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+Project Gutenberg's The Forsyte Saga, Volume II., by John Galsworthy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Forsyte Saga, Volume II.
+       Indian Summer of a Forsyte and In Chancery
+
+Author: John Galsworthy
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #2594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORSYTE SAGA, VOLUME II. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORSYTE SAGA--VOLUME II
+
+By John Galsworthy
+
+
+
+Contents:     Indian Summer of a Forsyte
+              In Chancery
+
+
+TO ANDRE CHEVRILLON
+
+
+
+
+INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE
+
+
+      "And Summer's lease hath all
+                too short a date."
+       --Shakespeare
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+In the last day of May in the early 'nineties, about six o'clock of the
+evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the terrace
+of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the midges to bite him,
+before abandoning the glory of the afternoon. His thin brown hand,
+where blue veins stood out, held the end of a cigar in its tapering,
+long-nailed fingers--a pointed polished nail had survived with him from
+those earlier Victorian days when to touch nothing, even with the tips
+of the fingers, had been so distinguished. His domed forehead, great
+white moustache, lean cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the
+westering sunshine by an old brown Panama hat. His legs were crossed; in
+all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an old man
+who every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk handkerchief. At his
+feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying to be a Pomeranian--the dog
+Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion had changed into
+attachment with the years. Close to his chair was a swing, and on the
+swing was seated one of Holly's dolls--called 'Duffer Alice'--with
+her body fallen over her legs and her doleful nose buried in a black
+petticoat. She was never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her
+how she sat. Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched
+to the fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to
+the pond, the coppice, and the prospect--'Fine, remarkable'--at which
+Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five years ago
+when he drove down with Irene to look at the house. Old Jolyon had heard
+of his brother's exploit--that drive which had become quite celebrated
+on Forsyte 'Change. Swithin! And the fellow had gone and died, last
+November, at the age of only seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether
+Forsytes could live for ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann
+passed away. Died! and left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas
+and Timothy, Julia, Hester, Susan! And old Jolyon thought: 'Eighty-five!
+I don't feel it--except when I get that pain.'
+
+His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had bought
+his nephew Soames' ill-starred house and settled into it here at Robin
+Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been getting
+younger every spring, living in the country with his son and his
+grandchildren--June, and the little ones of the second marriage, Jolly
+and Holly; living down here out of the racket of London and the cackle
+of Forsyte 'Change,' free of his boards, in a delicious atmosphere of
+no work and all play, with plenty of occupation in the perfecting and
+mellowing of the house and its twenty acres, and in ministering to
+the whims of Holly and Jolly. All the knots and crankiness, which had
+gathered in his heart during that long and tragic business of June,
+Soames, Irene his wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out.
+Even June had thrown off her melancholy at last--witness this travel in
+Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother. Curiously
+perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful, yet blank, because
+his son was not there. Jo was never anything but a comfort and a
+pleasure to him nowadays--an amiable chap; but women, somehow--even the
+best--got a little on one's nerves, unless of course one admired them.
+
+Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first
+elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had sprung
+up after the last mowing! The wind had got into the sou' west, too--a
+delicious air, sappy! He pushed his hat back and let the sun fall on his
+chin and cheek. Somehow, to-day, he wanted company--wanted a pretty face
+to look at. People treated the old as if they wanted nothing. And with
+the un-Forsytean philosophy which ever intruded on his soul, he thought:
+'One's never had enough. With a foot in the grave one'll want something,
+I shouldn't be surprised!' Down here--away from the exigencies of
+affairs--his grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his little
+domain, to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above them, said,
+'Open, sesame,' to him day and night. And sesame had opened--how much,
+perhaps, he did not know. He had always been responsive to what they had
+begun to call 'Nature,' genuinely, almost religiously responsive, though
+he had never lost his habit of calling a sunset a sunset and a view a
+view, however deeply they might move him. But nowadays Nature actually
+made him ache, he appreciated it so. Every one of these calm, bright,
+lengthening days, with Holly's hand in his, and the dog Balthasar in
+front looking studiously for what he never found, he would stroll,
+watching the roses open, fruit budding on the walls, sunlight
+brightening the oak leaves and saplings in the coppice, watching the
+water-lily leaves unfold and glisten, and the silvery young corn of
+the one wheat field; listening to the starlings and skylarks, and the
+Alderney cows chewing the cud, flicking slow their tufted tails; and
+every one of these fine days he ached a little from sheer love of it
+all, feeling perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer
+to enjoy it. The thought that some day--perhaps not ten years hence,
+perhaps not five--all this world would be taken away from him, before he
+had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him in the nature of an
+injustice brooding over his horizon. If anything came after this life,
+it wouldn't be what he wanted; not Robin Hill, and flowers and birds and
+pretty faces--too few, even now, of those about him! With the years
+his dislike of humbug had increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the
+'sixties, as he had worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance, had long
+dropped off, leaving him reverent before three things alone--beauty,
+upright conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these
+now was beauty. He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could
+still read The Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it down if
+he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct, property--somehow, they were
+tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never tired him, only gave him
+an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough of them. Staring into the
+stilly radiance of the early evening and at the little gold and white
+flowers on the lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like
+the music of 'Orfeo,' which he had recently heard at Covent Garden. A
+beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but, in its
+way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of the Golden Age
+about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli 'almost worthy of the old
+days'--highest praise he could bestow. The yearning of Orpheus for the
+beauty he was losing, for his love going down to Hades, as in life love
+and beauty did go--the yearning which sang and throbbed through the
+golden music, stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that
+evening. And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he
+involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the animal
+to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed to have none,
+nothing could persuade him of the fact. When he had finished he rubbed
+the place he had been scratching against his master's calf, and settled
+down again with his chin over the instep of the disturbing boot. And
+into old Jolyon's mind came a sudden recollection--a face he had seen
+at that opera three weeks ago--Irene, the wife of his precious nephew
+Soames, that man of property! Though he had not met her since the day
+of the 'At Home' in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his
+granddaughter June's ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he had
+remembered her at once, for he had always admired her--a very pretty
+creature. After the death of young Bosinney, whose mistress she had so
+reprehensibly become, he had heard that she had left Soames at once.
+Goodness only knew what she had been doing since. That sight of her
+face--a side view--in the row in front, had been literally the only
+reminder these three years that she was still alive. No one ever spoke
+of her. And yet Jo had told him something once--something which had
+upset him completely. The boy had got it from George Forsyte,
+he believed, who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he was run
+over--something which explained the young fellow's distress--an act
+of Soames towards his wife--a shocking act. Jo had seen her, too,
+that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his
+description had always lingered in old Jolyon's mind--'wild and lost'
+he had called her. And next day June had gone there--bottled up her
+feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her
+mistress had slipped out in the night and vanished. A tragic business
+altogether! One thing was certain--Soames had never been able to lay
+hands on her again. And he was living at Brighton, and journeying up
+and down--a fitting fate, the man of property! For when he once took a
+dislike to anyone--as he had to his nephew--old Jolyon never got over
+it. He remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the
+news of Irene's disappearance. It had been shocking to think of her a
+prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered back, when Jo saw
+her, wandered back for a moment--like a wounded animal to its hole after
+seeing that news, 'Tragic death of an Architect,' in the street. Her
+face had struck him very much the other night--more beautiful than he
+had remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it. A
+young woman still--twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had
+another lover by now. But at this subversive thought--for married women
+should never love: once, even, had been too much--his instep rose, and
+with it the dog Balthasar's head. The sagacious animal stood up and
+looked into old Jolyon's face. 'Walk?' he seemed to say; and old Jolyon
+answered: "Come on, old chap!"
+
+Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of
+buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature, where
+very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of
+the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn
+and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture.
+Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes
+found a mole there. Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it
+because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be,
+some day, and he would think: 'I must get Varr to come down and look
+at it; he's better than Beech.' For plants, like houses and human
+complaints, required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by
+snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one
+and tell them the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers
+got leggers, Mother? 'No, sonny.' 'Then darned if I haven't been and
+swallowed a snileybob.' And when they skipped and clutched his hand,
+thinking of the snileybob going down the little boy's 'red lane,' his
+eyes would twinkle. Emerging from the fernery, he opened the wicket
+gate, which just there led into the first field, a large and park-like
+area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been
+carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made
+down the hill towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,
+gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who takes
+the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting
+another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly
+to-morrow, when 'his little sweet' had got over the upset which had
+followed on her eating a tomato at lunch--her little arrangements were
+very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone to school--his first term--Holly
+was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her badly. He felt that
+pain too, which often bothered him now, a little dragging at his left
+side. He looked back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made
+an uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well for
+himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still haunting
+this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love affair. Or was
+Philip Bosinney's spirit diffused in the general? Who could say? That
+dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved towards the coppice. There
+had been the most delightful lot of bluebells, and he knew where some
+still lingered like little patches of sky fallen in between the trees,
+away out of the sun. He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there
+installed, and pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for
+one of the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered
+a low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog remained
+motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and the hair rose
+slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether from the growl and
+the look of the dog's stivered hair, or from the sensation which a man
+feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt something move along his spine.
+And then the path turned, and there was an old mossy log, and on it a
+woman sitting. Her face was turned away, and he had just time to think:
+'She's trespassing--I must have a board put up!' before she turned.
+Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera--the very woman he had
+just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things blurred,
+as if a spirit--queer effect--the slant of sunlight perhaps on her
+violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood smiling, her head a
+little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: 'How pretty she is!' She did not
+speak, neither did he; and he realized why with a certain admiration.
+She was here no doubt because of some memory, and did not mean to try
+and get out of it by vulgar explanation.
+
+"Don't let that dog touch your frock," he said; "he's got wet feet. Come
+here, you!"
+
+But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her hand down
+and stroked his head. Old Jolyon said quickly:
+
+"I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn't notice me."
+
+"Oh, yes! I did."
+
+He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: 'Do you
+think one could miss seeing you?'
+
+"They're all in Spain," he remarked abruptly. "I'm alone; I drove up for
+the opera. The Ravogli's good. Have you seen the cow-houses?"
+
+In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like emotion
+he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and she moved
+beside him. Her figure swayed faintly, like the best kind of French
+figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French grey. He noticed two or
+three silver threads in her amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those
+dark eyes of hers, and that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look
+from the velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It seemed to come from deep
+and far, from another world almost, or at all events from some one not
+living very much in this. And he said mechanically:
+
+"Where are you living now?"
+
+"I have a little flat in Chelsea."
+
+He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
+anything; but the perverse word came out:
+
+"Alone?"
+
+She nodded. It was a relief to know that. And it came into his mind
+that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress of this
+coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.
+
+"All Alderneys," he muttered; "they give the best milk. This one's a
+pretty creature. Woa, Myrtle!"
+
+The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene's own, was
+standing absolutely still, not having long been milked. She looked round
+at them out of the corner of those lustrous, mild, cynical eyes, and
+from her grey lips a little dribble of saliva threaded its way towards
+the straw. The scent of hay and vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim
+light of the cool cow-house; and old Jolyon said:
+
+"You must come up and have some dinner with me. I'll send you home in
+the carriage."
+
+He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt, with her
+memories. But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a charming figure,
+beauty! He had been alone all the afternoon. Perhaps his eyes were
+wistful, for she answered: "Thank you, Uncle Jolyon. I should like to."
+
+He rubbed his hands, and said:
+
+"Capital! Let's go up, then!" And, preceded by the dog Balthasar, they
+ascended through the field. The sun was almost level in their faces now,
+and he could see, not only those silver threads, but little lines, just
+deep enough to stamp her beauty with a coin-like fineness--the special
+look of life unshared with others. "I'll take her in by the terrace," he
+thought: "I won't make a common visitor of her."
+
+"What do you do all day?" he said.
+
+"Teach music; I have another interest, too."
+
+"Work!" said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing, and
+smoothing its black petticoat. "Nothing like it, is there? I don't do
+any now. I'm getting on. What interest is that?"
+
+"Trying to help women who've come to grief." Old Jolyon did not quite
+understand. "To grief?" he repeated; then realised with a shock that
+she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if he had used
+that expression. Assisting the Magdalenes of London! What a weird and
+terrifying interest! And, curiosity overcoming his natural shrinking, he
+asked:
+
+"Why? What do you do for them?"
+
+"Not much. I've no money to spare. I can only give sympathy and food
+sometimes."
+
+Involuntarily old Jolyon's hand sought his purse. He said hastily: "How
+d'you get hold of them?"
+
+"I go to a hospital."
+
+"A hospital! Phew!"
+
+"What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
+beauty."
+
+Old Jolyon straightened the doll. "Beauty!" he ejaculated: "Ha! Yes! A
+sad business!" and he moved towards the house. Through a French window,
+under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her into the room
+where he was wont to study The Times and the sheets of an agricultural
+magazine, with huge illustrations of mangold wurzels, and the like,
+which provided Holly with material for her paint brush.
+
+"Dinner's in half an hour. You'd like to wash your hands! I'll take you
+to June's room."
+
+He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last
+visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both perhaps--he
+did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he wished to leave
+it so. But what changes! And in the hall he said:
+
+"My boy Jo's a painter, you know. He's got a lot of taste. It isn't
+mine, of course, but I've let him have his way."
+
+She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall and music
+room, as it now was--all thrown into one, under the great skylight. Old
+Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she trying to conjure somebody
+from the shades of that space where the colouring was all pearl-grey and
+silver? He would have had gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo
+had French tastes, and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect
+as of the fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here
+and there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not
+his dream! Mentally he had hung this space with those gold-framed
+masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had bought in days when
+quantity was precious. And now where were they? Sold for a song! That
+something which made him, alone among Forsytes, move with the times
+had warned him against the struggle to retain them. But in his study he
+still had 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.'
+
+He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his side.
+
+"These are the bathrooms," he said, "and other arrangements. I've had
+them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo's and his
+wife's. They all communicate. But you remember, I expect."
+
+Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large room
+with a small bed, and several windows.
+
+"This is mine," he said. The walls were covered with the photographs of
+children and watercolour sketches, and he added doubtfully:
+
+"These are Jo's. The view's first-rate. You can see the Grand Stand at
+Epsom in clear weather."
+
+The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the 'prospect' a
+luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous day. Few
+houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened, away to a loom of
+downs.
+
+"The country's changing," he said abruptly, "but there it'll be when
+we're all gone. Look at those thrushes--the birds are sweet here in the
+mornings. I'm glad to have washed my hands of London."
+
+Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its mournful
+look. 'Wish I could make her look happy!' he thought. 'A pretty face,
+but sad!' And taking up his can of hot water he went out into the
+gallery.
+
+"This is June's room," he said, opening the next door and putting the
+can down; "I think you'll find everything." And closing the door behind
+her he went back to his own room. Brushing his hair with his great ebony
+brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau de Cologne, he mused. She had
+come so strangely--a sort of visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as
+if his desire for company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever
+it was which fulfilled that sort of thing. And before the mirror he
+straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over his great
+white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de Cologne, and rang
+the bell.
+
+"I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me. Let
+cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau and pair at
+half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is Miss Holly asleep?"
+
+The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery, stole
+on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose hinges he kept
+specially oiled that he might slip in and out in the evenings without
+being heard.
+
+But Holly was asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that
+type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they had
+completed her. Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on her face was
+perfect peace--her little arrangements were evidently all right again.
+And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room, stood adoring her! It was
+so charming, solemn, and loving--that little face. He had more than his
+share of the blessed capacity of living again in the young. They were
+to him his future life--all of a future life that his fundamental pagan
+sanity perhaps admitted. There she was with everything before her, and
+his blood--some of it--in her tiny veins. There she was, his little
+companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that she
+knew nothing but love. His heart swelled, and he went out, stilling the
+sound of his patent-leather boots. In the corridor an eccentric notion
+attacked him: To think that children should come to that which Irene had
+told him she was helping! Women who were all, once, little things like
+this one sleeping there! 'I must give her a cheque!' he mused; 'Can't
+bear to think of them!' They had never borne reflecting on, those poor
+outcasts; wounding too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under
+layers of conformity to the sense of property--wounding too grievously
+the deepest thing in him--a love of beauty which could give him, even
+now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the society of a
+pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through the swinging doors, to the
+back regions. There, in the wine-cellar, was a hock worth at least two
+pounds a bottle, a Steinberg Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg
+that ever went down throat; a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a
+nectarine--nectar indeed! He got a bottle out, handling it like a baby,
+and holding it level to the light, to look. Enshrined in its coat
+of dust, that mellow coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep
+pleasure. Three years to settle down again since the move from
+Town--ought to be in prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had
+bought it--thank God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to
+drink it. She would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen.
+He wiped the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose
+down, inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.
+
+Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a lace
+scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair was visible,
+and the pallor of her neck. In her grey frock she made a pretty picture
+for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the piano.
+
+He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had been
+designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort, held now but
+a little round table. In his present solitude the big dining-table
+oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed till his son came
+back. Here in the company of two really good copies of Raphael Madonnas
+he was wont to dine alone. It was the only disconsolate hour of his day,
+this summer weather. He had never been a large eater, like that great
+chap Swithin, or Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those
+cronies of past times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas,
+was to him but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly,
+that he might come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and
+cigar. But this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled at her
+across the little table and he spoke of Italy and Switzerland, telling
+her stories of his travels there, and other experiences which he could
+no longer recount to his son and grand-daughter because they knew them.
+This fresh audience was precious to him; he had never become one of
+those old men who ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence.
+Himself quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided
+fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty guarded
+him specially in his relations with a woman. He would have liked to draw
+her out, but though she murmured and smiled and seemed to be enjoying
+what he told her, he remained conscious of that mysterious remoteness
+which constituted half her fascination. He could not bear women
+who threw their shoulders and eyes at you, and chattered away; or
+hard-mouthed women who laid down the law and knew more than you did.
+There was only one quality in a woman that appealed to him--charm;
+and the quieter it was, the more he liked it. And this one had charm,
+shadowy as afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had
+loved. The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart, cloistered,
+made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely desirable companion. When
+a man is very old and quite out of the running, he loves to feel secure
+from the rivalries of youth, for he would still be first in the heart
+of beauty. And he drank his hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly
+young. But the dog Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising
+in his heart the interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those
+greenish glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to him.
+
+The light was just failing when they went back into the music-room. And,
+cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:
+
+"Play me some Chopin."
+
+By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know
+the texture of men's souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a strong cigar
+or Wagner's music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart, Handel and Gluck, and
+Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the operas of Meyerbeer; but of
+late years he had been seduced by Chopin, just as in painting he
+had succumbed to Botticelli. In yielding to these tastes he had been
+conscious of divergence from the standard of the Golden Age. Their
+poetry was not that of Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and
+Titian; Mozart and Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their
+poetry hit no one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs
+and turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain
+that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could see the
+pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.
+
+Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned with
+pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could see her,
+crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar. She sat a few moments
+with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her mind for what to
+give him. Then she began and within old Jolyon there arose a sorrowful
+pleasure, not quite like anything else in the world. He fell slowly into
+a trance, interrupted only by the movements of taking the cigar out of
+his mouth at long intervals, and replacing it. She was there, and the
+hock within him, and the scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world
+of sunshine lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them,
+and bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and fields
+of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a woman all shadowy,
+with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled, holding out her arms; and
+through air which was like music a star dropped and was caught on a
+cow's horn. He opened his eyes. Beautiful piece; she played well--the
+touch of an angel! And he closed them again. He felt miraculously sad
+and happy, as one does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower.
+Not live one's own life again, but just stand there and bask in the
+smile of a woman's eyes, and enjoy the bouquet! And he jerked his hand;
+the dog Balthasar had reached up and licked it.
+
+"Beautiful!" He said: "Go on--more Chopin!"
+
+She began to play again. This time the resemblance between her and
+'Chopin' struck him. The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in her
+playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the soft darkness of
+her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight from a golden moon.
+Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her or in that music. A long
+blue spiral from his cigar ascended and dispersed. 'So we go out!' he
+thought. 'No more beauty! Nothing?'
+
+Again Irene stopped.
+
+"Would you like some Gluck? He used to write his music in a sunlit
+garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him."
+
+"Ah! yes. Let's have 'Orfeo.'" Round about him now were fields of gold
+and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight, bright birds
+flying to and fro. All was summer. Lingering waves of sweetness and
+regret flooded his soul. Some cigar ash dropped, and taking out a silk
+handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a mingled scent as of snuff and
+eau de Cologne. 'Ah!' he thought, 'Indian summer--that's all!' and he
+said: "You haven't played me 'Che faro.'"
+
+She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious of something--some
+strange upset. Suddenly he saw her rise and turn away, and a pang of
+remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap! Like Orpheus, she of
+course--she too was looking for her lost one in the hall of memory! And
+disturbed to the heart, he got up from his chair. She had gone to the
+great window at the far end. Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded
+over her breast; he could just see her cheek, very white. And, quite
+emotionalized, he said:
+
+"There, there, my love!" The words had escaped him mechanically, for
+they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but their effect
+was instantaneously distressing. She raised her arms, covered her face
+with them, and wept.
+
+Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age. The
+passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike the
+control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had never
+before broken down in the presence of another being.
+
+"There, there--there, there!" he murmured, and putting his hand out
+reverently, touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms which covered
+her face against him. Old Jolyon stood very still, keeping one thin hand
+on her shoulder. Let her cry her heart out--it would do her good.
+
+And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine them.
+
+The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the last of
+daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from the lamp within;
+there was a scent of new-mown grass. With the wisdom of a long life old
+Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed itself out in time; only Time
+was good for sorrow--Time who saw the passing of each mood, each emotion
+in turn; Time the layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: 'As
+panteth the hart after cooling streams'--but they were of no use to him.
+Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes.
+He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her forehead, and
+felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body, as of a tree which
+shakes itself free of raindrops. She put his hand to her lips, as if
+saying: "All over now! Forgive me!"
+
+The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to where she
+had been so upset. And the dog Balthasar, following, laid the bone of
+one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.
+
+Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think of
+nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from cabinet to
+cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and Lowestoft and Chelsea,
+turning them round and round with his thin, veined hands, whose skin,
+faintly freckled, had such an aged look.
+
+"I bought this at Jobson's," he would say; "cost me thirty pounds.
+It's very old. That dog leaves his bones all over the place. This old
+'ship-bowl' I picked up at the sale when that precious rip, the Marquis,
+came to grief. But you don't remember. Here's a nice piece of Chelsea.
+Now, what would you say this was?" And he was comforted, feeling that,
+with her taste, she was taking a real interest in these things; for,
+after all, nothing better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of
+china.
+
+When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he said:
+
+"You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you these
+by daylight, and my little sweet--she's a dear little thing. This dog
+seems to have taken a fancy to you."
+
+For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing his side
+against her leg. Going out under the porch with her, he said:
+
+"He'll get you up in an hour and a quarter. Take this for your
+protegees," and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her hand. He
+saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: "Oh! Uncle Jolyon!" and
+a real throb of pleasure went through him. That meant one or two poor
+creatures helped a little, and it meant that she would come again. He
+put his hand in at the window and grasped hers once more. The carriage
+rolled away. He stood looking at the moon and the shadows of the trees,
+and thought: 'A sweet night! She...!'
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny. Old Jolyon walked
+and talked with Holly. At first he felt taller and full of a new vigour;
+then he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they would enter the
+coppice, and walk as far as the log. 'Well, she's not there!' he would
+think, 'of course not!' And he would feel a little shorter, and drag his
+feet walking up the hill home, with his hand clapped to his left side.
+Now and then the thought would move in him: 'Did she come--or did I
+dream it?' and he would stare at space, while the dog Balthasar stared
+at him. Of course she would not come again! He opened the letters from
+Spain with less excitement. They were not returning till July; he felt,
+oddly, that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes
+and looked at where she had sat. She was not there, so he unscrewed his
+eyes again.
+
+On the seventh afternoon he thought: 'I must go up and get some boots.'
+He ordered Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney towards Hyde Park
+he reflected: 'I might as well go to Chelsea and see her.' And he called
+out: "Just drive me to where you took that lady the other night." The
+coachman turned his broad red face, and his juicy lips answered: "The
+lady in grey, sir?"
+
+"Yes, the lady in grey." What other ladies were there! Stodgy chap!
+
+The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,
+standing a little back from the river. With a practised eye old Jolyon
+saw that they were cheap. 'I should think about sixty pound a year,' he
+mused; and entering, he looked at the name-board. The name 'Forsyte' was
+not on it, but against 'First Floor, Flat C' were the words: 'Mrs.
+Irene Heron.' Ah! She had taken her maiden name again! And somehow this
+pleased him. He went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little.
+He stood a moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and
+fluttering there. She would not be in! And then--Boots! The thought was
+black. What did he want with boots at his age? He could not wear out all
+those he had.
+
+"Your mistress at home?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."
+
+"Yes, sir, will you come this way?"
+
+Old Jolyon followed a very little maid--not more than sixteen one would
+say--into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn.
+It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague fragrance and
+good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top hat in his hand, and
+thought: 'I expect she's very badly off!' There was a mirror above the
+fireplace, and he saw himself reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard
+a rustle, and turned round. She was so close that his moustache almost
+brushed her forehead, just under her hair.
+
+"I was driving up," he said. "Thought I'd look in on you, and ask you
+how you got up the other night."
+
+And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really glad to
+see him, perhaps.
+
+"Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the Park?"
+
+But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park! James
+and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his precious family
+would be there very likely, prancing up and down. And they would go and
+wag their tongues about having seen him with her, afterwards. Better
+not! He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on
+Forsyte 'Change. He removed a white hair from the lapel of his
+closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks,
+moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the
+cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately--he had better get that
+little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she
+had come back and when they were in the carriage, he said:
+
+"Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?" and added with
+a twinkle: "No prancing up and down there," as if she had been in the
+secret of his thoughts.
+
+Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and strolled
+towards the water.
+
+"You've gone back to your maiden name, I see," he said: "I'm not sorry."
+
+She slipped her hand under his arm: "Has June forgiven me, Uncle
+Jolyon?"
+
+He answered gently: "Yes--yes; of course, why not?"
+
+"And have you?"
+
+"I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay." And perhaps
+he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.
+
+She drew a deep breath. "I never regretted--I couldn't. Did you ever
+love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?"
+
+At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He did
+not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to say this
+to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose life was
+suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love. And he thought: 'If
+I had met you when I was young I--I might have made a fool of myself,
+perhaps.' And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.
+
+"Love's a queer thing," he said, "fatal thing often. It was the
+Greeks--wasn't it?--made love into a goddess; they were right, I dare
+say, but then they lived in the Golden Age."
+
+"Phil adored them."
+
+Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly--with his power to see all round
+a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like this. She
+wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any pleasure to her! And
+he said: "Ah! There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy."
+
+"Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted way the
+Greeks gave themselves to art."
+
+Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
+symmetry--clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of
+his, and high cheek-bones--Symmetry?
+
+"You're of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon."
+
+Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her eyes
+were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why? There was
+nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
+
+"Phil thought so. He used to say: 'But I can never tell him that I
+admire him.'"
+
+Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him! And
+he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as
+if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.
+
+"He was a very talented young fellow," he murmured. "It's hot; I feel
+the heat nowadays. Let's sit down."
+
+They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered
+them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there
+and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to
+increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:
+
+"I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He'd be at his best
+with you. His ideas of art were a little new--to me "--he had stiffed
+the word 'fangled.'
+
+"Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty." Old Jolyon
+thought: 'The devil he did!' but answered with a twinkle: "Well, I have,
+or I shouldn't be sitting here with you." She was fascinating when she
+smiled with her eyes, like that!
