sorry even

then. As the world judges she was in error, he within his rights.

He loved her—in his way. She was his property. That is the view

he holds of life—of human feelings and hearts—property. It's not

his fault—so was he born. To me it is a view that has always been

abhorrent—so was I born! Knowing you as I do, I feel it cannot be

otherwise than abhorrent to you. Let me go on with the story.

Your mother fled from his house that night; for twelve years she

lived quietly alone without companionship of any sort, until in

1899 her husband—you see, he was still her husband, for he did

not attempt to divorce her, and she of course had no right to

divorce him—became conscious, it seems, of the want of children,

and commenced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him and

give him a child. I was her trustee then, under your

Grandfather's Will, and I watched this going on. While watching,

I became attached to her, devotedly attached. His pressure

increased, till one day she came to me here and practically put

herself under my protection. Her husband, who was kept informed

of all her movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a

divorce suit, or possibly he really meant it, I don't know; but

anyway our names were publicly joined. That decided us, and we

became united in fact. She was divorced, married me, and you were

born. We have lived in perfect happiness, at least I have, and I

believe your mother also. Soames, soon after the divorce, married

Fleur's mother, and she was born. That is the story, Jon. I have

told it you, because by the affection which we see you have

formed for this man's daughter you are blindly moving toward what

must utterly destroy your mother's happiness, if not your own. I

don't wish to speak of myself, because at my age there's no use

supposing I shall cumber the ground much longer, besides, what I

should suffer would be mainly on her account, and on yours. But

what I want you to realise is that feelings of horror and

aversion such as those can never be buried or forgotten. They are

alive in her to-day. Only yesterday at Lord's we happened to see

Soames Forsyte. Her face, if you had seen it, would have

convinced you. The idea that you should marry his daughter is a

nightmare to her, Jon. I have nothing to say against Fleur save

that she is his daughter. But your children, if you married her,

would be the grandchildren of Soames, as much as of your mother,

of a man who once owned your mother as a man might own a slave.

Think what that would mean. By such a marriage you enter the camp

which held your mother prisoner and wherein she ate her heart

out. You are just on the threshold of life, you have only known

this girl two months, and however deeply you think you love her,

I appeal to you to break it off at once. Don't give your mother

this rankling pain and humiliation during the rest of her life.

Young though she will always seem to me, she is fifty-seven.

Except for us two she has no one in the world. She will soon have

only you. Pluck up your spirit, Jon, and break away. Don't put

this cloud and barrier between you. Don't break her heart! Bless

you, my dear boy, and again forgive me for all the pain this

letter must bring you—we tried to spare it you, but Spain—it

seems—-was no good.

“Ever your devoted father,

“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

Having finished his confession, Jolyon sat with a thin cheek on

his hand, re-reading. There were things in it which hurt him so

much, when he thought of Jon reading them, that he nearly tore

the letter up. To speak of such things at all to a boy—his own

boy—to speak of them in relation to his own wife and the boy's

own mother, seemed dreadful to the reticence of his Forsyte soul.

And yet without speaking of them how make Jon understand the

reality, the deep cleavage, the ineffaceable scar? Without them,

how justify this stiffing of the boy's love? He might just as

well not write at all!

He folded the confession, and put it in his pocket. It was—thank

Heaven!—Saturday; he had till Sunday evening to think it over;

for even if posted now it could not reach Jon till Monday. He

felt a curious relief at this delay, and at the fact that,

whether sent or not, it was written.

In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery,

he could see Irene snipping and pruning, with a little basket on

her arm. She was never idle, it seemed to him, and he envied her

now that he himself was idle nearly all his time. He went down to

her. She held up a stained glove and smiled. A piece of lace tied

under her chin concealed her hair, and her oval face with its

still dark brows looked very young.

“The green-fly are awful this year, and yet it's cold. You look

tired, Jolyon.”

Jolyon took the confession from his pocket. “I've been writing

this. I think you ought to see it?”

“To Jon?” Her whole face had changed, in that instant, becoming

almost haggard.

“Yes; the murder's out.”

He gave it to her, and walked away among the roses. Presently,

seeing that she had finished reading and was standing quite still

with the sheets of the letter against her skirt, he came back to

her.

“Well?”

“It's wonderfully put. I don't see how it could be put better.

Thank you, dear.”

“Is there anything you would like left out?”

She shook her head.

“No; he must know all, if he's to understand.”

“That's what I thought, but—I hate it!”

He had the feeling that he hated it more than she—to him sex was

so much easier to mention between man and woman than between man

and man; and she had always been more natural and frank, not

deeply secretive like his Forsyte self.

“I wonder if he will understand, even now, Jolyon? He's so young;

and he shrinks from the physical.”

“He gets that shrinking from my father, he was as fastidious as a

girl in all such matters. Would it be better to rewrite the whole

thing, and just say you hated Soames?”

Irene shook her head.

“Hate's only a word. It conveys nothing. No, better as it is.”

“Very well. It shall go to-morrow.”

She raised her face to his, and in sight of the big house's many

creepered windows, he kissed her.

II.—CONFESSION