+
+"He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil had
+real insight."
+
+He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a
+longing to talk of her dead lover--not a bit; and yet it was precious
+to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which--quite true!--had
+never grown old. Was that because--unlike her and her dead lover, he had
+never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of
+symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty.
+And he thought, 'If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I'm an old chap.
+Make hay while the sun shines.'
+
+A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at the
+edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly on their
+pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. "We're an ugly lot!" said old
+Jolyon suddenly. "It amazes me to see how--love triumphs over that."
+
+"Love triumphs over everything!"
+
+"The young think so," he muttered.
+
+"Love has no age, no limit, and no death."
+
+With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so
+large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But this
+extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: "Well,
+if it had limits, we shouldn't be born; for by George! it's got a lot to
+put up with."
+
+Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The great
+clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of
+blood to the head--his circulation was not what it had been.
+
+She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:
+
+"It's strange enough that I'm alive."
+
+Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.
+
+"Ah!" he said: "my son saw you for a moment--that day."
+
+"Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it
+was--Phil."
+
+Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took it
+away again, and went on calmly: "That night I went to the Embankment; a
+woman caught me by the dress. She told me about herself. When one knows
+that others suffer, one's ashamed."
+
+"One of those?"
+
+She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who
+has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost against his will he
+muttered: "Tell me, won't you?"
+
+"I didn't care whether I lived or died. When you're like that, Fate
+ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three days--she never
+left me. I had no money. That's why I do what I can for them, now."
+
+But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!' What fate could compare with
+that? Every other was involved in it.
+
+"I wish you had come to me," he said. "Why didn't you?" But Irene did
+not answer.
+
+"Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept you
+away? How are you getting on now?" His eyes involuntarily swept her
+body. Perhaps even now she was--! And yet she wasn't thin--not really!
+
+"Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough." The answer did
+not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow Soames! But
+his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she would certainly have
+died rather than take another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there
+must be strength in her somewhere--strength and fidelity. But what
+business had young Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded
+like this!
+
+"Well, you must come to me now," he said, "for anything you want, or I
+shall be quite cut up." And putting on his hat, he rose. "Let's go and
+get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the horses up for an hour,
+and come for me at your place. We'll take a cab presently; I can't walk
+as I used to."
+
+He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens--the sound
+of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty of a charming
+form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at Ruffel's in the High
+Street, and came out thence with a great box of chocolates swung on his
+little finger. He enjoyed the drive back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking
+his cigar. She had promised to come down next Sunday and play to him
+again, and already in thought he was plucking carnations and early roses
+for her to carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little
+pleasure, if it WERE pleasure from an old chap like him! The carriage
+was already there when they arrived. Just like that fellow, who was
+always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went in for a minute to
+say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat was impregnated with a
+disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a bench against the wall--its
+only furniture--he saw a figure sitting. He heard Irene say softly:
+"Just one minute." In the little drawing-room when the door was shut, he
+asked gravely: "One of your protegees?"
+
+"Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her."
+
+He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had frightened
+so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in contact with this
+outcast grieved and frightened him. What could she do for them? Nothing.
+Only soil and make trouble for herself, perhaps. And he said: "Take
+care, my dear! The world puts the worst construction on everything."
+
+"I know that."
+
+He was abashed by her quiet smile. "Well then--Sunday," he murmured:
+"Good-bye."
+
+She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.
+
+"Good-bye," he said again; "take care of yourself." And he went out,
+not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home by way of
+Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of and tell them to
+send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy. She must want picking-up
+sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he remember that he had gone up to
+order himself some boots, and was surprised that he could have had so
+paltry an idea.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The little spirits of the past which throng an old man's days had never
+pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy hours elapsing
+before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with the charm of the
+unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was not restless now, and
+paid no visits to the log, because she was coming to lunch. There is
+wonderful finality about a meal; it removes a world of doubts, for no
+one misses meals except for reasons beyond control. He played many games
+with Holly on the lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as
+to be ready to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte,
+but Jolly was--and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and
+reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance, lay on
+the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded, till his face
+was like the harvest moon. And because the time was getting shorter,
+each day was longer and more golden than the last. On Friday night he
+took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and though it was not the
+liver side, there is no remedy like that. Anyone telling him that he had
+found a new excitement in life and that excitement was not good for him,
+would have been met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks
+of his deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: 'I know my own
+business best.' He always had and always would.
+
+On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to church, he
+visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the dog Balthasar, he
+examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in finding at least two dozen
+berries which were really ripe. Stooping was not good for him, and
+he became very dizzy and red in the forehead. Having placed the
+strawberries in a dish on the dining-table, he washed his hands and
+bathed his forehead with eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it
+occurred to him that he was thinner. What a 'threadpaper' he had been
+when he was young! It was nice to be slim--he could not bear a fat chap;
+and yet perhaps his cheeks were too thin! She was to arrive by train at
+half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road past Drage's farm
+at the far end of the coppice. And, having looked into June's room to
+see that there was hot water ready, he set forth to meet her, leisurely,
+for his heart was beating. The air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the
+Grand Stand at Epsom was visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no
+doubt, six years ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him
+to look at the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had
+pitched on the exact spot for the house--as June had often told him.
+In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow, as if his
+spirit were really haunting the field of his last work, on the chance of
+seeing--her. Bosinney--the one man who had possessed her heart, to whom
+she had given her whole self with rapture! At his age one could not,
+of course, imagine such things, but there stirred in him a queer vague
+aching--as it were the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling,
+too, more generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a
+few poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering the
+coppice--only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And then,
+turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her
+the first time, on the log; and realised that she must have come by the
+earlier train to sit there alone for a couple of hours at least. Two
+hours of her society missed! What memory could make that log so dear to
+her? His face showed what he was thinking, for she said at once:
+
+"Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew."
+
+"Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You're looking a
+little Londony; you're giving too many lessons."
+
+That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a parcel of
+young girls thumping out scales with their thick fingers.
+
+"Where do you go to give them?" he asked.
+
+"They're mostly Jewish families, luckily."
+
+Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and doubtful.
+
+"They love music, and they're very kind."
+
+"They had better be, by George!" He took her arm--his side always hurt
+him a little going uphill--and said:
+
+"Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like that in
+a night."
+
+Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the
+flowers and the honey. "I wanted you to see them--wouldn't let them
+turn the cows in yet." Then, remembering that she had come to talk about
+Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the stables:
+
+"I expect he wouldn't have let me put that there--had no notion of time,
+if I remember."
+
+But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and he knew
+it was done that he might not feel she came because of her dead lover.
+
+"The best flower I can show you," he said, with a sort of triumph, "is
+my little sweet. She'll be back from Church directly. There's something
+about her which reminds me a little of you," and it did not seem to him
+peculiar that he had put it thus, instead of saying: "There's something
+about you which reminds me a little of her." Ah! And here she was!
+
+Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose digestion
+had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of Strasbourg, came
+rushing towards them from under the oak tree. She stopped about a dozen
+yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that this was all she had in
+her mind. Old Jolyon, who knew better, said:
+
+"Well, my darling, here's the lady in grey I promised you."
+
+Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them with a
+twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry, passing
+into a shy smile too, and then to something deeper. She had a sense of
+beauty, that child--knew what was what! He enjoyed the sight of the kiss
+between them.
+
+"Mrs. Heron, Mam'zelle Beauce. Well, Mam'zelle--good sermon?"
+
+For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part of
+the service connected with this world absorbed what interest in church
+remained to him. Mam'zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand clad in
+a black kid glove--she had been in the best families--and the rather sad
+eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask: "Are you well-brrred?"
+Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her--a not uncommon
+occurrence--she would say to them: "The little Tayleurs never did
+that--they were such well-brrred little children." Jolly hated the
+little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short
+of them. 'A thin rum little soul,' old Jolyon thought her--Mam'zelle
+Beauce.
+
+Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself had
+picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and another
+bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain aromatic
+spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a touch of eczema
+to-morrow.
+
+After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee. It was
+no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce withdrew to write
+her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future had been endangered in
+the past by swallowing a pin--an event held up daily in warning to the
+children to eat slowly and digest what they had eaten. At the foot of
+the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly and the dog Balthasar teased and
+loved each other, and in the shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and
+his cigar luxuriously savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing. A
+light, vaguely swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and
+there upon it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little
+drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and see him!
+The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him, for he could
+still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that what he
+wanted, though much, was not quite all that mattered.
+
+"It's quiet here," he said; "you mustn't come down if you find it dull.
+But it's a pleasure to see you. My little sweet is the only face which
+gives me any pleasure, except yours."
+
+From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be appreciated,
+and this reassured him. "That's not humbug," he said. "I never told a
+woman I admired her when I didn't. In fact I don't know when I've told
+a woman I admired her, except my wife in the old days; and wives are
+funny." He was silent, but resumed abruptly:
+
+"She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and there
+we were." Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and, afraid that he had
+said something painful, he hurried on: "When my little sweet marries, I
+hope she'll find someone who knows what women feel. I shan't be here to
+see it, but there's too much topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don't want
+her to pitch up against that." And, aware that he had made bad worse, he
+added: "That dog will scratch."
+
+A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature whose
+life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made for love?
+Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another mate--not so
+disorderly as that young fellow who had got himself run over. Ah! but
+her husband?
+
+"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her
+softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a glimpse of
+light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain
+which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation--so much older than
+this of his old age--had never thought about such primitive things.
+
+"That's a comfort," he said. "You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall
+we take a turn round?"
+
+Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls
+peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables,
+the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the
+summer-house, he conducted her--even into the kitchen garden to see the
+tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with
+her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand. Many
+delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar
+danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention. It was one of
+the happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was
+glad to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special
+little friend of Holly's had come in--a fair child with short hair like
+a boy's. And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the
+stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged for Chopin. She played
+studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood
+at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward,
+listening. Old Jolyon watched.
+
+"Let's see you dance, you two!"
+
+Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling, earnest,
+not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of
+that waltz. He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned
+smiling towards those little dancers thinking:
+
+'Sweetest picture I've seen for ages.'
+
+A voice said:
+
+"Hollee! Mais enfin--qu'est-ce que tu fais la--danser, le dimanche!
+Viens, donc!"
+
+But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would save
+them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly 'caught out.'
+
+"Better the day, better the deed, Mam'zelle. It's all my doing. Trot
+along, chicks, and have your tea."
+
+And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took every
+meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:
+
+"Well, there we are! Aren't they sweet? Have you any little ones among
+your pupils?"
+
+"Yes, three--two of them darlings."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Lovely!"
+
+Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very young. "My
+little sweet," he said, "is devoted to music; she'll be a musician some
+day. You wouldn't give me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?"
+
+"Of course I will."
+
+"You wouldn't like--" but he stifled the words "to give her lessons."
+The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him; yet it would mean
+that he would see her regularly. She left the piano and came over to his
+chair.
+
+"I would like, very much; but there is--June. When are they coming
+back?"
+
+Old Jolyon frowned. "Not till the middle of next month. What does that
+matter?"
+
+"You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
+Jolyon."
+
+Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.
+
+But as if answering, Irene shook her head. "You know she couldn't; one
+doesn't forget."
+
+Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed finality:
+
+"Well, we shall see."
+
+He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred little
+things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And when she had
+gone he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing his face and
+chin, dreaming over the day.
+
+That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of
+paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and stood
+under the masterpiece 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.' He was not
+thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was going to leave her
+something in his Will; nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of
+thought and memory. He was going to leave her a portion of his wealth,
+of his aspirations, deeds, qualities, work--all that had made that
+wealth; going to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by
+his sane and steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? 'Dutch
+Fishing Boats' responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and
+drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one of last
+year's oak leaves which had somehow survived the gardener's brooms, was
+dragging itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace in
+the twilight. Except for that it was very quiet out there, and he could
+smell the heliotrope watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird
+uttered its last 'cheep.' And right above the oak tree the first star
+shone. Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years
+of youth. Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was real
+tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or anything.
+Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and
+leave it something in your Will. But how much? And, as if he could not
+make that calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the country
+night, he turned back and went up to the chimney-piece. There were
+his pet bronzes--a Cleopatra with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a
+greyhound playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses.
+'They last!' he thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a
+thousand years of life before them!
+
+'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before
+her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and
+grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live another five years.
+She would be well over thirty by then. 'How much?' She had none of his
+blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and
+more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family,
+came this warning thought--None of his blood, no right to anything! It
+was a luxury then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old
+man's whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was
+vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he
+was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old
+leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars.
+And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress,
+fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why! She cared
+nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers.
+But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her
+beauty and grace. One had no right to inflict an old man's company, no
+right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her--for no
+reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. 'How much?' After all,
+there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never miss
+that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could
+leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure. He went
+back to the bureau. 'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them think
+what they like. I'm going to!' And he sat down.
+
+'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand--how much? If only with his
+money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled by that
+thought, he wrote quickly:
+
+'DEAR HERRING,--Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my niece
+Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen
+thousand pounds free of legacy duty." 'Yours faithfully, 'JOLYON
+FORSYTE.'
+
+When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window
+and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars shone now.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him
+brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts. Experience had also
+taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed
+the folly of such panic. On this particular morning the thought which
+gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at his age not
+improbable, he would not see her. From this it was but a step to
+realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son and June
+returned from Spain. How could he justify desire for the company of one
+who had stolen--early morning does not mince words--June's lover? That
+lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted, but
+stubborn as wood, and--quite true--not one who forgot! By the middle of
+next month they would be back. He had barely five weeks left to enjoy
+the new interest which had come into what remained of his life. Darkness
+showed up to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration
+for beauty--a craving to see that which delighted his eyes.
+
+Preposterous, at his age! And yet--what other reason was there for
+asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his son
+and his son's wife from thinking him very queer? He would be reduced
+to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least indisposition
+would cut him off even from that. He lay with eyes open, setting his jaw
+against the prospect, and calling himself an old fool, while his heart
+beat loudly, and then seemed to stop beating altogether. He had seen the
+dawn lighting the window chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and
+the cocks crow, before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane.
+Five weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early
+morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of one
+who had always had his own way. He would see her as often as he wished!
+Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his solicitor's instead
+of writing about it; she might like to go to the opera! But, by train,
+for he would not have that fat chap Beacon grinning behind his back.
+Servants were such fools; and, as likely as not, they had known all the
+past history of Irene and young Bosinney--servants knew everything, and
+suspected the rest. He wrote to her that morning:
+
+"MY DEAR IRENE,--I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would like to
+have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me quietly ...."
+
+But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in London save
+at his Club or at a private house. Ah! that new-fangled place close to
+Covent Garden....
+
+
+"Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel whether to
+expect you there at 7 o'clock.
+
+"Yours affectionately,
+
+"JOLYON FORSYTE."
+
+
+She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little pleasure;
+for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to see her was
+instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly that one so old
+should go out of his way to see beauty, especially in a woman.
+
+The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his
+lawyer's, tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for dinner he
+lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little. He must have had
+a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself feeling very queer; and
+with some difficulty rose and rang the bell. Why! it was past seven! And
+there he was and she would be waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came
+on again, and he was obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid's
+voice say:
+
+"Did you ring, sir?"
+
+"Yes, come here"; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in front
+of his eyes. "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile."
+
+"Yes, sir." Her voice sounded frightened.
+
+Old Jolyon made an effort.
+
+"Don't go. Take this message to my niece--a lady waiting in the hall--a
+lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well--the heat. He is very sorry;
+if he is not down directly, she is not to wait dinner."
+
+When she was gone, he thought feebly: 'Why did I say a lady in grey--she
+may be in anything. Sal volatile!' He did not go off again, yet was not
+conscious of how Irene came to be standing beside him, holding smelling
+salts to his nose, and pushing a pillow up behind his head. He heard her
+say anxiously: "Dear Uncle Jolyon, what is it?" was dimly conscious of
+the soft pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of
+smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and sneezed.
+
+"Ha!" he said, "it's nothing. How did you get here? Go down and
+dine--the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right in a
+minute."
+
+He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat divided
+between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all right.
+
+"Why! You are in grey!" he said. "Help me up." Once on his feet he gave
+himself a shake.
+
+"What business had I to go off like that!" And he moved very slowly to
+the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind him, murmured:
+
+"You mustn't come down, Uncle; you must rest."
+
+"Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne'll soon set me to rights. I can't
+have you missing the opera."
+
+But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets they
+had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up in them at
+every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she looked, and said
+with the ghost of a twinkle:
+
+"I'm a pretty host."
+
+When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent its
+slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he felt
+much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such
+solicitude into her manner towards him.
+
+"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and watching
+the smile in her eyes, went on:
+
+"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life; plenty of
+that when you get to my age. That's a nice dress--I like the style."
+
+"I made it myself."
+
+Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her
+interest in life.
+
+"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up. I want to
+see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn't waste life; it doesn't do.
+There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she won't be fat. And
+Mephisto--anything more dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I
+can't imagine."
+
+But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from
+dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his
+staying quiet and going to bed early. When he parted from her at the
+door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to Chelsea, he
+sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of her words: "You are
+such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!" Why! Who wouldn't be! He would
+have liked to stay up another day and take her to the Zoo, but two
+days running of him would bore her to death. No, he must wait till next
+Sunday; she had promised to come then. They would settle those lessons
+for Holly, if only for a month. It would be something. That little
+Mam'zelle Beauce wouldn't like it, but she would have to lump it. And
+crushing his old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.
+
+He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say:
+'Drive me to Chelsea.' But his sense of proportion was too strong.
+Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another
+aberration like that of last night, away from home. Holly, too, was
+expecting him, and what he had in his bag for her. Not that there was
+any cupboard love in his little sweet--she was a bundle of affection.
+Then, with the rather bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a
+second whether it was not cupboard love which made Irene put up with
+him. No, she was not that sort either. She had, if anything, too little
+notion of how to butter her bread, no sense of property, poor thing!
+Besides, he had not breathed a word about that codicil, nor should
+he--sufficient unto the day was the good thereof.
+
+In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was restraining the
+dog Balthasar, and their caresses made 'jubey' his drive home. All
+the rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was content and
+peaceful, reposing in the shade, while the long lingering sunshine
+showered gold on the lawns and the flowers. But on Thursday evening at
+his lonely dinner he began to count the hours; sixty-five till he would
+go down to meet her again in the little coppice, and walk up through
+the fields at her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about
+his fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no
+excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the leg, did
+not want to be told of an infirmity--if there were one, could not afford
+to hear of it at his time of life, now that this new interest had come.
+And he carefully avoided making any mention of it in a letter to his
+son. It would only bring them back with a run! How far this silence was
+due to consideration for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own,
+he did not pause to consider.
+
+That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was dozing
+off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious of a scent of
+violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in grey, standing by the
+fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd thing was that, though those
+arms seemed to hold nothing, they were curved as if round someone's
+neck, and her own neck was bent back, her lips open, her eyes closed.
+She vanished at once, and there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes.
+But those bronzes and the mantelpiece had not been there when she was,
+only the fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. 'I must
+take medicine,' he thought; 'I can't be well.' His heart beat too fast,
+he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the window, he
+opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away, one of the dogs
+at Gage's farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A beautiful still night,
+but dark. 'I dropped off,' he mused, 'that's it! And yet I'll swear my
+eyes were open!' A sound like a sigh seemed to answer.
+
+"What's that?" he said sharply, "who's there?"
+
+Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart, he
+stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the dark.
+"Shoo!" It was that great grey cat. 'Young Bosinney was like a great
+cat!' he thought. 'It was him in there, that she--that she was--He's got
+her still!' He walked to the edge of the terrace, and looked down into
+the darkness; he could just see the powdering of the daisies on the
+unmown lawn. Here to-day and gone to-morrow! And there came the moon,
+who saw all, young and old, alive and dead, and didn't care a dump! His
+own turn soon. For a single day of youth he would give what was left!
+And he turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the
+night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. 'Hope that
+dog won't wake her!' he thought. 'What is it makes us love, and makes us
+die! I must go to bed.'
+
+And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed
+back within.
+
+How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent
+past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale
+winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the
+dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From
+beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes.
+If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it
+for the Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
+slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his wind-pipe and
+he gasps away to death some early morning before the world is aired,
+and they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of years!' yea! If he
+preserve his principles in perfect order, a Forsyte may live on long
+after he is dead.
+
+Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him that
+which transcended Forsyteism. For it is written that a Forsyte shall not
+love beauty more than reason; nor his own way more than his own health.
+And something beat within him in these days that with each throb fretted
+at the thinning shell. His sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he
+could not stop that beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had
+told him he was living on his capital, he would have stared you
+down. No, no; a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The
+shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities of
+the present. And he, to whom living on one's capital had always been
+anathema, could not have borne to have applied so gross a phrase to his
+own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in
+the youth of the young--and what else on earth was he doing!
+
+Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now arranged his
+time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train; Irene came and dined
+with him. And they went to the opera. On Thursdays he drove to town,
+and, putting that fat chap and his horses up, met her in Kensington
+Gardens, picking up the carriage after he had left her, and driving home
+again in time for dinner. He threw out the casual formula that he had
+business in London on those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she
+came down to give Holly music lessons. The greater the pleasure he
+took in her society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a
+matter-of-fact and friendly uncle. Not even in feeling, really, was he
+more--for, after all, there was his age. And yet, if she were late he
+fidgeted himself to death. If she missed coming, which happened twice,
+his eyes grew sad as an old dog's, and he failed to sleep.
+
+And so a month went by--a month of summer in the fields, and in his
+heart, with summer's heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could have
+believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward to his son's
+and his grand-daughter's return with something like dread! There was
+such a delicious freedom, such recovery of that independence a man
+enjoys before he founds a family, about these weeks of lovely weather,
+and this new companionship with one who demanded nothing, and remained
+always a little unknown, retaining the fascination of mystery. It was
+like a draught of wine to him who has been drinking water for so long
+that he has almost forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the
+narcotic to his brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and
+music and the sunlight had a living value--were no longer mere reminders
+of past enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred him
+continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in retrospection;
+the difference is considerable to any so old as he. The pleasures of the
+table, never of much consequence to one naturally abstemious, had lost
+all value. He ate little, without knowing what he ate; and every day
+grew thinner and more worn to look at. He was again a 'threadpaper'; and
+to this thinned form his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples,
+gave more dignity than ever. He was very well aware that he ought to see
+the doctor, but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford to pet his
+frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the expense
+of liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led among the
+agricultural journals with the life-size mangold wurzels, before this
+new attraction came into his life--no! He exceeded his allowance of
+cigars. Two a day had always been his rule. Now he smoked three and
+sometimes four--a man will when he is filled with the creative spirit.
+But very often he thought: 'I must give up smoking, and coffee; I must
+give up rattling up to town.' But he did not; there was no one in any
+sort of authority to notice him, and this was a priceless boon.
+
+The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam'zelle
+Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too 'wellbrrred'
+to make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an eye for the relative
+appearance of him who was her plaything and her god. It was left for
+Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to rest in the hot part of the
+day, to take a tonic, and so forth. But she did not tell him that she
+was the a cause of his thinness--for one cannot see the havoc oneself
+is working. A man of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which
+produces passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes
+which crave the sight of Her.
+
+On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter from
+his son in Paris to say that they would all be back on Friday. This had
+always been more sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic improvidence
+given to the old, that they may endure to the end, he had never quite
+admitted it. Now he did, and something would have to be done. He had
+ceased to be able to imagine life without this new interest, but that
+which is not imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually
+finding to their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
+letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar. After
+to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be abandoned. He
+could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his
+man of business. But even that would be dependent on his health, for now
+they would begin to fuss about him. The lessons! The lessons must go on!
+She must swallow down her scruples, and June must put her feelings
+in her pocket. She had done so once, on the day after the news of
+Bosinney's death; what she had done then, she could surely do again now.
+Four years since that injury was inflicted on her--not Christian to
+keep the memory of old sores alive. June's will was strong, but his was
+stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely she
+would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner than give
+him pain! The lessons must continue; for if they did, he was secure. And
+lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to shape out how to put it
+to them all, and explain this strange intimacy; how to veil and wrap it
+away from the naked truth--that he could not bear to be deprived of
+the sight of beauty. Ah! Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked
+her lessons. She would save him--his little sweet! And with that happy
+thought he became serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about
+so fearfully. He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak, and
+as if but half present in his own body.
+
+That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness, though he
+did not faint. He would not ring the bell, because he knew it would mean
+a fuss, and make his going up on the morrow more conspicuous. When one
+grew old, the whole world was in conspiracy to limit freedom, and for
+what reason?--just to keep the breath in him a little longer. He did
+not want it at such cost. Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery
+from that weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard
+and drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When at last
+old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed. And, though
+still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening sustained and
+strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure to give her a good
+dinner--he suspected her of undereating when she was alone; and, at the
+opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten, the unconscious smiling of
+her lips. She hadn't much pleasure, and this was the last time he would
+be able to give her that treat. But when he was packing his bag he
+caught himself wishing that he had not the fatigue of dressing for
+dinner before him, and the exertion, too, of telling her about June's
+return.
+
+The opera that evening was 'Carmen,' and he chose the last entr'acte to
+break the news, instinctively putting it off till the latest moment.
+
+She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she had
+taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence became
+necessary. The mask was down over her face, that mask behind which so
+much went on that he could not see. She wanted time to think it over,
+no doubt! He would not press her, for she would be coming to give her
+lesson to-morrow afternoon, and he should see her then when she had got
+used to the idea. In the cab he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen
+better in the old days, but this one was not bad at all. When he took
+her hand to say good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his
+forehead.
+
+"Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me."
+
+"To-morrow then," he said. "Good-night. Sleep well." She echoed softly:
+"Sleep well" and from the cab window, already moving away, he saw her
+face screwed round towards him, and her hand put out in a gesture which
+seemed to linger.
+
+He sought his room slowly. They never gave him the same, and he could
+not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy' bedrooms with new furniture and
+grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink roses. He was wakeful
+and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in his head.
+
+His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he knew, if
+it had any sense, a gipsy thing--wild and unaccountable. Well, there was
+in life something which upset all your care and plans--something which
+made men and women dance to its pipes. And he lay staring from deep-sunk
+eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway. You thought
+you had hold of life, but it slipped away behind you, took you by the
+scruff of the neck, forced you here and forced you there, and then,
+likely as not, squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like
+that, he shouldn't wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them
+apart; it had never done playing its pranks. Five million people in
+this great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy of that
+Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board
+when you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself would not hop much
+longer--a good long sleep would do him good!
+
+How hot it was up here!--how noisy! His forehead burned; she had kissed
+it just where he always worried; just there--as if she had known the
+very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But, instead, her
+lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had never spoken in quite
+that voice, had never before made that lingering gesture or looked back
+at him as she drove away.
+
+He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced down
+over the river. There was little air, but the sight of that breadth
+of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. 'The great thing,'
+he thought 'is not to make myself a nuisance. I'll think of my little
+sweet, and go to sleep.' But it was long before the heat and throbbing
+of the London night died out into the short slumber of the summer
+morning. And old Jolyon had but forty winks.
+
+When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden, and with
+the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers, gathered a great
+bunch of carnations. They were, he told her, for 'the lady in grey'--a
+name still bandied between them; and he put them in a bowl in his study
+where he meant to tackle Irene the moment she came, on the subject of
+June and future lessons. Their fragrance and colour would help. After
+lunch he lay down, for he felt very tired, and the carriage would not
+bring her from the station till four o'clock. But as the hour approached
+he grew restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
+The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle Beauce,
+sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending to their
+silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these methodical
+creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of elephants; who nibbled
+such quantities of holes in nice green leaves; and smelled, as he
+thought, horrid. He sat down on a chintz-covered windowseat whence he
+could see the drive, and get what air there was; and the dog Balthasar
+who appreciated chintz on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over the
+cottage piano a violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and
+on it the first lavender, whose scent filled the room. In spite of
+the coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life
+vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses. Each sunbeam which came
+through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled very
+strong; the lavender perfume was overpowering; those silkworms heaving
+up their grey-green backs seemed horribly alive; and Holly's dark head
+bent over them had a wonderfully silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly
+strong thing was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock you
+with its multitude of forms and its beating vitality. He had never, till
+those last few weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of
+him eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other half
+left on the bank, watching that helpless progress. Only when Irene was
+with him did he lose this double consciousness.
+
+Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
+piano--for to point with a finger was not 'well-brrred'--and said slyly:
+
+"Look at the 'lady in grey,' Gran; isn't she pretty to-day?"
+
+Old Jolyon's heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was
+clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:
+
+"Who's been dressing her up?"
+
+"Mam'zelle."
+
+"Hollee! Don't be foolish!"
+
+That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn't yet got over the music lessons
+being taken away from her. That wouldn't help. His little sweet was
+the only friend they had. Well, they were her lessons. And he shouldn't
+budge shouldn't budge for anything. He stroked the warm wool on
+Balthasar's head, and heard Holly say: "When mother's home, there won't
+be any changes, will there? She doesn't like strangers, you know."
+
+The child's words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of opposition
+about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his new-found freedom.
+Ah! He would have to resign himself to being an old man at the mercy of
+care and love, or fight to keep this new and prized companionship;
+and to fight tired him to death. But his thin, worn face hardened into
+resolution till it appeared all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair;
+he should not budge! He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself;
+he had owned it fifty years. Past four already! And kissing the top of
+Holly's head in passing, he went down to the hall. He wanted to get
+hold of her before she went up to give her lesson. At the first sound of
+wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the victoria
+was empty.
+
+"The train's in, sir; but the lady 'asn't come."
+
+Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push away
+that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter disappointment
+he was feeling.
+
+"Very well," he said, and turned back into the house. He went to his
+study and sat down, quivering like a leaf. What did this mean? She might
+have lost her train, but he knew well enough she hadn't. 'Good-bye, dear
+Uncle Jolyon.' Why 'Good-bye' and not 'Good-night'? And that hand of
+hers lingering in the air. And her kiss. What did it mean? Vehement
+alarm and irritation took possession of him. He got up and began to pace
+the Turkey carpet, between window and wall. She was going to give him
+up! He felt it for certain--and he defenceless. An old man wanting to
+look on beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his
+power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no right to
+anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead with her; even
+an old man has his dignity. Defenceless! For an hour, lost to bodily
+fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl of carnations he had
+plucked, which mocked him with its scent. Of all things hard to bear,
+the prostration of will-power is hardest, for one who has always had his
+way. Nature had got him in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned
+and swam at the meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking
+point. They brought him tea at five o'clock, and a letter. For a moment
+hope beat up in him. He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and
+read:
+
+
+"DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,--I can't bear to write anything that may
+disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I feel I
+can't come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that June is coming
+back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It has been such a joy to
+see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still see you sometimes when you
+come up, though I'm sure it's not good for you; I can see you are tiring
+yourself too much. I believe you ought to rest quite quietly all this
+hot weather, and now you have your son and June coming back you will be
+so happy. Thank you a million times for all your sweetness to me.
+
+"Lovingly your IRENE."
+
+
+So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he chiefly
+cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable end of all
+things, the approach of death with its stealthy, rustling footsteps.
+Not good for him! Not even she could see how she was his new lease of
+interest in life, the incarnation of all the beauty he felt slipping
+from him.
+
+His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he paced,
+torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable to be
+squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on when your
+will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to the ground with
+care and love. Intolerable! He would see what telling her the truth
+would do--the truth that he wanted the sight of her more than just a
+lingering on. He sat down at his old bureau and took a pen. But he could
+not write. There was something revolting in having to plead like this;
+plead that she should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount
+to confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:
+
+
+"I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to
+stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my little
+grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims; they are
+obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner or later; and
+perhaps the sooner the better.
+
+"My love to you,
+
+"JOLYON FORSYTE."
+
+
+'Bitter,' he thought, 'but I can't help it. I'm tired.' He sealed and
+dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it fall to the
+bottom, thought: 'There goes all I've looked forward to!'
+
+That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his cigar
+which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he went very
+slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He sat down on the
+window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he could just see Holly's
+face, with one hand underneath the cheek. An early cockchafer buzzed in
+the Japanese paper with which they had filled the grate, and one of the
+horses in the stable stamped restlessly. To sleep like that child! He
+pressed apart two rungs of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon
+was rising, blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and
+fields out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the
+summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. 'I've had a long life,'
+he thought, 'the best of nearly everything. I'm an ungrateful chap; I've
+seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young Bosinney said I had a sense
+of beauty. There's a man in the moon to-night!' A moth went by, another,
+another. 'Ladies in grey!' He closed his eyes. A feeling that he would
+never open them again beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then,
+with a shiver, dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him,
+no doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.
+It didn't much matter now! Into that coppice the moon-light would have
+crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be the only
+things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just the shadows
+--moving; 'Ladies in grey!' Over that log they would climb; would
+whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought! And the frogs and
+little things would whisper too! How the clock ticked, in here! It was
+all eerie--out there in the light of that red moon; in here with
+the little steady night-light and, the ticking clock and the nurse's
+dressing-gown hanging from the edge of the screen, tall, like a woman's
+figure. 'Lady in grey!' And a very odd thought beset him: Did she exist?
+Had she ever come at all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty
+he had loved and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the
+dark eyes and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the
+moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did she
+exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill, to give
+him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door. He
+stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as if conscious of his eyes
+fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and curled up closer in defence. He
+tiptoed on and passed out into the dark passage; reached his room,
+undressed at once, and stood before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a
+scarecrow--with temples fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his
+own image, and a look of pride came on his face. All was in league
+to pull him down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not
+down--yet! He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping,
+trying to reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and
+disappointment were very bad for him.
+
+He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he sent for
+the doctor. After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face as long as your
+arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up smoking. That was no
+hardship; there was nothing to get up for, and when he felt ill,
+tobacco always lost its savour. He spent the morning languidly with the
+sun-blinds down, turning and re-turning The Times, not reading much, the
+dog Balthasar lying beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a
+telegram, running thus:
+
+'Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you at
+four-thirty. Irene.'
+
+Coming down! After all! Then she did exist--and he was not deserted.
+Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks and forehead felt
+hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the tray-table away, lying very quiet
+until they had removed lunch and left him alone; but every now and then
+his eyes twinkled. Coming down! His heart beat fast, and then did
+not seem to beat at all. At three o'clock he got up and dressed
+deliberately, noiselessly. Holly and Mam'zelle would be in the
+schoolroom, and the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn't
+wonder. He opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In the hall
+the dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon passed
+into his study and out into the burning afternoon. He meant to go down
+and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he could not manage that
+in this heat. He sat down instead under the oak tree by the swing, and
+the dog Balthasar, who also felt the heat, lay down beside him. He sat
+there smiling. What a revel of bright minutes! What a hum of insects,
+and cooing of pigeons! It was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely!
+And he was happy--happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be. She
+was coming; she had not given him up! He had everything in life he
+wanted--except a little more breath, and less weight--just here! He
+would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying just a
+little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and dandelions and
+'soldiers' on the lawn--the soldiers with their flowery crowns. He would
+not move, but she would come up to him and say: 'Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am
+sorry!' and sit in the swing and let him look at her and tell her that
+he had not been very well but was all right now; and that dog would lick
+her hand. That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good
+dog.
+
+It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him, only
+make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the Grand Stand
+at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows cropping the clover in
+the field and swishing at the flies with their tails. He smelled the
+scent of limes, and lavender. Ah! that was why there was such a racket
+of bees. They were excited--busy, as his heart was busy and excited.
+Drowsy, too, drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was
+drugged and drowsy. Summer--summer--they seemed saying; great bees and
+little bees, and the flies too!
+
+The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here. He
+would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little sleep of
+late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty,
+coming towards him across the sunlit lawn--lady in grey! And settling
+back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some thistle-down came on what
+little air there was, and pitched on his moustache more white than
+itself. He did not know; but his breathing stirred it, caught there.
+A ray of sunlight struck through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee
+alighted and strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the delicious
+surge of slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head swayed
+forward and rested on his breast. Summer--summer! So went the hum.
+
+The stable clock struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar stretched
+and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer moved. The dog
+placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not stir. The dog withdrew
+his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old Jolyon's lap, looked in his
+face, whined; then, leaping down, sat on his haunches, gazing up. And
+suddenly he uttered a long, long howl.
+
+But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old master.
+
+Summer--summer--summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917
+
+
+
+
+
+IN CHANCERY
+
+     Two households both alike in dignity,
+     From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.
+     --Romeo and Juliet
+
+
+TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD
+
+
+
+
+PART 1
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--AT TIMOTHY'S
+
+The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence and
+feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression even in
+the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever. Nor can it be
+dissociated from environment any more than the quality of potato from
+the soil.
+
+The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his good
+time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from self-contented and
+contained provincialism to still more self-contented if less contained
+imperialism--in other words, the 'possessive' instinct of the nation on
+the move. And so, as if in conformity, was it with the Forsyte family.
+They were spreading not merely on the surface, but within.
+
+When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed her
+husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was cremated,
+it made strangely little stir among the six old Forsytes left. For this
+apathy there were three causes. First: the almost surreptitious burial
+of old Jolyon in 1892 down at Robin Hill--first of the Forsytes to
+desert the family grave at Highgate. That burial, coming a year after
+Swithin's entirely proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk
+on Forsyte 'Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road,
+London, which still collected and radiated family gossip. Opinions
+ranged from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the outspoken assertion of
+Francie that it was 'a jolly good thing to stop all that stuffy Highgate
+business.' Uncle Jolyon in his later years--indeed, ever since the
+strange and lamentable affair between his granddaughter June's lover,
+young Bosinney, and Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte's wife--had
+noticeably rapped the family's knuckles; and that way of his own which
+he had always taken had begun to seem to them a little wayward. The
+philosophic vein in him, of course, had always been too liable to crop
+out of the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they were in a way prepared
+for his interment in a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd
+business, and when the contents of his Will became current coin on
+Forsyte 'Change, a shiver had gone round the clan. Out of his estate
+(L145,304 gross, with liabilities L35 7s. 4d.) he had actually left
+L15,000 to "whomever do you think, my dear? To Irene!" that runaway
+wife of his nephew Soames; Irene, a woman who had almost disgraced the
+family, and--still more amazing was to him no blood relation. Not out
+and out, of course; only a life interest--only the income from it!
+Still, there it was; and old Jolyon's claim to be the perfect Forsyte
+was ended once for all. That, then, was the first reason why the burial
+of Susan Hayman--at Woking--made little stir.
+
+The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial. Besides
+the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by Hayman when he
+died) just over the border in Hants, where the Hayman boys had learned
+to be such good shots and riders, as it was believed, which was of
+course nice for them, and creditable to everybody; and the fact of
+owning something really countrified seemed somehow to excuse the
+dispersion of her remains--though what could have put cremation into
+her head they could not think! The usual invitations, however, had been
+issued, and Soames had gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will had
+been quite satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life
+interest; and everything had gone quite smoothly to the children in
+equal shares.
+
+The third reason why Susan's burial made little stir was the most
+expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the pale, the
+thin: "Well, I think people have a right to their own bodies, even when
+they're dead." Coming from a daughter of Nicholas, a Liberal of the
+old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling remark--showing in a
+flash what a lot of water had run under bridges since the death of Aunt
+Ann in '86, just when the proprietorship of Soames over his wife's body
+was acquiring the uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia,
+of course, spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though
+well over thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all
+allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the principle
+of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central point of
+possession from others to oneself. When Nicholas heard his daughter's
+remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: "Wives and daughters! There's
+no end to their liberty in these days. I knew that 'Jackson' case would
+lead to things--lugging in Habeas Corpus like that!" He had, of course,
+never really forgiven the Married Woman's Property Act, which would so
+have interfered with him if he had not mercifully married before it was
+passed. But, in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger
+Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were, Colonial
+disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical forerunner of
+Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They were all now
+married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and the Iseeum Club;
+Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio off the King's Road,
+Chelsea, and still taking 'lovers' to dances; Euphemia, living at home
+and complaining of Nicholas; and those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse
+Hayman. Of the third generation there were not very many--young Jolyon
+had three, Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger
+had one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of the
+sixteen married--Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James' family; Eustace and
+Thomas of Roger's; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of Nicholas';
+Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman's--were going down the years
+unreproduced.
+
+Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been born;
+but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only seventeen
+descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there would be more
+than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student of statistics must
+have noticed that the birth rate had varied in accordance with the rate
+of interest for your money. Grandfather 'Superior Dosset' Forsyte in the
+early nineteenth century had been getting ten per cent. for his, hence
+ten children. Those ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and
+Juley, whose husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at
+once, had averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced
+accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting barely
+three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had mostly tied the
+Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and the six of them who
+had been reproduced had seventeen children, or just the proper two and
+five-sixths per stem.
+
+There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A distrust
+of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is guaranteed,
+together with the knowledge that their fathers did not die, kept them
+cautious. If one had children and not much income, the standard of taste
+and comfort must of necessity go down; what was enough for two was not
+enough for four, and so on--it would be better to wait and see what
+Father did. Besides, it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered.
+Sooner in fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on
+the ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency fin
+de siecle, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run, and one
+would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace already had one, but
+it had shaken him horribly, and broken one of his eye teeth; so that it
+would be better to wait till they were a little safer. In the meantime,
+no more children! Even young Nicholas was drawing in his horns, and had
+made no addition to his six for quite three years.
+
+The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion rather,
+of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so far as to prevent
+a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had been a glorious summer,
+and after holidays abroad and at the sea they were practically all back
+in London, when Roger with a touch of his old originality had suddenly
+breathed his last at his own house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy's it
+was whispered sadly that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his
+digestion--had he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the
+other brands?
+
+Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and coming
+away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for his Uncle
+Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. The 'Old Things'--Aunt Juley and Aunt
+Hester--would like to hear about it. His father--James--at eighty-eight
+had not felt up to the fatigue of the funeral; and Timothy himself,
+of course, had not gone; so that Nicholas had been the only brother
+present. Still, there had been a fair gathering; and it would cheer
+Aunts Juley and Hester up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed
+with the inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do,
+which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the saner
+elements in every nation. In this practice of taking family matters
+to Timothy's in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but following in the
+footsteps of his father, who had been in the habit of going at least
+once a week to see his sisters at Timothy's, and had only given it
+up when he lost his nerve at eighty-six, and could not go out without
+Emily. To go with Emily was of no use, for who could really talk to
+anyone in the presence of his own wife? Like James in the old days,
+Soames found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit in the little
+drawing-room into which, with his undoubted taste, he had introduced a
+good deal of change and china not quite up to his own fastidious mark,
+and at least two rather doubtful Barbizon pictures, at Christmastides.
+He himself, who had done extremely well with the Barbizons, had for some
+years past moved towards the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was
+hoping to do better. In the riverside house which he now inhabited near
+Mapledurham he had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to which
+few London dealers were strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon
+attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters, Winifred or
+Rachel, occasionally organised for him. For though he was but a taciturn
+showman, his quiet collected determinism seldom failed to influence his
+guests, who knew that his reputation was grounded not on mere aesthetic
+fancy, but on his power of gauging the future of market values. When he
+went to Timothy's he almost always had some little tale of triumph over
+a dealer to unfold, and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which
+his aunts would greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently
+animated, coming from Roger's funeral in his neat dark clothes--not
+quite black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul
+abhorred excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in a marqueterie
+chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the sky-blue walls plastered
+with gold frames, he was noticeably silent. Whether because he had been
+to a funeral or not, the peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to
+the best advantage this afternoon--a face concave and long, with a jaw
+which divested of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a
+chinny face though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly
+than ever that Timothy's was hopelessly 'rum-ti-too' and the souls of
+his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he wanted
+to talk--his own undivorced position--was unspeakable. And yet it
+occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was only since the
+Spring that this had been so and a new feeling grown up which was
+egging him on towards what he knew might well be folly in a Forsyte
+of forty-five. More and more of late he had been conscious that he was
+'getting on.' The fortune already considerable when he conceived the
+house at Robin Hill which had finally wrecked his marriage with Irene,
+had mounted with surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during
+which he had devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well
+over a hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to--no real
+object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were to relax
+his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would have a hundred
+and fifty thousand before he knew where he was. There had always been
+a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side to Soames; baulked and
+frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but now had crept out again
+in this his 'prime of life.' Concreted and focussed of late by the
+attraction of a girl's undoubted beauty, it had become a veritable
+prepossession.
+
+And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept any
+unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the thought of
+that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during those long years
+of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with disgust, for he was
+fastidious, and his sense of law and order innate. He wanted no hole
+and corner liaison. A marriage at the Embassy in Paris, a few months'
+travel, and he could bring Annette back quite separated from a past
+which in truth was not too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts
+in her mother's Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something
+very new and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign
+at 'The Shelter' near Mapledurham. On Forsyte 'Change and among his
+riverside friends it would be current that he had met a charming French
+girl on his travels and married her. There would be the flavour of
+romance, and a certain cachet about a French wife. No! He was not at
+all afraid of that. It was only this cursed undivorced condition of his,
+and--and the question whether Annette would take him, which he dared not
+put to the touch until he had a clear and even dazzling future to offer
+her.
+
+In his aunts' drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those usual
+questions: How was his dear father? Not going out, of course, now that
+the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames be sure to tell him that
+Hester had found boiled holly leaves most comforting for that pain in
+her side; a poultice every three hours, with red flannel afterwards. And
+could he relish just a little pot of their very best prune preserve--it
+was so delicious this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh! and
+about the Darties--had Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most
+distressing time with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought to have
+protection It was said--but Soames mustn't take this for certain--that
+he had given some of Winifred's jewellery to a dreadful dancer. It was
+such a bad example for dear Val just as he was going to college. Soames
+had not heard? Oh, but he must go and see his sister and look into it at
+once! And did he think these Boers were really going to resist? Timothy
+was in quite a stew about it. The price of Consols was so high, and he
+had such a lot of money in them. Did Soames think they must go down if
+there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would be over very quickly. It
+would be so bad for Timothy if it wasn't. And of course Soames' dear
+father would feel it very much at his age. Luckily poor dear Roger
+had been spared this dreadful anxiety. And Aunt Juley with a little
+handkerchief wiped away the large tear trying to climb the permanent
+pout on her now quite withered left cheek; she was remembering dear
+Roger, and all his originality, and how he used to stick pins into
+her when they were little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct for
+avoiding the unpleasant, here chimed in: Did Soames think they would
+make Mr. Chamberlain Prime Minister at once? He would settle it all so
+quickly. She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St. Helena. She
+could remember so well the news of Napoleon's death, and what a relief
+it had been to his grandfather. Of course she and Juley--"We were in
+pantalettes then, my dear"--had not felt it much at the time.
+
+Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate three
+of those macaroons for which Timothy's was famous. His faint, pale,
+supercilious smile had deepened just a little. Really, his family
+remained hopelessly provincial, however much of London they might
+possess between them. In these go-ahead days their provincialism stared
+out even more than it used to. Why, old Nicholas was still a Free
+Trader, and a member of that antediluvian home of Liberalism, the Remove
+Club--though, to be sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives
+now, or he himself could not have joined; and Timothy, they said, still
+wore a nightcap. Aunt Juley spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so
+well, hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died, and they were
+all there together, dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear Roger.
+She paused and caught the tear which had climbed the pout on her right
+cheek. Did he--did he ever hear anything of Irene nowadays? Aunt
+Hester visibly interposed her shoulder. Really, Juley was always saying
+something! The smile left Soames' face, and he put his cup down. Here
+was his subject broached for him, and for all his desire to expand, he
+could not take advantage.
+
+Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:
+
+"They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out and out;
+then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it for her life
+only."
+
+Had Soames heard that?
+
+Soames nodded.
+
+"Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now. He is her trustee; you knew that,
+of course?"
+
+Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished to show no interest.
+Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of Bosinney's death.
+
+"He must be quite middle-aged by now," went on Aunt Juley dreamily. "Let
+me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in Mount Street; long
+before they went to Stanhope Gate in December. Just before that dreadful
+Commune. Over fifty! Fancy that! Such a pretty baby, and we were all so
+proud of him; the very first of you all." Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock
+of not quite her own hair came loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester
+gave a little shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious piece
+of self-discovery. That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was not
+yet closed. He had come thinking he could talk of it, even wanting to
+talk of his fettered condition, and--behold! he was shrinking away from
+this reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her Malapropisms.
+
+Oh, Soames was not going already!
+
+Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:
+
+"Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!" And, leaving a cold kiss
+on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling to his lips
+as if longing to be kissed away, he left them looking brightly after
+him--dear Soames, it had been so good of him to come to-day, when they
+were not feeling very...!
+
+With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the stairs,
+where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor and port wine,
+and house where draughts are not permitted. The poor old things--he
+had not meant to be unkind! And in the street he instantly forgot them,
+repossessed by the image of Annette and the thought of the cursed coil
+around him. Why had he not pushed the thing through and obtained divorce
+when that wretched Bosinney was run over, and there was evidence galore
+for the asking! And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie's
+residence in Green Street, Mayfair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of fortunes
+as Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he had inhabited
+twenty years at least would have been more noticeable if the rent,
+rates, taxes, and repairs of that house had not been defrayed by his
+father-in-law. By that simple if wholesale device James Forsyte had
+secured a certain stability in the lives of his daughter and his
+grandchildren. After all, there is something invaluable about a safe
+roof over the head of a sportsman so dashing as Dartie. Until the events
+of the last few days he had been almost-supernaturally steady all this
+year. The fact was he had acquired a half share in a filly of George
+Forsyte's, who had gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger,
+now stilled by the grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out of Shirt-on-fire,
+by Suspender, was a bay filly, three years old, who for a variety of
+reasons had never shown her true form. With half ownership of this
+hopeful animal, all the idealism latent somewhere in Dartie, as in every
+other man, had put up its head, and kept him quietly ardent for months
+past. When a man has some thing good to live for it is astonishing how
+sober he becomes; and what Dartie had was really good--a three to one
+chance for an autumn handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one.
+The old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt
+was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his shirt
+depended on this granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving age of
+forty-five, trying to Forsytes--and, though perhaps less distinguishable
+from any other age, trying even to Darties--Montague had fixed his
+current fancy on a dancer. It was no mean passion, but without money,
+and a good deal of it, likely to remain a love as airy as her skirts;
+and Dartie never had any money, subsisting miserably on what he could
+beg or borrow from Winifred--a woman of character, who kept him because
+he was the father of her children, and from a lingering admiration
+for those now-dying Wardour Street good looks which in their youth
+had fascinated her. She, together with anyone else who would lend him
+anything, and his losses at cards and on the turf (extraordinary how
+some men make a good thing out of losses!) were his whole means of
+subsistence; for James was now too old and nervous to approach, and
+Soames too formidably adamant. It is not too much to say that Dartie
+had been living on hope for months. He had never been fond of money for
+itself, had always despised the Forsytes with their investing habits,
+though careful to make such use of them as he could. What he liked about
+money was what it bought--personal sensation.
+
+"No real sportsman cares for money," he would say, borrowing a 'pony' if
+it was no use trying for a 'monkey.' There was something delicious about
+Montague Dartie. He was, as George Forsyte said, a 'daisy.'
+
+The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day of
+September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night before,
+arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an eminence to see his
+half of the filly take her final canter: If she won he would be a cool
+three thou. in pocket--a poor enough recompense for the sobriety and
+patience of these weeks of hope, while they had been nursing her for
+this race. But he had not been able to afford more. Should he 'lay it
+off' at the eight to one to which she had advanced? This was his single
+thought while the larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled
+sweet, and the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like
+satin.
+
+After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to 'lay it off'
+would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred--hardly enough to
+purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent was the itch in the
+blood of all the Darties for a real flutter. And turning to George he
+said: "She's a clipper. She'll win hands down; I shall go the whole
+hog." George, who had laid off every penny, and a few besides, and stood
+to win, however it came out, grinned down on him from his bulky
+height, with the words: "So ho, my wild one!" for after a chequered
+apprenticeship weathered with the money of a deeply complaining Roger,
+his Forsyte blood was beginning to stand him in good stead in the
+profession of owner.
+
+There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from which the
+sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the good thing fell
+down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie's shirt was lost.
+
+Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames turned his
+face towards Green Street, what had not happened!
+
+When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised
+self-control for months from religious motives, and remains unrewarded,
+he does not curse God and die, he curses God and lives, to the distress
+of his family.
+
+Winifred--a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable--who had borne
+the brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never really believed
+that he would do what he now did. Like so many wives, she thought she
+knew the worst, but she had not yet known him in his forty-fifth year,
+when he, like other men, felt that it was now or never. Paying on
+the 2nd of October a visit of inspection to her jewel case, she was
+horrified to observe that her woman's crown and glory was gone--the
+pearls which Montague had given her in '86, when Benedict was born, and
+which James had been compelled to pay for in the spring of '87, to save
+scandal. She consulted her husband at once. He 'pooh-poohed' the matter.
+They would turn up! Nor till she said sharply: "Very well, then, Monty,
+I shall go down to Scotland Yard myself," did he consent to take the
+matter in hand. Alas! that the steady and resolved continuity of design
+necessary to the accomplishment of sweeping operations should be liable
+to interruption by drink. That night Dartie returned home without a
+care in the world or a particle of reticence. Under normal conditions
+Winifred would merely have locked her door and let him sleep it off, but
+torturing suspense about her pearls had caused her to wait up for him.
+Taking a small revolver from his pocket and holding on to the dining
+table, he told her at once that he did not care a cursh whether she
+lived s'long as she was quiet; but he himself wash tired o' life.
+Winifred, holding onto the other side of the dining table, answered:
+
+"Don't be a clown, Monty. Have you been to Scotland Yard?"
+
+Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger
+several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation,
+he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair.
+Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The
+liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused him; Winifred had never
+'unshtood'm.' If he hadn't the right to take the pearls he had given
+her himself, who had? That Spanish filly had got'm. If Winifred had
+any 'jection he w'd cut--her--throat. What was the matter with that?
+(Probably the first use of that celebrated phrase--so obscure are the
+origins of even the most classical language!)
+
+Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard school, looked up
+at him, and said: "Spanish filly! Do you mean that girl we saw dancing
+in the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief and a blackguard." It
+had been the last straw on a sorely loaded consciousness; reaching
+up from his chair Dartie seized his wife's arm, and recalling the
+achievements of his boyhood, twisted it. Winifred endured the agony with
+tears in her eyes, but no murmur. Watching for a moment of weakness,
+she wrenched it free; then placing the dining table between them,
+said between her teeth: "You are the limit, Monty." (Undoubtedly the
+inception of that phrase--so is English formed under the stress of
+circumstances.) Leaving Dartie with foam on his dark moustache she went
+upstairs, and, after locking her door and bathing her arm in hot
+water, lay awake all night, thinking of her pearls adorning the neck of
+another, and of the consideration her husband had presumably received
+therefor.
+
+The man of the world awoke with a sense of being lost to that world, and
+a dim recollection of having been called a 'limit.' He sat for half
+an hour in the dawn and the armchair where he had slept--perhaps the
+unhappiest half-hour he had ever spent, for even to a Dartie there is
+something tragic about an end. And he knew that he had reached it.
+Never again would he sleep in his dining-room and wake with the light
+filtering through those curtains bought by Winifred at Nickens and
+Jarveys with the money of James. Never again eat a devilled kidney at
+that rose-wood table, after a roll in the sheets and a hot bath. He took
+his note case from his dress coat pocket. Four hundred pounds, in fives
+and tens--the remainder of the proceeds of his half of Sleeve-links,
+sold last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who, having won over
+the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike to the animal which he
+himself now felt. The ballet was going to Buenos Aires the day after
+to-morrow, and he was going too. Full value for the pearls had not yet
+been received; he was only at the soup.
+
+He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides, the
+water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed stealthily
+all he could. It was hard to leave so many shining boots, but one must
+sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise in either hand, he stepped
+out onto the landing. The house was very quiet--that house where he had
+begotten his four children. It was a curious moment, this, outside the
+room of his wife, once admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him
+'the limit.' He steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but
+the next door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept
+in. Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture
+came into Dartie's early morning eyes. She was the most like him of the
+four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance. Just coming
+out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises. This almost formal
+abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning light fell on a face
+which worked with real emotion. Nothing so false as penitence moved him;
+but genuine paternal feeling, and that melancholy of 'never again.' He
+moistened his lips; and complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his
+legs in their check trousers. It was hard--hard to be thus compelled to
+leave his home! "D---nit!" he muttered, "I never thought it would come
+to this." Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning to get
+up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on downstairs. His cheeks
+were wet, and the knowledge of that was comforting, as though it
+guaranteed the genuineness of his sacrifice. He lingered a little in the
+rooms below, to pack all the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat,
+a silver cigarette box, a Ruff's Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff
+whisky and soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a
+photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to Winifred.
+'Never mind,' he thought; 'she can get another taken, and I can't!' He
+slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his hat and overcoat, he
+took two others, his best malacca cane, an umbrella, and opened the
+front door. Closing it softly behind him, he walked out, burdened as
+he had never been in all his life, and made his way round the corner to
+wait there for an early cab to come by.
+
+Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his age from
+the house which he had called his own.
+
+When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the house,
+her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should thus elude the
+reproaches she had carefully prepared in those long wakeful hours. He
+had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton, with that woman as likely as
+not. Disgusting! Forced to a complete reticence before Imogen and the
+servants, and aware that her father's nerves would never stand the
+disclosure, she had been unable to refrain from going to Timothy's that
+afternoon, and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and
+Hester in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that
+she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it mean?
+Careful examination of her husband's relics prompted the thought that he
+had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened she stood quite still in
+the middle of his dressing-room, with all the drawers pulled out, to try
+and realise what she was feeling. By no means easy! Though he was 'the
+limit' he was yet her property, and for the life of her she could not
+but feel the poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with
+four children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to the
+arms of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had thought quite
+dead, revived within her, painful, sullen, tenacious. Mechanically she
+closed drawer after drawer, went to her bed, lay on it, and buried her
+face in the pillows. She did not cry. What was the use of that? When she
+got off her bed to go down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could
+do her good, and that was to have Val home. He--her eldest boy--who
+was to go to Oxford next month at James' expense, was at Littlehampton
+taking his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have
+phrased it following his father's diction. She caused a telegram to be
+sent to him.
+
+"I must see about his clothes," she said to Imogen; "I can't have him
+going up to Oxford all anyhow. Those boys are so particular."
+
+"Val's got heaps of things," Imogen answered.
+
+"I know; but they want overhauling. I hope he'll come."
+
+"He'll come like a shot, Mother. But he'll probably skew his Exam."
+
+"I can't help that," said Winifred. "I want him."
+
+With an innocent shrewd look at her mother's face, Imogen kept silence.
+It was father, of course! Val did come 'like a shot' at six o'clock.
+
+Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young
+Publius Valerius Dartie. A youth so named could hardly turn out
+otherwise. When he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits, and the
+craving for distinction, had determined that her children should
+have names such as no others had ever had. (It was a mercy--she felt
+now--that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.) But it was to George
+Forsyte, always a wag, that Val's christening was due. It so happened
+that Dartie, dining with him a week after the birth of his son and heir,
+had mentioned this aspiration of Winifred's.
+
+"Call him Cato," said George, "it'll be damned piquant!" He had just won
+a tenner on a horse of that name.
+
+"Cato!" Dartie had replied--they were a little 'on' as the phrase was
+even in those days--"it's not a Christian name."
+
+"Halo you!" George called to a waiter in knee breeches. "Bring me the
+Encyc'pedia Brit. from the Library, letter C."
+
+The waiter brought it.
+
+"Here you are!" said George, pointing with his cigar: "Cato Publius
+Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia. That's what you want. Publius Valerius
+is Christian enough."
+
+Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred. She had been charmed.
+It was so 'chic.' And Publius Valerius became the baby's name, though
+it afterwards transpired that they had got hold of the inferior Cato. In
+1890, however, when little Publius was nearly ten, the word 'chic' went
+out of fashion, and sobriety came in; Winifred began to have doubts.
+They were confirmed by little Publius himself who returned from his
+first term at school complaining that life was a burden to him--they
+called him Pubby. Winifred--a woman of real decision--promptly changed
+his school and his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an
+initial.
+
+At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth, light
+eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile, considerable knowledge
+of what he should not know, and no experience of what he ought to do.
+Few boys had more narrowly escaped being expelled--the engaging rascal.
+After kissing his mother and pinching Imogen, he ran upstairs three at a
+time, and came down four, dressed for dinner. He was awfully sorry, but
+his 'trainer,' who had come up too, had asked him to dine at the Oxford
+and Cambridge; it wouldn't do to miss--the old chap would be hurt.
+Winifred let him go with an unhappy pride. She had wanted him at home,
+but it was very nice to know that his tutor was so fond of him. He went
+out with a wink at Imogen, saying: "I say, Mother, could I have two
+plover's eggs when I come in?--cook's got some. They top up so jolly
+well. Oh! and look here--have you any money?--I had to borrow a fiver
+from old Snobby."
+
+Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:
+
+"My dear, you are naughty about money. But you shouldn't pay him
+to-night, anyway; you're his guest. How nice and slim he looked in his
+white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!"
+
+"Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I ought
+to stand the tickets; he's always hard up, you know."
+
+Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:
+
+"Well, perhaps you'd better pay him, but you mustn't stand the tickets
+too."
+
+Val pocketed the fiver.
+
+"If I do, I can't," he said. "Good-night, Mum!"
+
+He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously, sniffing the
+air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into covert. Jolly good biz!
+After that mouldy old slow hole down there!
+
+He found his 'tutor,' not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but at the
+Goat's Club. This 'tutor' was a year older than himself, a good-looking
+youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a small mouth, an
+oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree, one of those young men
+who without effort establish moral ascendancy over their companions. He
+had missed being expelled from school a year before Val, had spent that
+year at Oxford, and Val could almost see a halo round his head. His name
+was Crum, and no one could get through money quicker. It seemed to
+be his only aim in life--dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the
+Forsyte would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the value for
+that money was.
+
+They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking cigars,
+with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into stalls at the
+Liberty. For Val the sound of comic songs, the sight of lovely legs
+were fogged and interrupted by haunting fears that he would never equal
+Crum's quiet dandyism. His idealism was roused; and when that is so, one
+is never quite at ease. Surely he had too wide a mouth, not the best cut
+of waistcoat, no braid on his trousers, and his lavender gloves had no
+thin black stitchings down the back. Besides, he laughed too much--Crum
+never laughed, he only smiled, with his regular dark brows raised a
+little so that they formed a gable over his just drooped lids. No! he
+would never be Crum's equal. All the same it was a jolly good show,
+and Cynthia Dark simply ripping. Between the acts Crum regaled him with
+particulars of Cynthia's private life, and the awful knowledge became
+Val's that, if he liked, Crum could go behind. He simply longed to say:
+"I say, take me!" but dared not, because of his deficiencies; and this
+made the last act or two almost miserable. On coming out Crum said:
+"It's half an hour before they close; let's go on to the Pandemonium."
+They took a hansom to travel the hundred yards, and seats costing
+seven-and-six apiece because they were going to stand, and walked into
+the Promenade. It was in these little things, this utter negligence of
+money that Crum had such engaging polish. The ballet was on its last
+legs and night, and the traffic of the Promenade was suffering for the
+moment. Men and women were crowded in three rows against the barrier.
+The whirl and dazzle on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco
+fumes and women's scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which
+belongs to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism. He
+looked admiringly in a young woman's face, saw she was not young, and
+quickly looked away. Shades of Cynthia Dark! The young woman's arm
+touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk and mignonette. Val
+looked round the corner of his lashes. Perhaps she was young, after all.
+Her foot trod on his; she begged his pardon. He said:
+
+"Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, I'm tired of it; aren't you?"
+
+Young Val smiled--his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he did
+not go--not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for greater
+certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its kaleidoscope of
+snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and violet and seemed
+suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled pyramid. Applause broke out,
+and it was over! Maroon curtains had cut it off. The semi-circle of men
+and women round the barrier broke up, the young woman's arm pressed his.
+A little way off disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink
+carnation; Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking
+towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The one in
+the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a dark moustache;
+he reeled a little as he walked. Crum's voice said slow and level: "Look
+at that bounder, he's screwed!" Val turned to look. The 'bounder' had
+disengaged his arm, and was pointing straight at them. Crum's voice,
+level as ever, said:
+
+"He seems to know you!" The 'bounder' spoke:
+
+"H'llo!" he said. "You f'llows, look! There's my young rascal of a son!"
+
+Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson carpet.
+It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his father
+was 'screwed'; it was Crum's word 'bounder,' which, as by heavenly
+revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes, his father
+looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his pink carnation, and
+his square, self-assertive walk. And without a word he ducked behind the
+young woman and slipped out of the Promenade. He heard the word, "Val!"
+behind him, and ran down deep-carpeted steps past the 'chuckersout,'
+into the Square.
+
+To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience
+a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying away, that his
+career had ended before it had begun. How could he go up to Oxford now
+amongst all those chaps, those splendid friends of Crum's, who would
+know that his father was a 'bounder'! And suddenly he hated Crum. Who
+the devil was Crum, to say that? If Crum had been beside him at that
+moment, he would certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own
+father--his own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands
+down deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild
+idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the arm and
+walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up at once and
+pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman planted herself before
+him. "Not so angry, darling!" He shied, dodged her, and suddenly became
+quite cool. If Crum ever said a word, he would jolly well punch his
+head, and there would be an end of it. He walked a hundred yards or
+more, contented with that thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It
+wasn't simple like that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent
+came down who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow
+afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why had
+his mother married his father, if he was a 'bounder'? It was bitterly
+unfair--jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a 'bounder' for father.
+The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised that
+he had long known subconsciously that his father was not 'the clean
+potato.' It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened to
+him--beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And,
+down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let
+himself in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover's
+eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a little
+whisky at the bottom of a decanter--just enough, as Winifred had
+thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him sick to look at
+them, and he went upstairs.
+
+Winifred heard him pass, and thought: 'The dear boy's in. Thank
+goodness! If he takes after his father I don't know what I shall do! But
+he won't he's like me. Dear Val!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS
+
+When Soames entered his sister's little Louis Quinze drawing-room, with
+its small balcony, always flowered with hanging geraniums in the summer,
+and now with pots of Lilium Auratum, he was struck by the immutability
+of human affairs. It looked just the same as on his first visit to the
+newly married Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture
+himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever been
+able to change the room's atmosphere. Yes, he had founded his sister
+well, and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great deal for Winifred
+that after all this time with Dartie she remained well-founded. From
+the first Soames had nosed out Dartie's nature from underneath the
+plausibility, savoir faire, and good looks which had dazzled Winifred,
+her mother, and even James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to
+marry his daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into
+settlement.
+
+Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at her Buhl
+bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came towards him. Tall as
+himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored, something in her face
+disturbed Soames. She crumpled the letter in her hand, but seemed to
+change her mind and held it out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her
+brother.
+
+Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:
+
+'You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving country
+to-morrow. It's played out. I'm tired of being insulted by you. You've
+brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can stand it. I shall not
+ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I took the photograph of the two
+girls. Give them my love. I don't care what your family say. It's all
+their doing. I'm going to live new life. 'M.D.'
+
+This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He looked
+at Winifred--the splotch had clearly come from her; and he checked the
+words: 'Good riddance!' Then it occurred to him that with this letter
+she was entering that very state which he himself so earnestly desired
+to quit--the state of a Forsyte who was not divorced.
+
+Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a little
+gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a vague sense of
+injury, crept about Soames' heart. He had come to her to talk of his
+own position, and get sympathy, and here was she in the same position,
+wanting of course to talk of it, and get sympathy from him. It was
+always like that! Nobody ever seemed to think that he had troubles and
+interests of his own. He folded up the letter with the splotch inside,
+and said:
+
+"What's it all about, now?"
+
+Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.
+
+"Do you think he's really gone, Soames? You see the state he was in when
+he wrote that."
+
+Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by pretending
+that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:
+
+"I shouldn't think so. I might find out at his Club."
+
+"If George is there," said Winifred, "he would know."
+
+"George?" said Soames; "I saw him at his father's funeral."
+
+"Then he's sure to be there."
+
+Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister's acumen, said grudgingly:
+"Well, I'll go round. Have you said anything in Park Lane?"
+
+"I've told Emily," returned Winifred, who retained that 'chic' way of
+describing her mother. "Father would have a fit."
+
+Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James. With
+another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his sister's exact
+position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The evening was drawing
+in--a touch of chill in the October haze. He walked quickly, with his
+close and concentrated air. He must get through, for he wished to dine
+in Soho. On hearing from the hall porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie
+had not been in to-day, he looked at the trusty fellow and decided only
+to ask if Mr. George Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who always
+looked askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at his
+expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought that
+George had just lost his father. He must have come in for about thirty
+thousand, besides what he had under that settlement of Roger's, which
+had avoided death duty. He found George in a bow-window, staring out
+across a half-eaten plate of muffins. His tall, bulky, black-clothed
+figure loomed almost threatening, though preserving still the
+supernatural neatness of the racing man. With a faint grin on his fleshy
+face, he said:
+
+"Hallo, Soames! Have a muffin?"
+
+"No, thanks," murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the desire to
+say something suitable and sympathetic, added:
+
+"How's your mother?"
+
+"Thanks," said George; "so-so. Haven't seen you for ages. You never go
+racing. How's the City?"
+
+Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:
+
+"I wanted to ask you about Dartie. I hear he's...."
+
+"Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola. Good for
+Winifred and the little Darties. He's a treat."
+
+Soames nodded. Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie made
+them kin.
+
+"Uncle James'll sleep in his bed now," resumed George; "I suppose he's
+had a lot off you, too."
+
+Soames smiled.
+
+"Ah! You saw him further," said George amicably. "He's a real rouser.
+Young Val will want a bit of looking after. I was always sorry for
+Winifred. She's a plucky woman."
+
+Again Soames nodded. "I must be getting back to her," he said; "she just
+wanted to know for certain. We may have to take steps. I suppose there's
+no mistake?"
+
+"It's quite O.K.," said George--it was he who invented so many of those
+quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources. "He was drunk
+as a lord last night; but he went off all right this morning. His ship's
+the Tuscarora;" and, fishing out a card, he read mockingly:
+
+"'Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.' I should hurry up
+with the steps, if I were you. He fairly fed me up last night."
+
+"Yes," said Soames; "but it's not always easy." Then, conscious from
+George's eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own affair, he got
+up, and held out his hand. George rose too.
+
+"Remember me to Winifred.... You'll enter her for the Divorce Stakes
+straight off if you ask me."
+
+Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway. George had
+seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked big and
+lonely in those black clothes. Soames had never known him so subdued. 'I
+suppose he feels it in a way,' he thought. 'They must have about fifty
+thousand each, all told. They ought to keep the estate together. If
+there's a war, house property will go down. Uncle Roger was a good
+judge, though.' And the face of Annette rose before him in the darkening
+street; her brown hair and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, her
+fresh lips and cheeks, dewy and blooming in spite of London, her perfect
+French figure. 'Take steps!' he thought. Re-entering Winifred's house
+he encountered Val, and they went in together. An idea had occurred to
+Soames. His cousin Jolyon was Irene's trustee, the first step would be
+to go down and see him at Robin Hill. Robin Hill! The odd--the very odd
+feeling those words brought back! Robin Hill--the house Bosinney had
+built for him and Irene--the house they had never lived in--the fatal
+house! And Jolyon lived there now! H'm! And suddenly he thought: 'They
+say he's got a boy at Oxford! Why not take young Val down and introduce
+them! It's an excuse! Less bald--very much less bald!' So, as they went
+upstairs, he said to Val:
+
+"You've got a cousin at Oxford; you've never met him. I should like to
+take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and introduce you.
+You'll find it useful."
+
+Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames clinched
+it.
+
+"I'll call for you after lunch. It's in the country--not far; you'll
+enjoy it."
+
+On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort that the
+steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment, not himself.
+
+Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.
+
+"It's quite true," he said; "he's gone to Buenos Aires, started this
+morning--we'd better have him shadowed when he lands. I'll cable at
+once. Otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner these things
+are done the better. I'm always regretting that I didn't..." he stopped,
+and looked sidelong at the silent Winifred. "By the way," he went on,
+"can you prove cruelty?"
+
+Winifred said in a dull voice:
+
+"I don't know. What is cruelty?"
+
+"Well, has he struck you, or anything?"
+
+Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.
+
+"He twisted my arm. Or would pointing a pistol count? Or being too drunk
+to undress himself, or--No--I can't bring in the children."
+
+"No," said Soames; "no! I wonder! Of course, there's legal
+separation--we can get that. But separation! Um!"
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Winifred desolately.
+
+"That he can't touch you, or you him; you're both of you married and
+unmarried." And again he grunted. What was it, in fact, but his own
+accursed position, legalised! No, he would not put her into that!
+
+"It must be divorce," he said decisively; "failing cruelty, there's
+desertion. There's a way of shortening the two years, now. We get the
+Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights. Then if he doesn't
+obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six months' time. Of course you
+don't want him back. But they won't know that. Still, there's the risk
+that he might come. I'd rather try cruelty."
+
+Winifred shook her head. "It's so beastly."
+
+"Well," Soames murmured, "perhaps there isn't much risk so long as he's
+infatuated and got money. Don't say anything to anybody, and don't pay
+any of his debts."
+
+Winifred sighed. In spite of all she had been through, the sense of loss
+was heavy on her. And this idea of not paying his debts any more brought
+it home to her as nothing else yet had. Some richness seemed to have
+gone out of life. Without her husband, without her pearls, without that
+intimate sense that she made a brave show above the domestic whirlpool,
+she would now have to face the world. She felt bereaved indeed.
+
+And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put more than
+his usual warmth.
+
+"I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow," he said, "to see young
+Jolyon on business. He's got a boy at Oxford. I'd like to take Val with
+me and introduce him. Come down to 'The Shelter' for the week-end and
+bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that won't do; I've got some
+other people coming." So saying, he left her and turned towards Soho.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--SOHO
+
+Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London, Soho is
+perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. 'So-ho, my wild one!' George
+would have said if he had seen his cousin going there. Untidy, full
+of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians, tomatoes, restaurants, organs,
+coloured stuffs, queer names, people looking out of upper windows,
+it dwells remote from the British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard
+proprietary instincts of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity
+which keeps its rents up when those of other quarters go down. For
+long years Soames' acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its
+Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he picked up there.
+Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney's death and
+Irene's flight, he had bought treasures there sometimes, though he had
+no place to put them; for when the conviction that his wife had gone for
+good at last became firm within him, he had caused a board to be put up
+in Montpellier Square:
+
+                     FOR SALE
+        THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE
+
+        Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes,
+             Court Street, Belgravia.
+
+It had sold within a week--that desirable residence, in the shadow of
+whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.
+
+Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down, Soames
+had gone there once more, and stood against the Square railings, looking
+at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of possessive memories which
+had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why had she never loved him? Why?
+She had been given all she had wanted, and in return had given him, for
+three long years, all he had wanted--except, indeed, her heart. He had
+uttered a little involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced
+suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter that
+green door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board 'For Sale!' A
+choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he had hurried away into
+the mist. That evening he had gone to Brighton to live....
+
+Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne, where
+Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her accounts, Soames
+thought with wonder of those seven years at Brighton. How had he managed
+to go on so long in that town devoid of the scent of sweetpeas, where he
+had not even space to put his treasures? True, those had been years
+with no time at all for looking at them--years of almost passionate
+money-making, during which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become
+solicitors to more limited Companies than they could properly attend to.
+Up to the City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an
+evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the sleep
+of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday was spent at
+his Club in town--curious reversal of customary procedure, based on the
+deep and careful instinct that while working so hard he needed sea air
+to and from the station twice a day, and while resting must indulge his
+domestic affections. The Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to
+Timothy's, and to Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had
+seemed to him as necessary to health as sea air on weekdays. Even since
+his migration to Mapledurham he had maintained those habits until--he
+had known Annette.
+
+Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or that
+outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know where a
+circle begins. It was intricate and deeply involved with the growing
+consciousness that property without anyone to leave it to is the
+negation of true Forsyteism. To have an heir, some continuance of self,
+who would begin where he left off--ensure, in fact, that he would not
+leave off--had quite obsessed him for the last year and more. After
+buying a bit of Wedgwood one evening in April, he had dropped into Malta
+Street to look at a house of his father's which had been turned into a
+restaurant--a risky proceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the
+terms of the lease. He had stared for a little at the outside painted
+a good cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little
+bay-trees in a recessed doorway--and at the words 'Restaurant Bretagne'
+above them in gold letters, rather favourably impressed. Entering, he
+had noticed that several people were already seated at little round
+green tables with little pots of fresh flowers on them and Brittany-ware
+plates, and had asked of a trim waitress to see the proprietor. They had
+shown him into a back room, where a girl was sitting at a simple bureau
+covered with papers, and a small round, table was laid for two. The
+impression of cleanliness, order, and good taste was confirmed when
+the girl got up, saying, "You wish to see Maman, Monsieur?" in a broken
+accent.
+
+"Yes," Soames had answered, "I represent your landlord; in fact, I'm his
+son."
+
+"Won't you sit down, sir, please? Tell Maman to come to this gentleman."
+
+He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed
+business instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was remarkably
+pretty--so remarkably pretty that his eyes found a difficulty in leaving
+her face. When she moved to put a chair for him, she swayed in a curious
+subtle way, as if she had been put together by someone with a special
+secret skill; and her face and neck, which was a little bared, looked
+as fresh as if they had been sprayed with dew. Probably at this moment
+Soames decided that the lease had not been violated; though to himself
+and his father he based the decision on the efficiency of those illicit
+adaptations in the building, on the signs of prosperity, and the obvious
+business capacity of Madame Lamotte. He did not, however, neglect to
+leave certain matters to future consideration, which had necessitated
+further visits, so that the little back room had become quite accustomed
+to his spare, not unsolid, but unobtrusive figure, and his pale, chinny
+face with clipped moustache and dark hair not yet grizzling at the
+sides.
+
+"Un Monsieur tres distingue," Madame Lamotte found him; and presently,
+"Tres amical, tres gentil," watching his eyes upon her daughter.
+
+She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
+Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
+confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their knowledge
+of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank balances.
+
+After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
+ceased--without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like
+all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a born
+empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which had
+gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to alter his
+condition from that of the unmarried married man to that of the married
+man remarried.
+
+Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899, he
+bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of the Dreyfus
+case--a question which he had always found useful in making closer
+acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her daughter, who were Catholic
+and anti-Dreyfusard.
+
+Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed a
+general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about the
+Transvaal. He entered, thinking: 'War's a certainty. I shall sell my
+consols.' Not that he had many, personally, the rate of interest was too
+wretched; but he should advise his Companies--consols would assuredly go
+down. A look, as he passed the doorways of the restaurant, assured him
+that business was good as ever, and this, which in April would have
+pleased him, now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which
+he had to take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her
+mother safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of the
+Restaurant Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have to buy them
+out, of course, for French people only came to England to make money;
+and it would mean a higher price. And then that peculiar sweet sensation
+at the back of his throat, and a slight thumping about the heart, which
+he always experienced at the door of the little room, prevented his
+thinking how much it would cost.
+
+Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing through
+the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her hands up to her
+hair. It was the attitude in which of all others he admired her--so
+beautifully straight and rounded and supple. And he said:
+
+"I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that
+partition. No, don't call her."
+
+"Monsieur will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten minutes."
+Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an impulse which
+surprised him.
+
+"You look so pretty to-night," he said, "so very pretty. Do you know how
+pretty you look, Annette?"
+
+Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed. "Monsieur is very good."
+
+"Not a bit good," said Soames, and sat down gloomily.
+
+Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile was
+crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.
+
+And, looking at those lips, Soames said:
+
+"Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?"
+
+"Oh, I like London. Paris, of course. But London is better than Orleans,
+and the English country is so beautiful. I have been to Richmond last
+Sunday."
+
+Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle. Mapledurham! Dared
+he? After all, dared he go so far as that, and show her what there was
+to look forward to! Still! Down there one could say things. In this room
+it was impossible.
+
+"I want you and your mother," he said suddenly, "to come for the
+afternoon next Sunday. My house is on the river, it's not too late in
+this weather; and I can show you some good pictures. What do you say?"
+
+Annette clasped her hands.
+
+"It will be lovelee. The river is so beautiful"
+
+"That's understood, then. I'll ask Madame."
+
+He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself away.
+But had he not already said too much? Did one ask restaurant proprietors
+with pretty daughters down to one's country house without design? Madame
+Lamotte would see, if Annette didn't. Well! there was not much that
+Madame did not see. Besides, this was the second time he had stayed to
+supper with them; he owed them hospitality.
+
+Walking home towards Park Lane--for he was staying at his father's--with
+the impression of Annette's soft clever hand within his own, his
+thoughts were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather puzzled. Take steps!
+What steps? How? Dirty linen washed in public? Pah! With his reputation
+for sagacity, for far-sightedness and the clever extrication of others,
+he, who stood for proprietary interests, to become the plaything of
+that Law of which he was a pillar! There was something revolting in
+the thought! Winifred's affair was bad enough! To have a double dose
+of publicity in the family! Would not a liaison be better than that--a
+liaison, and a son he could adopt? But dark, solid, watchful, Madame
+Lamotte blocked the avenue of that vision. No! that would not work. It
+was not as if Annette could have a real passion for him; one could not
+expect that at his age. If her mother wished, if the worldly advantage
+were manifestly great--perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain.
+Besides, he thought: 'I'm not a villain. I don't want to hurt her; and
+I don't want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a son!
+There's nothing for it but divorce--somehow--anyhow--divorce!' Under the
+shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed slowly along
+the railings of the Green Park. Mist clung there among the bluish tree
+shapes, beyond range of the lamps. How many hundred times he had walked
+past those trees from his father's house in Park Lane, when he was quite
+a young man; or from his own house in Montpellier Square in those four
+years of married life! And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself
+if he could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk
+on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he used
+to when going home to Irene in the old days. What could she be like
+now?--how had she passed the years since he last saw her, twelve years
+in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her that money? Was she
+still beautiful? Would he know her if he saw her? 'I've not changed
+much,' he thought; 'I expect she has. She made me suffer.' He remembered
+suddenly one night, the first on which he went out to dinner alone--an
+old Malburian dinner--the first year of their marriage. With what
+eagerness he had hurried back; and, entering softly as a cat, had heard
+her playing. Opening the drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood
+watching the expression on her face, different from any he knew, so much
+more open, so confiding, as though to her music she was giving a heart
+he had never seen. And he remembered how she stopped and looked round,
+how her face changed back to that which he did know, and what an
+icy shiver had gone through him, for all that the next moment he was
+fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had made him suffer! Divorce! It seemed
+ridiculous, after all these years of utter separation! But it would have
+to be. No other way! 'The question,' he thought with sudden realism,
+'is--which of us? She or me? She deserted me. She ought to pay for
+it. There'll be someone, I suppose.' Involuntarily he uttered a little
+snarling sound, and, turning, made his way back to Park Lane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--JAMES SEES VISIONS
+
+The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained
+Soames on the inner mat.
+
+"The master's poorly, sir," he murmured. "He wouldn't go to bed till you
+came in. He's still in the diningroom."
+
+Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
+accustomed.
+
+"What's the matter with him, Warmson?"
+
+"Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs. Dartie's
+comin' round this afternoon. I think he overheard something. I've took
+him in a negus. The mistress has just gone up."
+
+Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.
+
+"All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I'll take him up myself." And he
+passed into the dining-room.
+
+James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a camel-hair
+shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated shoulders, on to which
+his long white whiskers drooped. His white hair, still fairly thick,
+glistened in the lamplight; a little moisture from his fixed, light-grey
+eyes stained the cheeks, still quite well coloured, and the long deep
+furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved
+as if mumbling thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow's, in shepherd's
+plaid trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
+spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and glistening
+tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass
+of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with
+intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically
+sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him
+anything. It is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was
+being buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
+keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a grudge
+against his wife's youth. He felt sometimes that he would never have
+married her if he had known that she would have so many years before
+her, when he had so few. It was not natural. She would live fifteen or
+twenty years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of money; she had
+always had extravagant tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy
+one of these motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
+people--they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness knew
+where. And now Roger was gone. He didn't know--couldn't tell! The
+family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle had left.
+Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames' uncle not as his own brother.
+Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world.
+Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one to leave
+his money to. There it was! He didn't know! And there was that fellow
+Chamberlain! For James' political principles had been fixed between '70
+and '85 when 'that rascally Radical' had been the chief thorn in the
+side of property and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his
+conversion; he would get the country into a mess and make money go down
+before he had done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames?
+He had gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from
+him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son's trousers. Roger!
+Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up from school
+together from the West, on the box seat of the old Slowflyer in 1824,
+Roger had got into the 'boot' and gone to sleep. James uttered a thin
+cackle. A funny fellow--Roger--an original! He didn't know! Younger than
+himself, and in his coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val
+going to the university; he never came to see him now. He would cost
+a pretty penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty
+pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before James'
+eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged terribly the risk
+which the spending of that money might bring on them; he grudged the
+diminution of security. And now that Cicely had married, she might be
+having children too. He didn't know--couldn't tell! Nobody thought of
+anything but spending money in these days, and racing about, and having
+what they called 'a good time.' A motor-car went past the window. Ugly
+great lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the
+country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they couldn't
+even care for style--a neat turnout like his barouche and bays was worth
+all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116! There must be a lot of
+money in the country. And now there was this old Kruger! They had tried
+to keep old Kruger from him. But he knew better; there would be a pretty
+kettle of fish out there! He had known how it would be when that fellow
+Gladstone--dead now, thank God! made such a mess of it after that
+dreadful business at Majuba. He shouldn't wonder if the Empire split
+up and went to pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled
+a full quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He
+had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch that the
+real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing when he
+became aware of voices--low voices. Ah! they never told him anything!
+Winifred's and her mother's. "Monty!" That fellow Dartie--always that
+fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and James had been left alone,
+with his ears standing up like a hare's, and fear creeping about his
+inwards. Why did they leave him alone? Why didn't they come and tell
+him? And an awful thought, which through long years had haunted
+him, concreted again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone
+bankrupt--fraudulently bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children,
+he--James--would have to pay! Could he--could Soames turn him into a
+limited company? No, he couldn't! There it was! With every minute before
+Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery! With
+eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall, James
+suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his grandchildren in the
+gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the doubted Turner being sold at
+Jobson's, and all the majestic edifice of property in rags. He saw in
+fancy Winifred unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily's voice
+saying: "Now, don't fuss, James!" She was always saying: "Don't fuss!"
+She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman eighteen years
+younger than himself. Then Emily's real voice said:
+
+"Have you had a nice nap, James?"
+
+Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!
+
+"What's this about Dartie?" he said, and his eyes glared at her.
+
+Emily's self-possession never deserted her.
+
+"What have you been hearing?" she asked blandly.
+
+"What's this about Dartie?" repeated James. "He's gone bankrupt."
+
+"Fiddle!"
+
+James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his stork-like
+figure.
+
+"You never tell me anything," he said; "he's gone bankrupt."
+
+The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that mattered at
+the moment.
+
+"He has not," she answered firmly. "He's gone to Buenos Aires."
+
+If she had said "He's gone to Mars" she could not have dealt James
+a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in British
+securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.
+
+"What's he gone there for?" he said. "He's got no money. What did he
+take?"
+
+Agitated within by Winifred's news, and goaded by the constant
+reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:
+
+"He took Winifred's pearls and a dancer."
+
+"What!" said James, and sat down.
+
+His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she said:
+
+"Now, don't fuss, James!"
+
+A dusky red had spread over James' cheeks and forehead.
+
+"I paid for them," he said tremblingly; "he's a thief! I--I knew how it
+would be. He'll be the death of me; he ...." Words failed him and he sat
+quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so well, was alarmed, and
+went towards the sideboard where she kept some sal volatile. She could
+not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit working in that thin, tremulous
+shape against the extravagance of the emotion called up by this outrage
+on Forsyte principles--the Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: 'You
+mustn't get into a fantod, it'll never do. You won't digest your lunch.
+You'll have a fit!' All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James
+than sal volatile.
+
+"Drink this," she said.
+
+James waved it aside.
+
+"What was Winifred about," he said, "to let him take her pearls?" Emily
+perceived the crisis past.
+
+"She can have mine," she said comfortably. "I never wear them. She'd
+better get a divorce."
+
+"There you go!" said James. "Divorce! We've never had a divorce in the
+family. Where's Soames?"
+
+"He'll be in directly."
+
+"No, he won't," said James, almost fiercely; "he's at the funeral. You
+think I know nothing."
+
+"Well," said Emily with calm, "you shouldn't get into such fusses when
+we tell you things." And plumping up his cushions, and putting the sal
+volatile beside him, she left the room.
+
+But James sat there seeing visions--of Winifred in the Divorce Court,
+and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on Roger's
+coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he had paid for
+and would never see again; of money back at four per cent., and the
+country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon wore into evening,
+and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those visions became more and more
+mixed and menacing--of being told nothing, till he had nothing left of
+all his wealth, and they told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why
+didn't he come in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it
+to drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little sigh
+of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he said:
+
+"There you are! Dartie's gone to Buenos Aires."
+
+Soames nodded. "That's all right," he said; "good riddance."
+
+A wave of assuagement passed over James' brain. Soames knew. Soames was
+the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn't he come and live at
+home? He had no son of his own. And he said plaintively:
+
+"At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy."
+
+Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no
+understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched his
+father's shoulder.
+
+"They sent their love to you at Timothy's," he said. "It went off all
+right. I've been to see Winifred. I'm going to take steps." And he
+thought: 'Yes, and you mustn't hear of them.'
+
+James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin throat
+between the points of his collar looked very gristly and naked.
+
+"I've been very poorly all day," he said; "they never tell me anything."
+
+Soames' heart twitched.
+
+"Well, it's all right. There's nothing to worry about. Will you come up
+now?" and he put his hand under his father's arm.
+
+James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together they went
+slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the firelight, and out
+to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.
+
+"Good-night, my boy," said James at his bedroom door.
+
+"Good-night, father," answered Soames. His hand stroked down the sleeve
+beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it, so thin was
+the arm. And, turning away from the light in the opening doorway, he
+went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.
+
+'I want a son,' he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; 'I want a
+son.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME
+
+Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper lawn at
+Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney sprawled under it and
+said to Soames: "Forsyte, I've found the very place for your house."
+Since then Swithin had dreamed, and old Jolyon died, beneath its
+branches. And now, close to the swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often
+painted there. Of all spots in the world it was perhaps the most sacred
+to him, for he had loved his father.
+
+Contemplating its great girth--crinkled and a little mossed, but not yet
+hollow--he would speculate on the passage of time. That tree had seen,
+perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he shouldn't wonder, from
+the days of Elizabeth at least. His own fifty years were as nothing
+to its wood. When the house behind it, which he now owned, was three
+hundred years of age instead of twelve, that tree might still be
+standing there, vast and hollow--for who would commit such sacrilege as
+to cut it down? A Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house,
+to guard it jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look
+like coated with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls--the new
+look had gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity Bosinney had
+bestowed on it, or would the giant London have lapped it round and
+made it into an asylum in the midst of a jerry-built wilderness? Often,
+within and without of it, he was persuaded that Bosinney had been moved
+by the spirit when he built. He had put his heart into that house,
+indeed! It might even become one of the 'homes of England'--a rare
+achievement for a house in these degenerate days of building. And
+the aesthetic spirit, moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of
+possessive continuity, dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership
+thereof. There was the smack of reverence and ancestor-worship (if only
+for one ancestor) in his desire to hand this house down to his son and
+his son's son. His father had loved the house, had loved the view, the
+grounds, that tree; his last years had been happy there, and no one had
+lived there before him. These last eleven years at Robin Hill had formed
+in Jolyon's life as a painter, the important period of success. He was
+now in the very van of water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere.
+His drawings fetched high prices. Specialising in that one medium with
+the tenacity of his breed, he had 'arrived'--rather late, but not too
+late for a member of the family which made a point of living for
+ever. His art had really deepened and improved. In conformity with his
+position he had grown a short fair beard, which was just beginning to
+grizzle, and hid his Forsyte chin; his brown face had lost the warped
+expression of his ostracised period--he looked, if anything, younger.
+The loss of his wife in 1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies
+which turn out in the end for the good of all. He had, indeed, loved
+her to the last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become
+increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June, jealous even
+of her own little daughter Holly, and making ceaseless plaint that he
+could not love her, ill as she was, and 'useless to everyone, and better
+dead.' He had mourned her sincerely, but his face had looked younger
+since she died. If she could only have believed that she made him happy,
+how much happier would the twenty years of their companionship have
+been!
+
+June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly taken
+her own mother's place; and ever since old Jolyon died she had been
+established in a sort of studio in London. But she had come back to
+Robin Hill on her stepmother's death, and gathered the reins there into
+her small decided hands. Jolly was then at Harrow; Holly still learning
+from Mademoiselle Beauce. There had been nothing to keep Jolyon at home,
+and he had removed his grief and his paint-box abroad. There he had
+wandered, for the most part in Brittany, and at last had fetched up
+in Paris. He had stayed there several months, and come back with the
+younger face and the short fair beard. Essentially a man who merely
+lodged in any house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign
+at Robin Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where and
+when he liked. She was inclined, it is true, to regard the house rather
+as an asylum for her proteges! but his own outcast days had filled
+Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast, and June's 'lame
+ducks' about the place did not annoy him. By all means let her have them
+down--and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical humour perceived
+that they ministered to his daughter's love of domination as well as
+moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many
+ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and
+brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with
+a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly,
+he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating
+cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and
+ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And
+he was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in
+his dress, so that his son need not blush for him. They were perfect
+friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both
+having the competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they
+would stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk
+about it. Jolyon had a striking horror--partly original sin, but partly
+the result of his early immorality--of the moral attitude. The most he
+could ever have said to his son would have been:
+
+"Look here, old man; don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have
+wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The
+great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they
+annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would
+be particularly careful during that match, continually saying: "Hooray!
+Oh! hard luck, old man!" or "Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!" to each
+other, when some disaster at which their hearts bounded happened to the
+opposing school. And Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his
+usual soft one, to save his son's feelings, for a black top hat he could
+not stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him,
+amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy amongst
+all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old than himself.
+He often thought, 'Glad I'm a painter' for he had long dropped
+under-writing at Lloyds--'it's so innocuous. You can't look down on a
+painter--you can't take him seriously enough.' For Jolly, who had a sort
+of natural lordliness, had passed at once into a very small set, who
+secretly amused his father. The boy had fair hair which curled a little,
+and his grandfather's deepset iron-grey eyes. He was well-built and very
+upright, and always pleased Jolyon's aesthetic sense, so that he was a
+tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of their own sex
+whom they admire physically. On that occasion, however, he actually did
+screw up his courage to give his son advice, and this was it:
+
+"Look here, old man, you're bound to get into debt; mind you come to me
+at once. Of course, I'll always pay them. But you might remember that
+one respects oneself more afterwards if one pays one's own way. And
+don't ever borrow, except from me, will you?"
+
+And Jolly had said:
+
+"All right, Dad, I won't," and he never had.
+
+"And there's just one other thing. I don't know much about morality and
+that, but there is this: It's always worth while before you do anything
+to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is
+absolutely necessary."
+
+Jolly had looked thoughtful, and nodded, and presently had squeezed his
+father's hand. And Jolyon had thought: 'I wonder if I had the right to
+say that?' He always had a sort of dread of losing the dumb confidence
+they had in each other; remembering how for long years he had lost his
+own father's, so that there had been nothing between them but love at a
+great distance. He under-estimated, no doubt, the change in the spirit
+of the age since he himself went up to Cambridge in '65; and perhaps
+he underestimated, too, his boy's power of understanding that he was
+tolerant to the very bone. It was that tolerance of his, and possibly
+his scepticism, which ever made his relations towards June so queerly
+defensive. She was such a decided mortal; knew her own mind so terribly
+well; wanted things so inexorably until she got them--and then, indeed,
+often dropped them like a hot potato. Her mother had been like that,
+whence had come all those tears. Not that his incompatibility with his
+daughter was anything like what it had been with the first Mrs. Young
+Jolyon. One could be amused where a daughter was concerned; in a wife's
+case one could not be amused. To see June set her heart and jaw on a
+thing until she got it was all right, because it was never anything
+which interfered fundamentally with Jolyon's liberty--the one thing on
+which his jaw was also absolutely rigid, a considerable jaw, under
+that short grizzling beard. Nor was there ever any necessity for real
+heart-to-heart encounters. One could break away into irony--as indeed
+he often had to. But the real trouble with June was that she had never
+appealed to his aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with
+her red-gold hair and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the
+Berserker in her spirit. It was very different with Holly, soft and
+quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her somewhere. He
+watched this younger daughter of his through the duckling stage with
+extraordinary interest. Would she come out a swan? With her sallow oval
+face and her grey wistful eyes and those long dark lashes, she might, or
+she might not. Only this last year had he been able to guess. Yes, she
+would be a swan--rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic
+swan. She was eighteen now, and Mademoiselle Beauce was gone--the
+excellent lady had removed, after eleven years haunted by her continuous
+reminiscences of the 'well-brrred little Tayleurs,' to another
+family whose bosom would now be agitated by her reminiscences of the
+'well-brrred little Forsytes.' She had taught Holly to speak French like
+herself.
+
+Portraiture was not Jolyon's forte, but he had already drawn his younger
+daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on the afternoon
+of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to him which caused his
+eyebrows to go up:
+
+        Mr. SOAMES FORSYTE
+
+THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB, MAPLEDURHAM. ST. JAMES'S.
+
+But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....
+
+To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a little
+daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved father lying
+peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was never likely to be,
+forgotten by so impressionable and warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense
+as of mystery, too, clung to that sad day, and about the end of one
+whose life had been so well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It
+seemed incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as
+it were, announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and
+due farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the
+lady in grey,' of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded)
+involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's
+will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that
+will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life
+interest in fifteen thousand pounds. He had called on her to explain
+that the existing investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the
+charge, would produce for her the interesting net sum of L430 odd a
+year, clear of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his
+cousin Soames' wife--if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was
+not quite sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the Botanical
+Gardens waiting for Bosinney--a passive, fascinating figure, reminding
+him of Titian's 'Heavenly Love,' and again, when, charged by his father,
+he had gone to Montpellier Square on the afternoon when Bosinney's
+death was known. He still recalled vividly her sudden appearance in the
+drawing-room doorway on that occasion--her beautiful face, passing from
+wild eagerness of hope to stony despair; remembered the compassion he
+had felt, Soames' snarling smile, his words, "We are not at home!" and
+the slam of the front door.
+
+This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful--freed from that
+warp of wild hope and despair. Looking at her, he thought: 'Yes, you
+are just what the Dad would have admired!' And the strange story of
+his father's Indian summer became slowly clear to him. She spoke of old
+Jolyon with reverence and tears in her eyes. "He was so wonderfully kind
+to me; I don't know why. He looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in
+that chair under the tree; it was I who first came on him sitting
+there, you know. Such a lovely day. I don't think an end could have been
+happier. We should all like to go out like that."
+
+'Quite right!' he had thought. 'We should all a like to go out in full
+summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.' And looking round
+the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had asked her what she was
+going to do now. "I am going to live again a little, Cousin Jolyon. It's
+wonderful to have money of one's own. I've never had any. I shall keep
+this flat, I think; I'm used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy."
+
+"Exactly!" Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling lips; and
+he had gone away thinking: 'A fascinating woman! What a waste! I'm
+glad the Dad left her that money.' He had not seen her again, but every
+quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it to her bank, with a
+note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had done so; and always he
+had received a note in acknowledgment, generally from the flat, but
+sometimes from Italy; so that her personality had become embodied in
+slightly scented grey paper, an upright fine handwriting, and the words,
+'Dear Cousin Jolyon.' Man of property that he now was, the slender
+cheque he signed often gave rise to the thought: 'Well, I suppose she
+just manages'; sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring otherwise
+in a world of men not wont to let beauty go unpossessed. At first
+Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but 'ladies in grey' soon fade from
+children's memories; and the tightening of June's lips in those first
+weeks after her grandfather's death whenever her former friend's name
+was mentioned, had discouraged allusion. Only once, indeed, had June
+spoken definitely: "I've forgiven her. I'm frightfully glad she's
+independent now...."
+
+On receiving Soames' card, Jolyon said to the maid--for he could not
+abide butlers--"Show him into the study, please, and say I'll be there
+in a minute"; and then he looked at Holly and asked:
+
+"Do you remember 'the lady in grey,' who used to give you
+music-lessons?"
+
+"Oh yes, why? Has she come?"
+
+Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a coat, was
+silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not for those young
+ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical perplexity incarnate while he
+journeyed towards the study.
+
+Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at the oak
+tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he thought: 'Who's
+that boy? Surely they never had a child.'
+
+The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the second
+generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in the house
+built for the one and owned and occupied by the other, was marked by
+subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at cordiality. 'Has he
+come about his wife?' Jolyon was thinking; and Soames, 'How shall
+I begin?' while Val, brought to break the ice, stood negligently
+scrutinising this 'bearded pard' from under his dark, thick eyelashes.
+
+"This is Val Dartie," said Soames, "my sister's son. He's just going up
+to Oxford. I thought I'd like him to know your boy."
+
+"Ah! I'm sorry Jolly's away. What college?"
+
+"B.N.C.," replied Val.
+
+"Jolly's at the 'House,' but he'll be delighted to look you up."
+
+"Thanks awfully."
+
+"Holly's in--if you could put up with a female relation, she'd show you
+round. You'll find her in the hall if you go through the curtains. I was
+just painting her."
+
+With another "Thanks, awfully!" Val vanished, leaving the two cousins
+with the ice unbroken.
+
+"I see you've some drawings at the 'Water Colours,'" said Soames.
+
+Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family at large
+for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his mind with Frith's
+'Derby Day' and Landseer prints. He had heard from June that Soames
+was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He had become aware, too, of a
+curious sensation of repugnance.
+
+"I haven't seen you for a long time," he said.
+
+"No," answered Soames between close lips, "not since--as a matter of
+fact, it's about that I've come. You're her trustee, I'm told."
+
+Jolyon nodded.
+
+"Twelve years is a long time," said Soames rapidly: "I--I'm tired of
+it."
+
+Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:
+
+"Won't you smoke?"
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.
+
+"I wish to be free," said Soames abruptly.
+
+"I don't see her," murmured Jolyon through the fume of his cigarette.
+
+"But you know where she lives, I suppose?"
+
+Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without permission.
+Soames seemed to divine his thought.
+
+"I don't want her address," he said; "I know it."
+
+"What exactly do you want?"
+
+"She deserted me. I want a divorce."
+
+"Rather late in the day, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Soames. And there was a silence.
+
+"I don't know much about these things--at least, I've forgotten," said
+Jolyon with a wry smile. He himself had had to wait for death to grant
+him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon. "Do you wish me to see her
+about it?"
+
+Soames raised his eyes to his cousin's face. "I suppose there's
+someone," he said.
+
+A shrug moved Jolyon's shoulders.
+
+"I don't know at all. I imagine you may have both lived as if the other
+were dead. It's usual in these cases."
+
+Soames turned to the window. A few early fallen oak-leaves strewed the
+terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind. Jolyon saw the
+figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the lawn towards the
+stables. 'I'm not going to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,'
+he thought. 'I must act for her. The Dad would have wished that.' And
+for a swift moment he seemed to see his father's figure in the old
+armchair, just beyond Soames, sitting with knees crossed, The Times in
+his hand. It vanished.
+
+"My father was fond of her," he said quietly.
+
+"Why he should have been I don't know," Soames answered without looking
+round. "She brought trouble to your daughter June; she brought
+trouble to everyone. I gave her all she wanted. I would have given her
+even--forgiveness--but she chose to leave me."
+
+In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice. What
+was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be sorry for him?
+
+"I can go and see her, if you like," he said. "I suppose she might be
+glad of a divorce, but I know nothing."
+
+Soames nodded.
+
+"Yes, please go. As I say, I know her address; but I've no wish to see
+her." His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were very dry.
+
+"You'll have some tea?" said Jolyon, stifling the words: 'And see the
+house.' And he led the way into the hall. When he had rung the bell and
+ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his drawing to the wall. He
+could not bear, somehow, that his work should be seen by Soames, who was
+standing there in the middle of the great room which had been designed
+expressly to afford wall space for his own pictures. In his cousin's
+face, with its unseizable family likeness to himself, and its chinny,
+narrow, concentrated look, Jolyon saw that which moved him to the
+thought: 'That chap could never forget anything--nor ever give himself
+away. He's pathetic!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--THE COLT AND THE FILLY
+
+When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was thinking:
+'This is jolly dull! Uncle Soames does take the bun. I wonder what this
+filly's like?' He anticipated no pleasure from her society; and suddenly
+he saw her standing there looking at him. Why, she was pretty! What
+luck!
+
+"I'm afraid you don't know me," he said. "My name's Val Dartie--I'm once
+removed, second cousin, something like that, you know. My mother's name
+was Forsyte."
+
+Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too shy to
+withdraw it, said:
+
+"I don't know any of my relations. Are there many?"
+
+"Tons. They're awful--most of them. At least, I don't know--some of
+them. One's relations always are, aren't they?"
+
+"I expect they think one awful too," said Holly.
+
+"I don't know why they should. No one could think you awful, of course."
+
+Holly looked at him--the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave young
+Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.
+
+"I mean there are people and people," he added astutely. "Your dad looks
+awfully decent, for instance."
+
+"Oh yes!" said Holly fervently; "he is."
+
+A flush mounted in Val's cheeks--that scene in the Pandemonium
+promenade--the dark man with the pink carnation developing into his own
+father! "But you know what the Forsytes are," he said almost viciously.
+"Oh! I forgot; you don't."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle Soames!"
+
+"I'd like to," said Holly.
+
+Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. "Oh! no," he said,
+"let's go out. You'll see him quite soon enough. What's your brother
+like?"
+
+Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without
+answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered anything,
+had been her lord, master, and ideal?
+
+"Does he sit on you?" said Val shrewdly. "I shall be knowing him at
+Oxford. Have you got any horses?"
+
+Holly nodded. "Would you like to see the stables?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into the
+stable-yard. There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy brown-and-white dog,
+so old that he did not get up, but faintly waved the tail curled over
+his back.
+
+"That's Balthasar," said Holly; "he's so old--awfully old, nearly as old
+as I am. Poor old boy! He's devoted to Dad."
+
+"Balthasar! That's a rum name. He isn't purebred you know."
+
+"No! but he's a darling," and she bent down to stroke the dog. Gentle
+and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck and hands, she
+seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing slipped between him and
+all previous knowledge.
+
+"When grandfather died," she said, "he wouldn't eat for two days. He saw
+him die, you know."
+
+"Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper."
+
+"He was," said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.
+
+In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a long
+black tail and mane. "This is mine--Fairy."
+
+"Ah!" said Val, "she's a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her tail.
+She'd look much smarter." Then catching her wondering look, he thought
+suddenly: 'I don't know--anything she likes!' And he took a long sniff
+of the stable air. "Horses are ripping, aren't they? My Dad..." he
+stopped.
+
+"Yes?" said Holly.
+
+An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him--but not quite. "Oh!
+I don't know he's often gone a mucker over them. I'm jolly keen on them
+too--riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as well; I should like
+to be a gentleman rider." And oblivious of the fact that he had but one
+more day in town, with two engagements, he plumped out:
+
+"I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in Richmond
+Park?"
+
+Holly clasped her hands.
+
+"Oh yes! I simply love riding. But there's Jolly's horse; why don't you
+ride him? Here he is. We could go after tea."
+
+Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.
+
+He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown boots and
+Bedford cords.
+
+"I don't much like riding his horse," he said. "He mightn't like it.
+Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect. Not that I believe
+in buckling under to him, you know. You haven't got an uncle, have you?
+This is rather a good beast," he added, scrutinising Jolly's horse, a
+dark brown, which was showing the whites of its eyes. "You haven't got
+any hunting here, I suppose?"
+
+"No; I don't know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully exciting, of
+course; but it's cruel, isn't it? June says so."
+
+"Cruel?" ejaculated Val. "Oh! that's all rot. Who's June?"
+
+"My sister--my half-sister, you know--much older than me." She had put
+her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly's horse, and was rubbing her nose
+against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which seemed to have
+an hypnotic effect on the animal. Val contemplated her cheek resting
+against the horse's nose, and her eyes gleaming round at him. 'She's
+really a duck,' he thought.
+
+They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by the
+dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth, and clearly
+expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.
+
+"This is a ripping place," said Val from under the oak tree, where they
+had paused to allow the dog Balthasar to come up.
+
+"Yes," said Holly, and sighed. "Of course I want to go everywhere. I
+wish I were a gipsy."
+
+"Yes, gipsies are jolly," replied Val, with a conviction which had just
+come to him; "you're rather like one, you know."
+
+Holly's face shone suddenly and deeply, like dark leaves gilded by the
+sun.
+
+"To go mad-rabbiting everywhere and see everything, and live in the
+open--oh! wouldn't it be fun?"
+
+"Let's do it!" said Val.
+
+"Oh yes, let's!"
+
+"It'd be grand sport, just you and I."
+
+Then Holly perceived the quaintness and gushed.
+
+"Well, we've got to do it," said Val obstinately, but reddening too.
+
+"I believe in doing things you want to do. What's down there?"
+
+"The kitchen-garden, and the pond and the coppice, and the farm."
+
+"Let's go down!"
+
+Holly glanced back at the house.
+
+"It's tea-time, I expect; there's Dad beckoning."
+
+Val, uttering a growly sound, followed her towards the house.
+
+When they re-entered the hall gallery the sight of two middle-aged
+Forsytes drinking tea together had its magical effect, and they became
+quite silent. It was, indeed, an impressive spectacle. The two were
+seated side by side on an arrangement in marqueterie which looked like
+three silvery pink chairs made one, with a low tea-table in front of
+them. They seemed to have taken up that position, as far apart as the
+seat would permit, so that they need not look at each other too much;
+and they were eating and drinking rather than talking--Soames with
+his air of despising the tea-cake as it disappeared, Jolyon of finding
+himself slightly amusing. To the casual eye neither would have seemed
+greedy, but both were getting through a good deal of sustenance. The two
+young ones having been supplied with food, the process went on silent
+and absorbative, till, with the advent of cigarettes, Jolyon said to
+Soames:
+
+"And how's Uncle James?"
+
+"Thanks, very shaky."
+
+"We're a wonderful family, aren't we? The other day I was calculating
+the average age of the ten old Forsytes from my father's family Bible.
+I make it eighty-four already, and five still living. They ought to beat
+the record;" and looking whimsically at Soames, he added:
+
+"We aren't the men they were, you know."
+
+Soames smiled. 'Do you really think I shall admit that I'm not their
+equal'; he seemed to be saying, 'or that I've got to give up anything,
+especially life?'
+
+"We may live to their age, perhaps," pursued Jolyon, "but
+self-consciousness is a handicap, you know, and that's the difference
+between us. We've lost conviction. How and when self-consciousness was
+born I never can make out. My father had a little, but I don't believe
+any other of the old Forsytes ever had a scrap. Never to see yourself as
+others see you, it's a wonderful preservative. The whole history of the
+last century is in the difference between us. And between us and you,"
+he added, gazing through a ring of smoke at Val and Holly, uncomfortable
+under his quizzical regard, "there'll be--another difference. I wonder
+what."
+
+Soames took out his watch.
+
+"We must go," he said, "if we're to catch our train."
+
+"Uncle Soames never misses a train," muttered Val, with his mouth full.
+
+"Why should I?" Soames answered simply.
+
+"Oh! I don't know," grumbled Val, "other people do."
+
+At the front door he gave Holly's slim brown hand a long and
+surreptitious squeeze.
+
+"Look out for me to-morrow," he whispered; "three o'clock. I'll wait for
+you in the road; it'll save time. We'll have a ripping ride." He gazed
+back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the principles of a man
+about town, would have waved his hand. He felt in no mood to tolerate
+his uncle's conversation. But he was not in danger. Soames preserved a
+perfect muteness, busy with far-away thoughts.
+
+The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and a half
+which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days when he came
+down to watch with secret pride the building of the house--that house
+which was to have been the home of him and her from whom he was now
+going to seek release. He looked back once, up that endless vista of
+autumn lane between the yellowing hedges. What an age ago! "I don't want
+to see her," he had said to Jolyon. Was that true? 'I may have to,' he
+thought; and he shivered, seized by one of those queer shudderings that
+they say mean footsteps on one's grave. A chilly world! A queer world!
+And glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: 'Wish I were his age! I
+wonder what she's like now!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP
+
+When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting, for
+daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving unconsciously
+a revival of that momentary vision of his father sitting in the old
+leather chair with his knees crossed and his straight eyes gazing up
+from under the dome of his massive brow. Often in this little room,
+cosiest in the house, Jolyon would catch a moment of communion with his
+father. Not, indeed, that he had definitely any faith in the persistence
+of the human spirit--the feeling was not so logical--it was, rather,
+an atmospheric impact, like a scent, or one of those strong animistic
+impressions from forms, or effects of light, to which those with the
+artist's eye are especially prone. Here only--in this little unchanged
+room where his father had spent the most of his waking hours--could
+be retrieved the feeling that he was not quite gone, that the steady
+counsel of that old spirit and the warmth of his masterful lovability
+endured.
+
+What would his father be advising now, in this sudden recrudescence of
+an old tragedy--what would he say to this menace against her to whom he
+had taken such a fancy in the last weeks of his life? 'I must do my best
+for her,' thought Jolyon; 'he left her to me in his will. But what is
+the best?'
+
+And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd common
+sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient chair and
+crossed his knees. But he felt a mere shadow sitting there; nor did any
+inspiration come, while the fingers of the wind tapped on the darkening
+panes of the french-window.
+
+'Go and see her?' he thought, 'or ask her to come down here? What's her
+life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake up things at this
+time of day.' Again the figure of his cousin standing with a hand on a
+front door of a fine olive-green leaped out, vivid, like one of those
+figures from old-fashioned clocks when the hour strikes; and his words
+sounded in Jolyon's ears clearer than any chime: "I manage my own
+affairs. I've told you once, I tell you again: We are not at home." The
+repugnance he had then felt for Soames--for his flat-cheeked, shaven
+face full of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square,
+sleek figure slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not
+digest--came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase. 'I
+dislike him,' he thought, 'I dislike him to the very roots of me.
+And that's lucky; it'll make it easier for me to back his wife.'
+Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally averse from
+what he termed 'ructions'; unless angered, he conformed deeply to that
+classic description of the she-dog, 'Er'd ruther run than fight.' A
+little smile became settled in his beard. Ironical that Soames should
+come down here--to this house, built for himself! How he had gazed and
+gaped at this ruin of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls
+and stairway, appraising everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought: 'I
+believe the fellow even now would like to be living here. He could never
+leave off longing for what he once owned! Well, I must act, somehow or
+other; but it's a bore--a great bore.'
+
+Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene would
+see him.
+
+The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower so
+wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms. Rumours of
+war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at the close of the
+summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who was not often up in
+town, had a feverish look, due to these new motorcars and cabs, of which
+he disapproved aesthetically. He counted these vehicles from his hansom,
+and made the proportion of them one in twenty. 'They were one in thirty
+about a year ago,' he thought; 'they've come to stay. Just so much more
+rattling round of wheels and general stink'--for he was one of those
+rather rare Liberals who object to anything new when it takes a material
+form; and he instructed his driver to get down to the river quickly,
+out of the traffic, desiring to look at the water through the mellowing
+screen of plane-trees. At the little block of flats which stood back
+some fifty yards from the Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and
+went up to the first floor.
+
+Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!
+
+The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once apparent to
+him remembering the threadbare refinement in that tiny flat eight
+years ago when he announced her good fortune. Everything was now fresh,
+dainty, and smelled of flowers. The general effect was silvery with
+touches of black, hydrangea colour, and gold. 'A woman of great taste,'
+he thought. Time had dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte.
+But with Irene Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his
+impression. She appeared to him not a day older, standing there in
+mole-coloured velvet corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold hair,
+with outstretched hand and a little smile.
+
+"Won't you sit down?"
+
+He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of
+embarrassment.
+
+"You look absolutely unchanged," he said.
+
+"And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon."
+
+Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still a
+comfort to him.
+
+"I'm ancient, but I don't feel it. That's one thing about painting, it
+keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and had to have plague to
+kill him off. Do you know, the first time I ever saw you I thought of a
+picture by him?"
+
+"When did you see me for the first time?"
+
+"In the Botanical Gardens."
+
+"How did you know me, if you'd never seen me before?"
+
+"By someone who came up to you." He was looking at her hardily, but her
+face did not change; and she said quietly:
+
+"Yes; many lives ago."
+
+"What is your recipe for youth, Irene?"
+
+"People who don't live are wonderfully preserved."
+
+H'm! a bitter little saying! People who don't live! But an opening, and
+he took it. "You remember my Cousin Soames?"
+
+He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went on:
+
+"He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce. Do
+you?"
+
+"I?" The word seemed startled out of her. "After twelve years? It's
+rather late. Won't it be difficult?"
+
+Jolyon looked hard into her face. "Unless...." he said.
+
+"Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since."
+
+What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words? Relief,
+surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!
+
+"And yet," he said, "I suppose you would give a good deal to be free,
+too?"
+
+"I don't know. What does it matter, now?"
+
+"But if you were to love again?"
+
+"I should love." In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the whole
+philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.
+
+"Well! Is there anything you would like me to say to him?"
+
+"Only that I'm sorry he's not free. He had his chance once. I don't know
+why he didn't take it."
+
+"Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know, unless
+we want something in their place; and not always then."
+
+Irene smiled. "Don't you, Cousin Jolyon?--I think you do."
+
+"Of course, I'm a bit of a mongrel--not quite a pure Forsyte. I never
+take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on," said Jolyon
+uneasily.
+
+"Well, what does Soames want in place of me now?"
+
+"I don't know; perhaps children."
+
+She was silent for a little, looking down.
+
+"Yes," she murmured; "it's hard. I would help him to be free if I
+could."
+
+Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast; so
+was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. She was so lovely, and so
+lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!
+
+"Well," he said, "I shall have to see Soames. If there's anything I
+can do for you I'm always at your service. You must think of me as a
+wretched substitute for my father. At all events I'll let you know what
+happens when I speak to Soames. He may supply the material himself."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing. I should like him to
+be free; but I don't see what I can do."
+
+"Nor I at the moment," said Jolyon, and soon after took his leave. He
+went down to his hansom. Half-past three! Soames would be at his office
+still.
+
+"To the Poultry," he called through the trap. In front of the Houses of
+Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling, "Grave situation
+in the Transvaal!" but the cries hardly roused him, absorbed in
+recollection of that very beautiful figure, of her soft dark glance, and
+the words: "I have never had one since." What on earth did such a woman
+do with her life, back-watered like this? Solitary, unprotected, with
+every man's hand against her or rather--reaching out to grasp her at the
+least sign. And year after year she went on like that!
+
+The word 'Poultry' above the passing citizens brought him back to
+reality.
+
+'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,' in black letters on a ground the colour
+of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went up the stone
+stairs muttering: "Fusty musty ownerships! Well, we couldn't do without
+them!"
+
+"I want Mr. Soames Forsyte," he said to the boy who opened the door.
+
+"What name?"
+
+"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."
+
+The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte with a
+beard, and vanished.
+
+The offices of 'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte' had slowly absorbed the
+offices of 'Tooting and Bowles,' and occupied the whole of the first
+floor.
+
+The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of managing
+and articled clerks. The complete retirement of James some six years
+ago had accelerated business, to which the final touch of speed had been
+imparted when Bustard dropped off, worn out, as many believed, by the
+suit of 'Fryer versus Forsyte,' more in Chancery than ever and less
+likely to benefit its beneficiaries. Soames, with his saner grasp of
+actualities, had never permitted it to worry him; on the contrary, he
+had long perceived that Providence had presented him therein with L200 a
+year net in perpetuity, and--why not?
+
+When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of holdings in
+Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was going to advise his
+companies to put on the market at once, before other companies did the
+same. He looked round, sidelong, and said:
+
+"How are you? Just one minute. Sit down, won't you?" And having entered
+three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he turned towards
+Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+"I have seen her."
+
+Soames frowned.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She has remained faithful to memory."
+
+Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a dusky
+yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute!
+
+"I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free. Twelve years is a long
+time. You know your law, and what chance it gives you." Soames uttered
+a curious little grunt, and the two remained a full minute without
+speaking. 'Like wax!' thought Jolyon, watching that close face, where
+the flush was fast subsiding. 'He'll never give me a sign of what he's
+thinking, or going to do. Like wax!' And he transferred his gaze to a
+plan of that flourishing town, 'By-Street on Sea,' the future existence
+of which lay exposed on the wall to the possessive instincts of the
+firm's clients. The whimsical thought flashed through him: 'I wonder if
+I shall get a bill of costs for this--"To attending Mr. Jolyon Forsyte
+in the matter of my divorce, to receiving his account of his visit to
+my wife, and to advising him to go and see her again, sixteen and
+eightpence."'
+
+Suddenly Soames said: "I can't go on like this. I tell you, I can't
+go on like this." His eyes were shifting from side to side, like an
+animal's when it looks for way of escape. 'He really suffers,' thought
+Jolyon; 'I've no business to forget that, just because I don't like
+him.'
+
+"Surely," he said gently, "it lies with yourself. A man can always put
+these things through if he'll take it on himself."
+
+Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come from
+somewhere very deep.
+
+"Why should I suffer more than I've suffered already? Why should I?"
+
+Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his instinct
+rebelled; he could not have said why.
+
+"Your father," went on Soames, "took an interest in her--why, goodness
+knows! And I suppose you do too?" he gave Jolyon a sharp look. "It seems
+to me that one only has to do another person a wrong to get all the
+sympathy. I don't know in what way I was to blame--I've never known.
+I always treated her well. I gave her everything she could wish for. I
+wanted her."
+
+Again Jolyon's reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head. 'What
+is it?' he thought; 'there must be something wrong in me. Yet if there
+is, I'd rather be wrong than right.'
+
+"After all," said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, "she was my
+wife."
+
+In a flash the thought went through his listener: 'There it is!
+Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But--human beings! Pah!'
+
+"You have to look at facts," he said drily, "or rather the want of
+them."
+
+Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.
+
+"The want of them?" he said. "Yes, but I am not so sure."
+
+"I beg your pardon," replied Jolyon; "I've told you what she said. It
+was explicit."
+
+"My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in her word.
+We shall see."
+
+Jolyon got up.
+
+"Good-bye," he said curtly.
+
+"Good-bye," returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to understand
+the look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his cousin's face. He sought
+Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of mind, as though the skin of
+his moral being had been scraped; and all the way down in the train he
+thought of Irene in her lonely flat, and of Soames in his lonely
+office, and of the strange paralysis of life that lay on them both.
+'In chancery!' he thought. 'Both their necks in chancery--and her's so
+pretty!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--VAL HEARS THE NEWS
+
+The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous feature in
+the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke two and kept one,
+it was the latter event which caused him, if anything, the greater
+surprise, while jogging back to town from Robin Hill after his ride with
+Holly. She had been even prettier than he had thought her yesterday,
+on her silver-roan, long-tailed 'palfrey'; and it seemed to him,
+self-critical in the brumous October gloaming and the outskirts
+of London, that only his boots had shone throughout their two-hour
+companionship. He took out his new gold 'hunter'--present from
+James--and looked not at the time, but at sections of his face in the
+glittering back of its opened case. He had a temporary spot over one
+eyebrow, and it displeased him, for it must have displeased her. Crum
+never had any spots. Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade
+of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not had the faintest desire to
+unbosom himself to Holly about his father. His father lacked poetry,
+the stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time in his nineteen
+years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that almost mythical embodiment
+of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the woman of uncertain age--both
+seemed to Val completely 'off,' fresh from communion with this new, shy,
+dark-haired young cousin of his. She rode 'Jolly well,' too, so that it
+had been all the more flattering that she had let him lead her where he
+would in the long gallops of Richmond Park, though she knew them so
+much better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was mystified by
+the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say 'an awful lot of
+fetching things' if he had but the chance again, and the thought that
+he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and to Oxford on the
+twelfth--'to that beastly exam,' too--without the faintest chance of
+first seeing her again, caused darkness to settle on his spirit even
+more quickly than on the evening. He should write to her, however, and
+she had promised to answer. Perhaps, too, she would come up to Oxford to
+see her brother. That thought was like the first star, which came out as
+he rode into Padwick's livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.
+He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden some
+twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him chaffer for
+five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the
+Cambridgeshire; then with the words, "Put the gee down to my account,"
+he walked away, a little wide at the knees, and flipping his boots with
+his knotty little cane. 'I don't feel a bit inclined to go out,' he
+thought. 'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!' With
+'fizz' and recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.
+
+When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
+scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle
+Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said:
+
+"He'd better be told."
+
+At those words, which meant something about his father, of course, Val's
+first thought was of Holly. Was it anything beastly? His mother began
+speaking.
+
+"Your father," she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her
+fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, "your father, my
+dear boy, has--is not at Newmarket; he's on his way to South America.
+He--he's left us."
+
+Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of
+his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly--as at
+a whiff of gardenias and cigars--his heart twitched within him, and
+he was sorry. One's father belonged to one, could not go off in this
+fashion--it was not done! Nor had he always been the 'bounder' of the
+Pandemonium promenade. There were precious memories of tailors' shops
+and horses, tips at school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.
+
+"But why?" he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had
+asked. The mask of his mother's face was all disturbed; and he burst
+out:
+
+"All right, Mother, don't tell me! Only, what does it mean?"
+
+"A divorce, Val, I'm afraid."
+
+Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his uncle--that
+uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a guarantee against the
+consequences of having a father, even against the Dartie blood in his
+own veins. The flat-checked visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.
+
+"It won't be public, will it?"
+
+So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued to the
+unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public Press.
+
+"Can't it be done quietly somehow? It's so disgusting for--for mother,
+and--and everybody."
+
+"Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure."
+
+"Yes--but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn't want to marry
+again."
+
+Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his
+schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of--Holly! Unbearable!
+What was to be gained by it?
+
+"Do you, Mother?" he said sharply.
+
+Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the one she
+loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire chair in which
+she had been sitting. She saw that her son would be against her unless
+he was told everything; and, yet, how could she tell him? Thus, still
+plucking at the green brocade, she stared at Soames. Val, too, stared
+at Soames. Surely this embodiment of respectability and the sense of
+property could not wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!
+
+Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth surface
+of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his nephew, he began:
+
+"You don't understand what your mother has had to put up with these
+twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val." And glancing up
+sideways at Winifred, he added:
+
+"Shall I tell him?"
+
+Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against her! Yet,
+how dreadful to be told such things of his own father! Clenching her
+lips, she nodded.
+
+Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:
+
+"He has always been a burden round your mother's neck. She has paid
+his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk, abused and
+threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires with a dancer." And,
+as if distrusting the efficacy of those words on the boy, he went on
+quickly:
+
+"He took your mother's pearls to give to her."
+
+Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred cried
+out:
+
+"That'll do, Soames--stop!"
+
+In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For debts,
+drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the pearls--no! That was
+too much! And suddenly he found his mother's hand squeezing his.
+
+"You see," he heard Soames say, "we can't have it all begin over again.
+There's a limit; we must strike while the iron's hot."
+
+Val freed his hand.
+
+"But--you're--never going to bring out that about the pearls! I couldn't
+stand that--I simply couldn't!"
+
+Winifred cried out:
+
+"No, no, Val--oh no! That's only to show you how impossible your father
+is!" And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out a
+cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh! it was
+unbearable--just as he was going up to Oxford!
+
+"Can't mother be protected without?" he said. "I could look after her.
+It could always be done later if it was really necessary."
+
+A smile played for a moment round Soames' lips, and became bitter.
+
+"You don't know what you're talking of; nothing's so fatal as delay in
+such matters."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I tell you, boy, nothing's so fatal. I know from experience."
+
+His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him round-eyed,
+never having known his uncle express any sort of feeling. Oh! Yes--he
+remembered now--there had been an Aunt Irene, and something had
+happened--something which people kept dark; he had heard his father once
+use an unmentionable word of her.
+
+"I don't want to speak ill of your father," Soames went on doggedly,
+"but I know him well enough to be sure that he'll be back on your
+mother's hands before a year's over. You can imagine what that will mean
+to her and to all of you after this. The only thing is to cut the knot
+for good."
+
+In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at his
+mother's face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight into the
+fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered most.
+
+"All right, mother," he said; "we'll back you up. Only I'd like to know
+when it'll be. It's my first term, you know. I don't want to be up there
+when it comes off."
+
+"Oh! my dear boy," murmured Winifred, "it is a bore for you." So, by
+habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face, was the most
+poignant regret. "When will it be, Soames?"
+
+"Can't tell--not for months. We must get restitution first."
+
+'What the deuce is that?' thought Val. 'What silly brutes lawyers are!
+Not for months! I know one thing: I'm not going to dine in!' And he
+said:
+
+"Awfully sorry, mother, I've got to go out to dinner now."
+
+Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully; they
+both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the expression of
+feeling.
+
+Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and depressed.
+And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover that he had only
+eighteen-pence. One couldn't dine off eighteen-pence, and he was very
+hungry. He looked longingly at the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he
+had often eaten of the best with his father! Those pearls! There was no
+getting over them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the
+hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were only
+two places where he could go--his grandfather's in Park Lane, and
+Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his
+grandfather's he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the
+moment. At Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected
+you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought
+that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance to
+tip him was hardly fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had
+been there, of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn't help
+that. He rang the bell.
+
+"Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d'you think?"
+
+"They're just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad to see
+you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you nowadays."
+
+Val grinned.
+
+"Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let's have fizz."
+
+Warmson smiled faintly--in his opinion Val was a young limb.
+
+"I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val."
+
+"I say," Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, "I'm not at school any
+more, you know."
+
+Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond the
+stag's-horn coat stand, with the words:
+
+"Mr. Valerus, ma'am."
+
+"Confound him!" thought Val, entering.
+
+A warm embrace, a "Well, Val!" from Emily, and a rather quavery "So
+there you are at last!" from James, restored his sense of dignity.
+
+"Why didn't you let us know? There's only saddle of mutton. Champagne,
+Warmson," said Emily. And they went in.
+
+At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which so many
+fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily at the other,
+Val half-way between them; and something of the loneliness of his
+grandparents, now that all their four children were flown, reached the
+boy's spirit. 'I hope I shall kick the bucket long before I'm as old as
+grandfather,' he thought. 'Poor old chap, he's as thin as a rail!' And
+lowering his voice while his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion
+about sugar in the soup, he said to Emily:
+
+"It's pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know."
+
+"Yes, dear boy."
+
+"Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn't there anything to be
+done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on it?"
+
+"Hush, my dear!" murmured Emily; "we're keeping it from your
+grandfather."
+
+James' voice sounded from the other end.
+
+"What's that? What are you talking about?"
+
+"About Val's college," returned Emily. "Young Pariser was there, James;
+you remember--he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo afterwards."
+
+James muttered that he did not know--Val must look after himself up
+there, or he'd get into bad ways. And he looked at his grandson with
+gloom, out of which affection distrustfully glimmered.
+
+"What I'm afraid of," said Val to his plate, "is of being hard up, you
+know."
+
+By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear of
+insecurity for his grandchildren.
+
+"Well," said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over, "you'll
+have a good allowance; but you must keep within it."
+
+"Of course," murmured Val; "if it is good. How much will it be,
+Grandfather?"
+
+"Three hundred and fifty; it's too much. I had next to nothing at your
+age."
+
+Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. "I don't
+know what your young cousin has," said James; "he's up there. His
+father's a rich man."
+
+"Aren't you?" asked Val hardily.
+
+"I?" replied James, flustered. "I've got so many expenses. Your
+father...." and he was silent.
+
+"Cousin Jolyon's got an awfully jolly place. I went down there with
+Uncle Soames--ripping stables."
+
+"Ah!" murmured James profoundly. "That house--I knew how it would be!"
+And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones. His son's
+tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the Forsyte family,
+had still the power to draw him down into a whirlpool of doubts and
+misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of Robin Hill, because Robin Hill
+meant Holly, turned to Emily and said:
+
+"Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?" And, receiving her nod,
+went on: "I wish you'd tell me about him, Granny. What became of Aunt
+Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully worked-up about something
+to-night."
+
+Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught James'
+ear.
+
+"What's that?" he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his lips.
+"Who's been seeing her? I knew we hadn't heard the last of that."
+
+"Now, James," said Emily, "eat your dinner. Nobody's been seeing
+anybody."
+
+James put down his fork.
+
+"There you go," he said. "I might die before you'd tell me of it. Is
+Soames getting a divorce?"
+
+"Nonsense," said Emily with incomparable aplomb; "Soames is much too
+sensible."
+
+James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white whiskers
+together on the skin and bone of it.
+
+"She--she was always...." he said, and with that enigmatic remark the
+conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later, when the
+saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury, and dessert,
+and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and his grandfather's
+kiss--like no other kiss in the world, from lips pushed out with a sort
+of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to weakness--he returned to the
+charge in the hall.
+
+"Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on mother's
+getting a divorce?"
+
+"Your Uncle Soames," said Emily, and her voice had in it an exaggerated
+assurance, "is a lawyer, my dear boy. He's sure to know best."
+
+"Is he?" muttered Val. "But what did become of Aunt Irene? I remember
+she was jolly good-looking."
+
+"She--er...." said Emily, "behaved very badly. We don't talk about it."
+
+"Well, I don't want everybody at Oxford to know about our affairs,"
+ejaculated Val; "it's a brutal idea. Why couldn't father be prevented
+without its being made public?"
+
+Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of divorce,
+owing to her fashionable proclivities--so many of those whose legs had
+been under her table having gained a certain notoriety. When, however,
+it touched her own family, she liked it no better than other people. But
+she was eminently practical, and a woman of courage, who never pursued a
+shadow in preference to its substance.
+
+"Your mother," she said, "will be happier if she's quite free, Val.
+Good-night, my dear boy; and don't wear loud waistcoats up at Oxford,
+they're not the thing just now. Here's a little present."
+
+With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his heart,
+for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park Lane. A wind
+had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were rustling, and the stars
+were shining. With all that money in his pocket an impulse to 'see
+life' beset him; but he had not gone forty yards in the direction of
+Piccadilly when Holly's shy face, and her eyes with an imp dancing in
+their gravity, came up before him, and his hand seemed to be tingling
+again from the pressure of her warm gloved hand. 'No, dash it!' he
+thought, 'I'm going home!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE
+
+It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and summer
+lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many looks at the day
+from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday morning.
+
+With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat, and
+equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on
+the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he could not
+tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She was so very
+pretty--could he trust himself not to say irrevocable words, passing
+beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the veranda were still in
+bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that there was almost nothing
+of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood; yet was he nervous, fidgety,
+strangely distrustful of his powers to steer just the right course. This
+visit had been planned to produce in Annette and her mother a due sense
+of his possessions, so that they should be ready to receive with respect
+any overture he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great
+care, making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that
+his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three times
+he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any knowledge at all,
+they must see at once that his collection alone was worth at least
+thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected, too, the pretty bedroom
+overlooking the river where they would take off their hats. It would
+be her bedroom if--if the matter went through, and she became his
+wife. Going up to the dressing-table he passed his hand over the
+lilac-coloured pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins;
+a bowl of pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a
+little. His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,
+and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone through
+first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked out at the
+river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame Lamotte would never
+resist this prospect for her child; Annette would never resist her
+mother. If only he were free! He drove to the station to meet them. What
+taste Frenchwomen had! Madame Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac
+colour, Annette in greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and
+hat. Rather pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure.
+Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open
+french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in
+sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when youth
+and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered the lunch
+with intense consideration; the wine was a very special Sauterne, the
+whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee served on the veranda
+super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted creme de menthe; Annette
+refused. Her manners were charming, with just a suspicion of 'the
+conscious beauty' creeping into them. 'Yes,' thought Soames, 'another
+year of London and that sort of life, and she'll be spoiled.'
+
+Madame was in sedate French raptures. "Adorable! Le soleil est si bon!
+How everything is chic, is it not, Annette? Monsieur is a real Monte
+Cristo." Annette murmured assent, with a look up at Soames which he
+could not read. He proposed a turn on the river. But to punt two persons
+when one of them looked so ravishing on those Chinese cushions was
+merely to suffer from a sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a
+short way towards Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now
+and then an autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother's
+black amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought:
+'How--when--where--can I say--what?' They did not yet even know that
+he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his every
+chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand that he
+wished for Annette's hand, it would be dropping into some other clutch
+before he was free to claim it.
+
+At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the Transvaal.
+
+"There'll be war," he said.
+
+Madame Lamotte lamented.
+
+"Ces pauvres gens bergers!" Could they not be left to themselves?
+
+Soames smiled--the question seemed to him absurd.
+
+Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could not
+abandon their legitimate commercial interests.
+
+"Ah! that!" But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a little
+hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders, not of
+business. Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of that.
+
+"The Boers are only half-civilised," remarked Soames; "they stand in the
+way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty go."
+
+"What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!"
+
+"What a strange word!" Soames became eloquent, roused by these threats
+to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette's eyes fixed
+on him. He was delighted when presently she said:
+
+"I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson." She was
+sensible!
+
+"Of course," he said, "we must act with moderation. I'm no jingo. We
+must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my pictures?"
+Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon perceived that
+they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve, that remarkable study of
+a 'Hay-cart going Home,' as if it were a lithograph. He waited almost
+with awe to see how they would view the jewel of his collection--an
+Israels whose price he had watched ascending till he was now almost
+certain it had reached top value, and would be better on the market
+again. They did not view it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in
+Annette a virgin taste to form would be better than to have the silly,
+half-baked predilections of the English middle-class to deal with.
+At the end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather
+ashamed--Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte stopped
+before it.
+
+"Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!" Soames took advantage of that moment.
+Very gently touching Annette's arm, he said:
+
+"How do you like my place, Annette?"
+
+She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked
+down, and murmured:
+
+"Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!"
+
+"Perhaps some day--" Soames said, and stopped.
+
+So pretty she was, so self-possessed--she frightened him. Those
+cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate
+curves--she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must
+be sure of one's ground--much surer! 'If I hold off,' he thought, 'it
+will tantalise her.' And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was
+still in front of the Meissonier.
+
+"Yes, that's quite a good example of his later work. You must come
+again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come and spend a
+night."
+
+Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By moonlight
+too, the river must be ravishing!
+
+Annette murmured:
+
+"Thou art sentimental, Maman!"
+
+Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of the
+world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there was no
+sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use sentiment? And
+yet...!
+
+He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train. To
+the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette's fingers
+responded just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.
+
+He went back to the carriage, brooding. "Go on home, Jordan," he said to
+the coachman; "I'll walk." And he strode out into the darkening lanes,
+caution and the desire of possession playing see-saw within him. 'Bon
+soir, monsieur!' How softly she had said it. To know what was in her
+mind! The French--they were like cats--one could tell nothing! But--how
+pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one's arms! What a mother
+for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their
+surprise at a French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would
+play with it and buffet it confound them!
+
+The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in
+the water. 'I will and must be free,' he thought. 'I won't hang about
+any longer. I'll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them
+yourself. I must live again--live and move and have my being.' And in
+echo to that queer biblicality church-bells chimed the call to evening
+prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--AND VISITS THE PAST
+
+On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what
+required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet
+undertaken in his life--save perhaps his birth, and one other action.
+He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to
+be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by
+daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.
+
+He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old Church,
+uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it
+hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, 'Mrs.
+Irene Heron'--Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again,
+did she?--he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the
+first floor. Light was coming through in the corner fiat, and he
+could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had
+secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned
+to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could
+not enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at
+last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing,
+and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than
+ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his
+heart beat fast. 'I have no cause to be afraid,' he thought. And then
+the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he
+not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee?
+No! Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He
+crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of
+his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When
+the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent
+which came--that perfume--from away back in the past, bringing muffled
+remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he
+used to own--perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!
+
+"Say, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "your mistress will see me, I know." He had
+thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!
+
+When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where
+the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet,
+everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could
+only think ridiculously: 'Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it
+off?' The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:
+
+"Will you walk in, sir?"
+
+Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery,
+and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had risen and stood
+recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys as if groping for
+support, had struck a sudden discord, held for a moment, and released.
+The light from the shaded piano-candle fell on her neck, leaving her
+face rather in shadow. She was in a black evening dress, with a sort of
+mantilla over her shoulders--he did not remember ever having seen her in
+black, and the thought passed through him: 'She dresses even when she's
+alone.'
+
+"You!" he heard her whisper.
+
+Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal served
+him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never thought that
+the sight of this woman whom he had once so passionately desired, so
+completely owned, and whom he had not seen for twelve years, could
+affect him in this way. He had imagined himself speaking and acting,
+half as man of business, half as judge. And now it was as if he were
+in the presence not of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force,
+subtle and elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind
+of defensive irony welled up in him.
+
+"Yes, it's a queer visit! I hope you're well."
+
+"Thank you. Will you sit down?"
+
+She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a window-seat,
+sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap. Light fell on her
+there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he
+remembered them, strangely beautiful.
+
+He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with
+silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.
+
+"You have not changed," he said.
+
+"No? What have you come for?"
+
+"To discuss things."
+
+"I have heard what you want from your cousin."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I am willing. I have always been."
+
+The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure
+watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A thousand memories
+of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and....
+
+"Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on which
+I can act. The law must be complied with."
+
+"I have none to give you that you don't know of."
+
+"Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?"
+
+"I don't suppose you will believe anything I say; but it's the truth."
+
+Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed; now he
+perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was more beautiful;
+not in form, except that it was a little fuller--no! She had changed
+spiritually. There was more of her, as it were, something of activity
+and daring, where there had been sheer passive resistance. 'Ah!' he
+thought, 'that's her independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!'
+
+"I suppose you're comfortably off now?" he said.
+
+"Thank you, yes."
+
+"Why didn't you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of
+everything."
+
+A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.
+
+"You are still my wife," said Soames. Why he said that, what he meant
+by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a truism
+almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She rose from the
+window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly still, looking at him. He
+could see her bosom heaving. Then she turned to the window and threw it
+open.
+
+"Why do that?" he said sharply. "You'll catch cold in that dress. I'm
+not dangerous." And he uttered a little sad laugh.
+
+She echoed it--faintly, bitterly.
+
+"It was--habit."
+
+"Rather odd habit," said Soames as bitterly. "Shut the window!"
+
+She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this
+woman--this--wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat there,
+in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and moved
+nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her eyes met his
+unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what a dark brown against
+that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair! And how white her shoulders.
+
+Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.
+
+"You had better tell me," he said; "it's to your advantage to be free as
+well as to mine. That old matter is too old."
+
+"I have told you."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing--nobody?"
+
+"Nobody. You must go to your own life."
+
+Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to
+the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in their
+drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.
+
+"That won't do," he said. "You deserted me. In common justice it's for
+you...."
+
+He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:
+
+"Yes. Why didn't you divorce me then? Should I have cared?"
+
+He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity. What on
+earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite alone? And why
+had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she had never understood
+him, never done him justice, bit him while he stared at her.
+
+"Why couldn't you have made me a good wife?" he said.
+
+"Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will find
+some way perhaps. You needn't mind my name, I have none to lose. Now I
+think you had better go."
+
+A sense of defeat--of being defrauded of his self-justification, and of
+something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset Soames
+like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he reached up, took from the
+mantel-shelf a little china bowl, reversed it, and said:
+
+"Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at Jobson's."
+And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many years ago, he and
+she had bought china together, he remained staring at the little bowl,
+as if it contained all the past. Her voice roused him.
+
+"Take it. I don't want it."
+
+Soames put it back on the shelf.
+
+"Will you shake hands?" he said.
+
+A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold to his
+rather feverish touch. 'She's made of ice,' he thought--'she was always
+made of ice!' But even as that thought darted through him, his senses
+were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body, as though the warmth
+within her, which had never been for him, were struggling to show its
+presence. And he turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if
+someone with a whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of
+the empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows
+of the plane-tree leaves--confused, flurried, sore at heart, and vaguely
+disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences
+he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if
+instead of, 'I think you had better go,' she had said, 'I think you had
+better stay!' What should he have felt, what would he have done? That
+cursed attraction of her was there for him even now, after all these
+years of estrangement and bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount
+to his head at a sign, a touch. 'I was a fool to go!' he muttered. 'I've
+advanced nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!' Memory, flown
+back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.
+She had not deserved to keep her beauty--the beauty he had owned and
+known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own
+admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of
+her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to
+death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the mere sight of her, cold and
+resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly! It was some
+damned magnetism she had! And no wonder if, as she asserted; she had
+lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bosinney--cursed be his
+memory!--had lived on all this time with her! Soames could not tell
+whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.
+
+Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline ran:
+'Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!' Suzerainty! 'Just like her!'
+he thought: 'she always did. Suzerainty! I still have it by rights. She
+must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--ON FORSYTE 'CHANGE
+
+Soames belonged to two clubs, 'The Connoisseurs,' which he put on his
+cards and seldom visited, and 'The Remove,' which he did not put on his
+cards and frequented. He had joined this Liberal institution five
+years ago, having made sure that its members were now nearly all sound
+Conservatives in heart and pocket, if not in principle. Uncle Nicholas
+had put him up. The fine reading-room was decorated in the Adam style.
+
+On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news about the
+Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down seven-sixteenths since
+the morning. He was turning away to seek the reading-room when a voice
+behind him said:
+
+"Well, Soames, that went off all right."
+
+It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away collar,
+with a black tie passed through a ring. Heavens! How young and dapper he
+looked at eighty-two!
+
+"I think Roger'd have been pleased," his uncle went on. "The thing was
+very well done. Blackley's? I'll make a note of them. Buxton's done me
+no good. These Boers are upsetting me--that fellow Chamberlain's driving
+the country into war. What do you think?"
+
+"Bound to come," murmured Soames.
+
+Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very rosy
+after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his lips. This
+business had revived all his Liberal principles.
+
+"I mistrust that chap; he's a stormy petrel. House-property will go down
+if there's war. You'll have trouble with Roger's estate. I often told
+him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He was an opinionated
+beggar."
+
+'There was a pair of you!' thought Soames. But he never argued with an
+uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as 'a long-headed
+chap,' and the legal care of their property.
+
+"They tell me at Timothy's," said Nicholas, lowering his voice, "that
+Dartie has gone off at last. That'll be a relief to your father. He was
+a rotten egg."
+
+Again Soames nodded. If there was a subject on which the Forsytes really
+agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.
+
+"You take care," said Nicholas, "or he'll turn up again. Winifred had
+better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving what's gone
+bad."
+
+Soames looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the interview
+he had just come through, disposed him to see a personal allusion in
+those words.
+
+"I'm advising her," he said shortly.
+
+"Well," said Nicholas, "the brougham's waiting; I must get home. I'm
+very poorly. Remember me to your father."
+
+And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down the
+steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat by the
+junior porter.
+
+'I've never known Uncle Nicholas other than "very poorly,"' mused
+Soames, 'or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family! Judging
+by him, I've got thirty-eight years of health before me. Well, I'm not
+going to waste them.' And going over to a mirror he stood looking at
+his face. Except for a line or two, and three or four grey hairs in his
+little dark moustache, had he aged any more than Irene? The prime of
+life--he and she in the very prime of life! And a fantastic thought shot
+into his mind. Absurd! Idiotic! But again it came. And genuinely alarmed
+by the recurrence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which
+presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine. Eleven
+stone! He had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What age was
+she? Nearly thirty-seven--not too old to have a child--not at all!
+Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered her birthday
+well--he had always observed it religiously, even that last birthday so
+soon before she left him, when he was almost certain she was faithless.
+Four birthdays in his house. He had looked forward to them, because his
+gifts had meant a semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth.
+Except, indeed, that last birthday--which had tempted him to be too
+religious! And he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves on
+corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the
+sense. And then he thought suddenly: 'I could send her a present for her
+birthday. After all, we're Christians! Couldn't!--couldn't we join
+up again!' And he uttered a deep sigh sitting there. Annette! Ah! but
+between him and Annette was the need for that wretched divorce suit! And
+how?
+
+"A man can always work these things, if he'll take it on himself,"
+Jolyon had said.
+
+But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole career as
+a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair! It was quixotic! Twelve
+years' separation in which he had taken no steps to free himself put out
+of court the possibility of using her conduct with Bosinney as a ground
+for divorcing her. By doing nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced,
+even if the evidence could now be gathered, which was more than
+doubtful. Besides, his own pride would never let him use that old
+incident, he had suffered from it too much. No! Nothing but fresh
+misconduct on her part--but she had denied it; and--almost--he had
+believed her. Hung up! Utterly hung up!
+
+He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of
+constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this going on
+in him! And, taking coat and hat again, he went out, moving eastward.
+In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some special commotion travelling
+towards him out of the mouth of the Strand. It materialised in newspaper
+men calling out so loudly that no words whatever could be heard. He
+stopped to listen, and one came by.
+
+"Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war!" Soames
+bought the paper. There it was in the stop press...! His first thought
+was: 'The Boers are committing suicide.' His second: 'Is there anything
+still I ought to sell?' If so he had missed the chance--there would
+certainly be a slump in the city to-morrow. He swallowed this thought
+with a nod of defiance. That ultimatum was insolent--sooner than let it
+pass he was prepared to lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would
+get it; but it would take three months at least to bring them to heel.
+There weren't the troops out there; always behind time, the Government!
+Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking everybody up?
+Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he thought with alarm of
+his father. They would cry it down Park Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got
+in and told the man to drive there.
+
+James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating the
+news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by after-thought
+to say:
+
+"What do you think of it, Warmson?"
+
+The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames had taken
+off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in a low voice:
+"Well, sir, they 'aven't a chance, of course; but I'm told they're very
+good shots. I've got a son in the Inniskillings."
+
+"You, Warmson? Why, I didn't know you were married."
+
+"No, sir. I don't talk of it. I expect he'll be going out."
+
+The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so little
+of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the slight shock of
+discovering that the war might touch one personally. Born in the year
+of the Crimean War, he had only come to consciousness by the time the
+Indian Mutiny was over; since then the many little wars of the British
+Empire had been entirely professional, quite unconnected with the
+Forsytes and all they stood for in the body politic. This war would
+surely be no exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of
+the Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other--it had always
+been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction about the
+Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform with silver about
+it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he remembered, had once on a time
+joined the Militia, but had given it up because his father, Nicholas,
+had made such a fuss about his 'wasting his time peacocking about in a
+uniform.' Recently he had heard somewhere that young Nicholas' eldest,
+very young Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. 'No,' thought Soames,
+mounting the stairs slowly, 'there's nothing in that!'
+
+He stood on the landing outside his parents' bed and dressing rooms,
+debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a reassuring word.
+Opening the landing window, he listened. The rumble from Piccadilly
+was all the sound he heard, and with the thought, 'If these motor-cars
+increase, it'll affect house property,' he was about to pass on up to
+the room always kept ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the
+hoarse rushing call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the
+house! He knocked on his mother's door and went in.
+
+His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the
+white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink, and
+extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and pillow, out
+of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned shoulders emerged in
+small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and distrustful under their withered
+lids, were moving from the window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking
+up and down, squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The
+room reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.
+
+"All right!" said Soames, "it's not a fire. The Boers have declared
+war--that's all."
+
+Emily stopped her spraying.
+
+"Oh!" was all she said, and looked at James.
+
+Soames, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently from
+their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were working in
+him.
+
+"H'm!" he muttered suddenly, "I shan't live to see the end of this."
+
+"Nonsense, James! It'll be over by Christmas."
+
+"What do you know about it?" James answered her with asperity. "It's a
+pretty mess at this time of night, too!" He lapsed into silence, and his
+wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to say: 'I can't tell--I
+don't know; I knew how it would be!' But he did not. The grey eyes
+shifted, evidently seeing nothing in the room; then movement occurred
+under the bedclothes, and the knees were drawn up suddenly to a great
+height.
+
+"They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow Gladstone
+and his Majuba."
+
+The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice,
+something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said: 'I shall never see
+the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have to die before
+I know she's won.' And in spite of the feeling that James must not be
+encouraged to be fussy, they were touched. Soames went up to the
+bedside and stroked his father's hand which had emerged from under the
+bedclothes, long and wrinkled with veins.
+
+"Mark my words!" said James, "consols will go to par. For all I know,
+Val may go and enlist."
+
+"Oh, come, James!" cried Emily, "you talk as if there were danger."
+
+Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.
+
+"Well," he muttered, "I told you how it would be. I don't know, I'm
+sure--nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my boy?"
+
+The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal degree
+of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping in the house,
+Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.
+
+The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy's had known
+for many a year. On national occasions, such as this, it was, indeed,
+almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that there was any danger or
+rather only just enough to make it necessary to assure each other that
+there was none.
+
+Nicholas was there early. He had seen Soames the night before--Soames
+had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was in his dotage--why,
+he must be seventy-five if he was a day!
+
+(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said? He had had a fit after
+Majuba. These Boers were a grasping lot! The dark-haired Francie, who
+had arrived on his heels, with the contradictious touch which became the
+free spirit of a daughter of Roger, chimed in:
+
+"Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the Uitlanders?" What price,
+indeed! A new expression, and believed to be due to her brother George.
+
+Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Dear Mrs.
+MacAnder's boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could call him
+grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her mots, scandalising, and so
+frequently repeated:
+
+"Well, his father's a Scotchman, and his mother's a cat."
+
+Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as for
+Nicholas, he pouted--witticism of which he was not the author was
+hardly to his taste. Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived, followed almost
+immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son, Nicholas rose.
+
+"Well, I must be going," he said, "Nick here will tell you what'll
+win the race." And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a pillar of
+accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was no more addicted
+to sport than his father had ever been, he departed. Dear Nicholas! What
+race was that? Or was it only one of his jokes? He was a wonderful man
+for his age! How many lumps would dear Marian take? And how were Giles
+and Jesse? Aunt Juley supposed their Yeomanry would be very busy now,
+guarding the coast, though of course the Boers had no ships. But one
+never knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially
+since that dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so terribly
+that he had made no investments for months afterwards. It was the
+ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after everything had been
+done for them--Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he was so nice, Mrs. MacAnder
+had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner sent out to talk to them--such a
+clever man! She didn't know what they wanted.
+
+But at this moment occurred one of those sensations--so precious at
+Timothy's--which great occasions sometimes bring forth:
+
+"Miss June Forsyte."
+
+Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from
+smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at the
+return of a prodigal June! Well, this was a surprise! Dear June--after
+all these years! And how well she was looking! Not changed at all! It
+was almost on their lips to add, 'And how is your dear grandfather?'
+forgetting in that giddy moment that poor dear Jolyon had been in his
+grave for seven years now.
+
+Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June, with
+her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like flame, sat
+down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a bead-worked seat, for
+all the world as if ten years had not elapsed since she had been to see
+them--ten years of travel and independence and devotion to lame ducks.
+Those ducks of late had been all definitely painters, etchers, or
+sculptors, so that her impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly
+inartistic outlook had become intense. Indeed, she had almost ceased to
+believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a sort
+of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort to the
+roomful. She had not expected to meet any of them but 'the poor old
+things'; and why she had come to see them she hardly knew, except that,
+while on her way from Oxford Street to a studio in Latimer Road, she had
+suddenly remembered them with compunction as two long-neglected old lame
+ducks.
+
+Aunt Juley broke the hush again. "We've just been saying, dear, how
+dreadful it is about these Boers! And what an impudent thing of that old
+Kruger!"
+
+"Impudent!" said June. "I think he's quite right. What business have we
+to meddle with them? If he turned out all those wretched Uitlanders it
+would serve them right. They're only after money."
+
+The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:
+
+"What? Are you a pro-Boer?" (undoubtedly the first use of that
+expression).
+
+"Well! Why can't we leave them alone?" said June, just as, in the open
+doorway, the maid said "Mr. Soames Forsyte." Sensation on sensation!
+Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how June and he would
+take this encounter, for it was shrewdly suspected, if not quite known,
+that they had not met since that old and lamentable affair of her fiance
+Bosinney with Soames' wife. They were seen to just touch each other's
+hands, and look each at the other's left eye only. Aunt Juley came at
+once to the rescue:
+
+"Dear June is so original. Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers are not
+to blame."
+
+"They only want their independence," said June; "and why shouldn't they
+have it?"
+
+"Because," answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side, "they
+happen to have agreed to our suzerainty."
+
+"Suzerainty!" repeated June scornfully; "we shouldn't like anyone's
+suzerainty over us."
+
+"They got advantages in payment," replied Soames; "a contract is a
+contract."
+
+"Contracts are not always just," fumed out June, "and when they're not,
+they ought to be broken. The Boers are much the weaker. We could afford
+to be generous."
+
+Soames sniffed. "That's mere sentiment," he said.
+
+Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of
+disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:
+
+"What lovely weather it has been for the time of year?"
+
+But June was not to be diverted.
+
+"I don't know why sentiment should be sneered at. It's the best thing in
+the world." She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley had to intervene
+again:
+
+"Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames?"
+
+Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed her.
+Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases would be
+like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they all knew of
+June's predilection for 'genius' not yet on its legs, and her contempt
+for 'success' unless she had had a finger in securing it.
+
+"One or two," he muttered.
+
+But June's face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing
+its chance. Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of Eric
+Cobbley--her last lame duck? And she promptly opened her attack: Did
+Soames know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the coming man.
+
+Oh, yes, Soames knew his work. It was in his view 'splashy,' and would
+never get hold of the public.
+
+June blazed up.
+
+"Of course it won't; that's the last thing one would wish for. I thought
+you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer."
+
+"Of course Soames is a connoisseur," Aunt Juley said hastily; "he
+has wonderful taste--he can always tell beforehand what's going to be
+successful."
+
+"Oh!" gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, "I hate
+that standard of success. Why can't people buy things because they like
+them?"
+
+"You mean," said Francie, "because you like them."
+
+And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently that
+Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn't know if they
+were any use.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Auntie," said June; "I must get on," and kissing her
+aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said "Good-bye" again, and
+went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if everyone had sighed.
+
+The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:
+
+"Mr. James Forsyte."
+
+James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat which
+gave him a fictitious bulk.
+
+Everyone stood up. James was so old; and he had not been at Timothy's
+for nearly two years.
+
+"It's hot in here," he said.
+
+Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help
+admiring the glossy way his father was turned out. James sat down, all
+knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.
+
+"What's the meaning of that?" he said.
+
+Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew that he
+was referring to June. His eyes searched his son's face.
+
+"I thought I'd come and see for myself. What have they answered Kruger?"
+
+Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.
+
+"'Instant action by our Government--state of war existing!'"
+
+"Ah!" said James, and sighed. "I was afraid they'd cut and run like old
+Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time."
+
+All stared at him. James! Always fussy, nervous, anxious! James with
+his continual, 'I told you how it would be!' and his pessimism, and his
+cautious investments. There was something uncanny about such resolution
+in this the oldest living Forsyte.
+
+"Where's Timothy?" said James. "He ought to pay attention to this."
+
+Aunt Juley said she didn't know; Timothy had not said much at lunch
+to-day. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the room, and
+Francie said rather maliciously:
+
+"The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James."
+
+"H'm!" muttered James. "Where do you get your information? Nobody tells
+me."
+
+Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest) was now
+going to drill regularly.
+
+"Ah!" muttered James, and stared before him--his thoughts were on Val.
+"He's got to look after his mother," he said, "he's got no time for
+drilling and that, with that father of his." This cryptic saying
+produced silence, until he spoke again.
+
+"What did June want here?" And his eyes rested with suspicion on all of
+them in turn. "Her father's a rich man now." The conversation turned
+on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last. It was supposed that he
+went abroad and saw all sorts of people now that his wife was dead; his
+water-colours were on the line, and he was a successful man. Francie
+went so far as to say:
+
+"I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear."
+
+Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day, where
+James was sitting. He had always been very amiable; what did Soames
+think?
+
+Knowing that Jolyon was Irene's trustee, all felt the delicacy of this
+question, and looked at Soames with interest. A faint pink had come up
+in his cheeks.
+
+"He's going grey," he said.
+
+Indeed! Had Soames seen him? Soames nodded, and the pink vanished.
+
+James said suddenly: "Well--I don't know, I can't tell."
+
+It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that there
+was something behind everything, that nobody responded. But at this
+moment Aunt Hester returned.
+
+"Timothy," she said in a low voice, "Timothy has bought a map, and he's
+put in--he's put in three flags."
+
+Timothy had...! A sigh went round the company.
+
+If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well!--it showed what
+the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good as over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS
+
+Jolyon stood at the window in Holly's old night nursery, converted into
+a studio, not because it had a north light, but for its view over the
+prospect away to the Grand Stand at Epsom. He shifted to the side window
+which overlooked the stableyard, and whistled down to the dog Balthasar
+who lay for ever under the clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged
+his tail. 'Poor old boy!' thought Jolyon, shifting back to the other
+window.
+
+He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to prosecute
+trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever acute, disturbed
+in his sense of compassion which was easily excited, and with a queer
+sensation as if his feeling for beauty had received some definite
+embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of the old oak-tree, its leaves
+were browning. Sunshine had been plentiful and hot this summer. As with
+trees, so with men's lives! 'I ought to live long,' thought Jolyon; 'I'm
+getting mildewed for want of heat. If I can't work, I shall be off to
+Paris.' But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how could he
+go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do. 'I'm her trustee.
+I can't leave her unprotected,' he thought. It had been striking him
+as curious how very clearly he could still see Irene in her little
+drawing-room which he had only twice entered. Her beauty must have a
+sort of poignant harmony! No literal portrait would ever do her justice;
+the essence of her was--ah I what?... The noise of hoofs called him back
+to the other window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed
+'palfrey.' She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather silent
+lately; getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her future, as they
+all did--youngsters!
+
+Time was certainly the devil! And with the feeling that to waste this
+swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took up his brush.
+But it was no use; he could not concentrate his eye--besides, the light
+was going. 'I'll go up to town,' he thought. In the hall a servant met
+him.
+
+"A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron."
+
+Extraordinary coincidence! Passing into the picture-gallery, as it was
+still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window.
+
+She came towards him saying:
+
+"I've been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden. I
+always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon."
+
+"You couldn't trespass here," replied Jolyon; "history makes that
+impossible. I was just thinking of you."
+
+Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere
+spirituality--serener, completer, more alluring.
+
+"History!" she answered; "I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was for
+ever. Well, it isn't. Only aversion lasts."
+
+Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?
+
+"Yes!" he said, "aversion's deeper than love or hate because it's a
+natural product of the nerves, and we don't change them."
+
+"I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a thing that
+frightened me. He said: 'You are still my wife!'"
+
+"What!" ejaculated Jolyon. "You ought not to live alone." And he
+continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where Beauty
+was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was why so many
+people looked on it as immoral.
+
+"What more?"
+
+"He asked me to shake hands.
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"Yes. When he came in I'm sure he didn't want to; he changed while he
+was there."
+
+"Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone."
+
+"I know no woman I could ask; and I can't take a lover to order, Cousin
+Jolyon."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said Jolyon. "What a damnable position! Will you stay
+to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted to go up this
+evening."
+
+"Truly?"
+
+"Truly. I'll be ready in five minutes."
+
+On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music,
+contrasting the English and French characters and the difference in
+their attitude to Art. But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges of the
+long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept pace with
+them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the turn of her neck,
+the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him now and then, the lure
+of her whole figure, made a deeper impression than the remarks they
+exchanged. Unconsciously he held himself straighter, walked with a more
+elastic step.
+
+In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what she did
+with her days.
+
+Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano,
+translated from the French.
+
+She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which supplemented her
+income a little. She seldom went out in the evening. "I've been living
+alone so long, you see, that I don't mind it a bit. I believe I'm
+naturally solitary."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Jolyon. "Do you know many people?"
+
+"Very few."
+
+At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door of her
+mansions. Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:
+
+"You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must let me
+know everything that happens. Good-bye, Irene."
+
+"Good-bye," she answered softly.
+
+Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked her
+to dine and go to the theatre with him. Solitary, starved, hung-up life
+that she had! "Hotch Potch Club," he said through the trap-door. As his
+hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a man in top-hat and overcoat
+passed, walking quickly, so close to the wall that he seemed to be
+scraping it.
+
+'By Jove!' thought Jolyon; 'Soames himself! What's he up to now?' And,
+stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and retraced his steps to
+where he could see the entrance to the mansions. Soames had halted in
+front of them, and was looking up at the light in her windows. 'If he
+goes in,' thought Jolyon, 'what shall I do? What have I the right
+to do?' What the fellow had said was true. She was still his wife,
+absolutely without protection from annoyance! 'Well, if he goes in,'
+he thought, 'I follow.' And he began moving towards the mansions.
+Again Soames advanced; he was in the very entrance now. But suddenly he
+stopped, spun round on his heel, and came back towards the river. 'What
+now?' thought Jolyon. 'In a dozen steps he'll recognise me.' And he
+turned tail. His cousin's footsteps kept pace with his own. But he
+reached his cab, and got in before Soames had turned the corner. "Go
+on!" he said through the trap. Soames' figure ranged up alongside.
+
+"Hansom!" he said. "Engaged? Hallo!"
+
+"Hallo!" answered Jolyon. "You?"
+
+The quick suspicion on his cousin's face, white in the lamplight,
+decided him.
+
+"I can give you a lift," he said, "if you're going West."
+
+"Thanks," answered Soames, and got in.
+
+"I've been seeing Irene," said Jolyon when the cab had started.
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand."
+
+"I did," said Soames; "she's my wife, you know."
+
+The tone, the half-lifted sneering lip, roused sudden anger in Jolyon;
+but he subdued it.
+
+"You ought to know best," he said, "but if you want a divorce it's not
+very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can't run with the hare and hunt
+with the hounds?"
+
+"You're very good to warn me," said Soames, "but I have not made up my
+mind."
+
+"She has," said Jolyon, looking straight before him; "you can't take
+things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago."
+
+"That remains to be seen."
+
+"Look here!" said Jolyon, "she's in a damnable position, and I am the
+only person with any legal say in her affairs."
+
+"Except myself," retorted Soames, "who am also in a damnable position.
+Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made for me. I am not
+at all sure that in her own interests I shan't require her to return to
+me."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole body.
+
+"I don't know what you may mean by 'what,'" answered Soames coldly;
+"your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her income; please
+bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her by a divorce, I
+retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at all sure that I shan't
+require to exercise them."
+
+"My God!" ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.
+
+"Yes," said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice. "I've
+not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, 'The man of property'!
+I'm not called names for nothing."
+
+"This is fantastic," murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn't force
+his wife to live with him. Those days were past, anyway! And he looked
+around at Soames with the thought: 'Is he real, this man?' But Soames
+looked very real, sitting square yet almost elegant with the clipped
+moustache on his pale face, and a tooth showing where a lip was lifted
+in a fixed smile. There was a long silence, while Jolyon thought:
+'Instead of helping her, I've made things worse.' Suddenly Soames said:
+
+"It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many ways."
+
+At those words such a turmoil began taking place in Jolyon that he could
+barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed up with hundreds
+of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with that something in the
+national character which had always been to him revolting, something
+which he knew to be extremely natural and yet which seemed to him
+inexplicable--their intense belief in contracts and vested rights, their
+complacent sense of virtue in the exaction of those rights. Here beside
+him in the cab was the very embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were,
+of the possessive instinct--his own kinsman, too! It was uncanny and
+intolerable! 'But there's something more in it than that!' he thought
+with a sick feeling. 'The dog, they say, returns to his vomit! The sight
+of her has reawakened something. Beauty! The devil's in it!'
+
+"As I say," said Soames, "I have not made up my mind. I shall be obliged
+if you will kindly leave her quite alone."
+
+Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed the
+thought of one now.
+
+"I can give you no such promise," he said shortly.
+
+"Very well," said Soames, "then we know where we are. I'll get down
+here." And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign of farewell.
+Jolyon travelled on to his Club.
+
+The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he paid
+no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his father were
+alive! He could have done so much! But why could he not do all that his
+father could have done? Was he not old enough?--turned fifty and twice
+married, with grown-up daughters and a son. 'Queer,' he thought. 'If she
+were plain I shouldn't be thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil,
+when you're sensitive to it!' And into the Club reading-room he went
+with a disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one
+summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and secret
+lecture he had given that young man in the interests of June, the
+diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he had wondered what
+sort of woman it was he was warning him against. And now! He was almost
+in want of a warning himself. 'It's deuced funny!' he thought, 'really
+deuced funny!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV--SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS
+
+It is so much easier to say, "Then we know where we are," than to mean
+anything particular by the words. And in saying them Soames did but vent
+the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of the cab in a state
+of wary anger--with himself for not having seen Irene, with Jolyon for
+having seen her; and now with his inability to tell exactly what he
+wanted.
+
+He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain seated
+beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he thought: 'I wouldn't
+trust that fellow Jolyon a yard. Once outcast, always outcast!' The chap
+had a natural sympathy with--with--laxity (he had shied at the word sin,
+because it was too melodramatic for use by a Forsyte).
+
+Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a child
+between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken away from
+him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday desire had
+seemed simple--just his freedom and Annette. 'I'll go and dine there,'
+he thought. To see her might bring back his singleness of intention,
+calm his exasperation, clear his mind.
+
+The restaurant was fairly full--a good many foreigners and folk whom,
+from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic. Scraps of
+conversation came his way through the clatter of plates and glasses.
+He distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the British Government
+blamed. 'Don't think much of their clientele,' he thought. He went
+stolidly through his dinner and special coffee without making his
+presence known, and when at last he had finished, was careful not to
+be seen going towards the sanctum of Madame Lamotte. They were, as he
+entered, having supper--such a much nicer-looking supper than the dinner
+he had eaten that he felt a kind of grief--and they greeted him with a
+surprise so seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion:
+'I believe they knew I was here all the time.' He gave Annette a look
+furtive and searching. So pretty, seemingly so candid; could she be
+angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:
+
+"I've been dining here."
+
+Really! If she had only known! There were dishes she could have
+recommended; what a pity! Soames was confirmed in his suspicion. 'I must
+look out what I'm doing!' he thought sharply.
+
+"Another little cup of very special coffee, monsieur; a liqueur, Grand
+Marnier?" and Madame Lamotte rose to order these delicacies.
+
+Alone with Annette Soames said, "Well, Annette?" with a defensive little
+smile about his lips.
+
+The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his nerves
+tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has when a dog that
+he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a curious sense of power, as
+if he could have said to her, 'Come and kiss me,' and she would have
+come. And yet--it was strange--but there seemed another face and form in
+the room too; and the itch in his nerves, was it for that--or for this?
+He jerked his head towards the restaurant and said: "You have some queer
+customers. Do you like this life?"
+
+Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played with her
+fork.
+
+"No," she said, "I do not like it."
+
+'I've got her,' thought Soames, 'if I want her. But do I want her?' She
+was graceful, she was pretty--very pretty; she was fresh, she had taste
+of a kind. His eyes travelled round the little room; but the eyes of his
+mind went another journey--a half-light, and silvery walls, a satinwood
+piano, a woman standing against it, reined back as it were from him--a
+woman with white shoulders that he knew, and dark eyes that he had
+sought to know, and hair like dull dark amber. And as in an artist who
+strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose in him
+at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never satisfied.
+
+"Well," he said calmly, "you're young. There's everything before you."
+
+Annette shook her head.
+
+"I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I am not so
+in love with work as mother."
+
+"Your mother is a wonder," said Soames, faintly mocking; "she will never
+let failure lodge in her house."
+
+Annette sighed. "It must be wonderful to be rich."
+
+"Oh! You'll be rich some day," answered Soames, still with that faint
+mockery; "don't be afraid."
+
+Annette shrugged her shoulders. "Monsieur is very kind." And between her
+pouting lips she put a chocolate.
+
+'Yes, my dear,' thought Soames, 'they're very pretty.'
+
+Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that colloquy.
+Soames did not stay long.
+
+Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a feeling of
+property improperly owned, he mused. If only Irene had given him a son,
+he wouldn't now be squirming after women! The thought had jumped out of
+its little dark sentry-box in his inner consciousness. A son--something
+to look forward to, something to make the rest of life worth while,
+something to leave himself to, some perpetuity of self. 'If I had a
+son,' he thought bitterly, 'a proper legal son, I could make shift to go
+on as I used. One woman's much the same as another, after all.' But as
+he walked he shook his head. No! One woman was not the same as another.
+Many a time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted
+married life; and he had always failed. He was failing now. He was
+trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was not, she had
+not the lure of that old passion. 'And Irene's my wife,' he thought, 'my
+legal wife. I have done nothing to put her away from me. Why shouldn't
+she come back to me? It's the right thing, the lawful thing. It makes no
+scandal, no disturbance. If it's disagreeable to her--but why should it
+be? I'm not a leper, and she--she's no longer in love!' Why should he
+be put to the shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of
+the Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only waiting
+to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally owned her? To
+one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry into quiet possession
+of his own property with nothing given away to the world was intensely
+alluring. 'No,' he mused, 'I'm glad I went to see that girl. I know now
+what I want most. If only Irene will come back I'll be as considerate as
+she wishes; she could live her own life; but perhaps--perhaps she would
+come round to me.' There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along
+by the railings of the Green Park, towards his father's house, he
+went, trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant
+moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--THE THIRD GENERATION
+
+Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a November
+afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up. Jolly had just changed out of
+boating flannels and was on his way to the 'Frying-pan,' to which he had
+recently been elected. Val had just changed out of riding clothes and
+was on his way to the fire--a bookmaker's in Cornmarket.
+
+"Hallo!" said Jolly.
+
+"Hallo!" replied Val.
+
+The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having
+invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen each
+other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.
+
+Over a tailor's in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged young
+beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose parents are
+dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts are vicious.
+At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers attractive and
+inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single bankruptcy is good
+as a feast. Already famous for having the only roulette table then to
+be found in Oxford, he was anticipating his expectations at a dazzling
+rate. He out-crummed Crum, though of a sanguine and rather beefy type
+which lacked the latter's fascinating languor. For Val it had been in
+the nature of baptism to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature
+of confirmation to get back into college, after hours, through a
+window whose bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight,
+glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught sight,
+through a cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite. 'Rouge gagne,
+impair, et manque!' He had not seen him again.
+
+"Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea," said Jolly, and they went in.
+
+A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an unseizable
+resemblance between these second cousins of the third generations of
+Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though Jolly's eyes were
+darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.
+
+"Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please," said Jolly.
+
+"Have one of my cigarettes?" said Val. "I saw you last night. How did
+you do?"
+
+"I didn't play."
+
+"I won fifteen quid."
+
+Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he had once
+heard his father make--'When you're fleeced you're sick, and when you
+fleece you're sorry--Jolly contented himself with:
+
+"Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap. He's an awful
+fool."
+
+"Oh! I don't know," said Val, as one might speak in defence of a
+disparaged god; "he's a pretty good sport."
+
+They exchanged whiffs in silence.
+
+"You met my people, didn't you?" said Jolly. "They're coming up
+to-morrow."
+
+Val grew a little red.
+
+"Really! I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester November
+handicap."
+
+"Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races."
+
+"You can't make any money over them," said Val.
+
+"I hate the ring," said Jolly; "there's such a row and stink. I like the
+paddock."
+
+"I like to back my judgment,"' answered Val.
+
+Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father's.
+
+"I haven't got any. I always lose money if I bet."
+
+"You have to buy experience, of course."
+
+"Yes, but it's all messed-up with doing people in the eye."
+
+"Of course, or they'll do you--that's the excitement."
+
+Jolly looked a little scornful.
+
+"What do you do with yourself? Row?"
+
+"No--ride, and drive about. I'm going to play polo next term, if I can
+get my granddad to stump up."
+
+"That's old Uncle James, isn't it? What's he like?"
+
+"Older than forty hills," said Val, "and always thinking he's going to
+be ruined."
+
+"I suppose my granddad and he were brothers."
+
+"I don't believe any of that old lot were sportsmen," said Val; "they
+must have worshipped money."
+
+"Mine didn't!" said Jolly warmly.
+
+Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"Money's only fit to spend," he said; "I wish the deuce I had more."
+
+Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had
+inherited from old Jolyon: One didn't talk about money! And again there
+was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered buns.
+
+"Where are your people going to stay?" asked Val, elaborately casual.
+
+"'Rainbow.' What do you think of the war?"
+
+"Rotten, so far. The Boers aren't sports a bit. Why don't they come out
+into the open?"
+
+"Why should they? They've got everything against them except their way
+of fighting. I rather admire them."
+
+"They can ride and shoot," admitted Val, "but they're a lousy lot. Do
+you know Crum?"
+
+"Of Merton? Only by sight. He's in that fast set too, isn't he? Rather
+La-di-da and Brummagem."
+
+Val said fixedly: "He's a friend of mine."
+
+"Oh! Sorry!" And they sat awkwardly staring past each other, having
+pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was forming himself
+unconsciously on a set whose motto was:
+
+'We defy you to bore us. Life isn't half long enough, and we're going to
+talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and dwell less on
+any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are "the best"--made of
+wire and whipcord.' And Val was unconsciously forming himself on a set
+whose motto was: 'We defy you to interest or excite us. We have had
+every sensation, or if we haven't, we pretend we have. We are so
+exhausted with living that no hours are too small for us. We will lose
+our shirts with equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything.
+All is cigarette smoke. Bismillah!' Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the
+English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals; and at
+the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy had already in
+the main adopted the 'jumping-Jesus' principle; though here and there
+one like Crum--who was an 'honourable'--stood starkly languid for that
+gambler's Nirvana which had been the summum bonum of the old 'dandies'
+and of 'the mashers' in the eighties. And round Crum were still gathered
+a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.
+
+But there was between the cousins another far less obvious
+antipathy--coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which each
+perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that old feud
+persisting still between their branches of the clan, formed within them
+by odd words or half-hints dropped by their elders. And Jolly, tinkling
+his teaspoon, was musing: 'His tie-pin and his waistcoat and his drawl
+and his betting--good Lord!'
+
+And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: 'He's rather a young beast!'
+
+"I suppose you'll be meeting your people?" he said, getting up. "I wish
+you'd tell them I should like to show them over B.N.C.--not that there's
+anything much there--if they'd care to come."
+
+"Thanks, I'll ask them."
+
+"Would they lunch? I've got rather a decent scout."
+
+Jolly doubted if they would have time.
+
+"You'll ask them, though?"
+
+"Very good of you," said Jolly, fully meaning that they should not go;
+but, instinctively polite, he added: "You'd better come and have dinner
+with us to-morrow."
+
+"Rather. What time?"
+
+"Seven-thirty."
+
+"Dress?"
+
+"No." And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.
+
+Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first visit
+to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent, looking
+almost shyly at the brother who was part of this wonderful place. After
+lunch she wandered, examining his household gods with intense curiosity.
+Jolly's sitting-room was panelled, and Art represented by a set of
+Bartolozzi prints which had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college
+photographs--of young men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be
+compared with her memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care
+that evidence of his boy's character and tastes.
+
+Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set forth to
+the river. Holly, between her brother and her father, felt elated when
+heads were turned and eyes rested on her. That they might see him to the
+best advantage they left him at the Barge and crossed the river to the
+towing-path. Slight in build--for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin
+and George were beefy--Jolly was rowing 'Two' in a trial eight. He
+looked very earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the
+best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more struck
+by one or two of the others, but would not have said so for the world.
+The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows lush, the trees still
+beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace clung around the old city;
+Jolyon promised himself a day's sketching if the weather held. The Eight
+passed a second time, spurting home along the Barges--Jolly's face was
+very set, so as not to show that he was blown. They returned across the
+river and waited for him.
+
+"Oh!" said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, "I had to ask that chap
+Val Dartie to dine with us to-night. He wanted to give you lunch and
+show you B.N.C., so I thought I'd better; then you needn't go. I don't
+like him much."
+
+Holly's rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What are
+his people like, Dad? He's only a second cousin, isn't he?"
+
+Jolyon took refuge in a smile.
+
+"Ask Holly," he said; "she saw his uncle."
+
+"I liked Val," Holly answered, staring at the ground before her; "his
+uncle looked--awfully different." She stole a glance at Jolly from under
+her lashes.
+
+"Did you ever," said Jolyon with whimsical intention, "hear our family
+history, my dears? It's quite a fairy tale. The first Jolyon Forsyte--at
+all events the first we know anything of, and that would be your
+great-great-grandfather--dwelt in the land of Dorset on the edge of the
+sea, being by profession an 'agriculturalist,' as your great-aunt put
+it, and the son of an agriculturist--farmers, in fact; your grandfather
+used to call them, 'Very small beer.'" He looked at Jolly to see how
+his lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly's
+malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother's face.
+
+"We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it
+was before the Industrial Era began. The second Jolyon Forsyte--your
+great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior Dosset Forsyte--built
+houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten children, and migrated to
+London town. It is known that he drank sherry. We may suppose him
+representing the England of Napoleon's wars, and general unrest. The
+eldest of his six sons was the third Jolyon, your grandfather, my
+dears--tea merchant and chairman of companies, one of the soundest
+Englishmen who ever lived--and to me the dearest." Jolyon's voice had
+lost its irony, and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, "He was
+just and tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I
+remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that's young
+Val's grandfather, had a son called Soames--whereby hangs a tale of no
+love lost, and I don't think I'll tell it you. James and the other eight
+children of 'Superior Dosset,' of whom there are still five alive, may
+be said to have represented Victorian England, with its principles of
+trade and individualism at five per cent. and your money back--if you
+know what that means. At all events they've turned thirty thousand
+pounds into a cool million between them in the course of their long
+lives. They never did a wild thing--unless it was your great-uncle
+Swithin, who I believe was once swindled at thimble-rig, and was called
+'Four-in-hand Forsyte' because he drove a pair. Their day is passing,
+and their type, not altogether for the advantage of the country.
+They were pedestrian, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon
+Forsyte--a poor holder of the name--"
+
+"No, Dad," said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.
+
+"Yes," repeated Jolyon, "a poor specimen, representing, I'm afraid,
+nothing but the end of the century, unearned income, amateurism, and
+individual liberty--a different thing from individualism, Jolly. You
+are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man, and you open the ball of the new
+century."
+
+As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly said:
+"It's fascinating, Dad."
+
+None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave.
+
+The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for lack
+of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private sitting-room, in
+which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy, and alone, when the only
+guest arrived. Rather as one would touch a moth, Val took her hand. And
+wouldn't she wear this 'measly flower'? It would look ripping in her
+hair. He removed a gardenia from his coat.
+
+"Oh! No, thank you--I couldn't!" But she took it and pinned it at her
+neck, having suddenly remembered that word 'showy'! Val's buttonhole
+would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to like him. Did she
+realise that Val was at his best and quietest in her presence, and was
+that, perhaps, half the secret of his attraction for her?
+
+"I never said anything about our ride, Val."
+
+"Rather not! It's just between us."
+
+By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he was
+giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling too--the wish
+to make him happy.
+
+"Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely."
+
+Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked; the
+lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps. "Only,"
+he added, "of course I wish I was in town, and could come down and see
+you."
+
+Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.
+
+"You haven't forgotten," he said, suddenly gathering courage, "that
+we're going mad-rabbiting together?"
+
+Holly smiled.
+
+"Oh! That was only make-believe. One can't do that sort of thing after
+one's grown up, you know."
+
+"Dash it! cousins can," said Val. "Next Long Vac.--it begins in June,
+you know, and goes on for ever--we'll watch our chance."
+
+But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly shook
+her head. "It won't come off," she murmured.
+
+"Won't it!" said Val fervently; "who's going to stop it? Not your father
+or your brother."
+
+At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into Val's
+patent leather and Holly's white satin toes, where it itched and tingled
+during an evening not conspicuous for open-heartedness.
+
+Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism between
+the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became unconsciously ironical,
+which is fatal to the expansiveness of youth. A letter, handed to him
+after dinner, reduced him to a silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val
+rose to go. He went out with them, smoking his cigar, and walked with
+his son to the gates of Christ Church. Turning back, he took out the
+letter and read it again beneath a lamp.
+
+
+"DEAR JOLYON,
+
+"Soames came again to-night--my thirty-seventh birthday. You were right,
+I mustn't stay here. I'm going to-morrow to the Piedmont Hotel, but I
+won't go abroad without seeing you. I feel lonely and down-hearted.
+
+"Yours affectionately,
+
+"IRENE."
+
+
+He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on, astonished at
+the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow said or done?
+
+He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of spires
+and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or dark-shadowed in
+the strong moonlight. In this very heart of England's gentility it was
+difficult to realise that a lonely woman could be importuned or hunted,
+but what else could her letter mean? Soames must have been pressing her
+to go back to him again, with public opinion and the Law on his side,
+too! 'Eighteen-ninety-nine!,' he thought, gazing at the broken glass
+shining on the top of a villa garden wall; 'but when it comes to
+property we're still a heathen people! I'll go up to-morrow morning. I
+dare say it'll be best for her to go abroad.' Yet the thought displeased
+him. Why should Soames hunt her out of England! Besides, he might
+follow, and out there she would be still more helpless against the
+attentions of her own husband! 'I must tread warily,' he thought; 'that
+fellow could make himself very nasty. I didn't like his manner in the
+cab the other night.' His thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could
+she help? Once on a time Irene had been her greatest friend, and now she
+was a 'lame duck,' such as must appeal to June's nature! He determined
+to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station. Retracing his
+steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own sensations. Would he be
+upsetting himself over every woman in like case? No! he would not. The
+candour of this conclusion discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had
+gone up to bed, he sought his own room. But he could not sleep, and
+sat for a long time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the
+moonlight on the roofs.
+
+Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and below
+Val's eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to make Jolly
+like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong in her little
+bedroom, and pleasant to her.
+
+And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was gazing
+at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing instead Holly,
+slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire when he first went
+in.
+
+But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand beneath
+his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing a race against
+him, while his father was calling from the towpath: 'Two! Get your hands
+away there, bless you!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH
+
+Of all those radiant firms which emblazon with their windows the West
+End of London, Gaves and Cortegal were considered by Soames the most
+'attractive' word just coming into fashion. He had never had his Uncle
+Swithin's taste in precious stones, and the abandonment by Irene when
+she left his house in 1887 of all the glittering things he had given
+her had disgusted him with this form of investment. But he still knew a
+diamond when he saw one, and during the week before her birthday he had
+taken occasion, on his way into the Poultry or his way out therefrom, to
+dally a little before the greater jewellers where one got, if not one's
+money's worth, at least a certain cachet with the goods.
+
+Constant cogitation since his drive with Jolyon had convinced him more
+and more of the supreme importance of this moment in his life, the
+supreme need for taking steps and those not wrong. And, alongside
+the dry and reasoned sense that it was now or never with his
+self-preservation, now or never if he were to range himself and found
+a family, went the secret urge of his senses roused by the sight of her
+who had once been a passionately desired wife, and the conviction that
+it was a sin against common sense and the decent secrecy of Forsytes to
+waste the wife he had.
+
+In an opinion on Winifred's case, Dreamer, Q.C.--he would much have
+preferred Waterbuck, but they had made him a judge (so late in the day
+as to rouse the usual suspicion of a political job)--had advised that
+they should go forward and obtain restitution of conjugal rights, a
+point which to Soames had never been in doubt. When they had obtained a
+decree to that effect they must wait to see if it was obeyed. If not,
+it would constitute legal desertion, and they should obtain evidence of
+misconduct and file their petition for divorce. All of which Soames knew
+perfectly well. They had marked him ten and one. This simplicity in his
+sister's case only made him the more desperate about the difficulty
+in his own. Everything, in fact, was driving him towards the simple
+solution of Irene's return. If it were still against the grain with her,
+had he not feelings to subdue, injury to forgive, pain to forget? He
+at least had never injured her, and this was a world of compromise! He
+could offer her so much more than she had now. He would be prepared
+to make a liberal settlement on her which could not be upset. He often
+scrutinised his image in these days. He had never been a peacock like
+that fellow Dartie, or fancied himself a woman's man, but he had
+a certain belief in his own appearance--not unjustly, for it was
+well-coupled and preserved, neat, healthy, pale, unblemished by drink
+or excess of any kind. The Forsyte jaw and the concentration of his face
+were, in his eyes, virtues. So far as he could tell there was no feature
+of him which need inspire dislike.
+
+Thoughts and yearnings, with which one lives daily, become natural, even
+if far-fetched in their inception. If he could only give tangible proof
+enough of his determination to let bygones be bygones, and to do all in
+his power to please her, why should she not come back to him?
+
+He entered Gaves and Cortegal's therefore, on the morning of November
+the 9th, to buy a certain diamond brooch. "Four twenty-five and dirt
+cheap, sir, at the money. It's a lady's brooch." There was that in
+his mood which made him accept without demur. And he went on into the
+Poultry with the flat green morocco case in his breast pocket. Several
+times that day he opened it to look at the seven soft shining stones in
+their velvet oval nest.
+
+"If the lady doesn't like it, sir, happy to exchange it any time. But
+there's no fear of that." If only there were not! He got through a vast
+amount of work, only soother of the nerves he knew. A cablegram came
+while he was in the office with details from the agent in Buenos Aires,
+and the name and address of a stewardess who would be prepared to swear
+to what was necessary. It was a timely spur to Soames, with his rooted
+distaste for the washing of dirty linen in public. And when he set forth
+by Underground to Victoria Station he received a fresh impetus towards
+the renewal of his married life from the account in his evening paper of
+a fashionable divorce suit. The homing instinct of all true Forsytes in
+anxiety and trouble, the corporate tendency which kept them strong and
+solid, made him choose to dine at Park Lane. He neither could nor
+would breath a word to his people of his intention--too reticent and
+proud--but the thought that at least they would be glad if they knew,
+and wish him luck, was heartening.
+
+James was in lugubrious mood, for the fire which the impudence of
+Kruger's ultimatum had lit in him had been cold-watered by the poor
+success of the last month, and the exhortations to effort in The Times.
+He didn't know where it would end. Soames sought to cheer him by the
+continual use of the word Buller. But James couldn't tell! There was
+Colley--and he got stuck on that hill, and this Ladysmith was down in
+a hollow, and altogether it looked to him a 'pretty kettle of fish'; he
+thought they ought to be sending the sailors--they were the chaps,
+they did a lot of good in the Crimea. Soames shifted the ground of
+consolation. Winifred had heard from Val that there had been a 'rag' and
+a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day at Oxford, and that he had escaped detection
+by blacking his face.
+
+"Ah!" James muttered, "he's a clever little chap." But he shook his head
+shortly afterwards and remarked that he didn't know what would become of
+him, and looking wistfully at his son, murmured on that Soames had
+never had a boy. He would have liked a grandson of his own name. And
+now--well, there it was!
+
+Soames flinched. He had not expected such a challenge to disclose the
+secret in his heart. And Emily, who saw him wince, said:
+
+"Nonsense, James; don't talk like that!"
+
+But James, not looking anyone in the face, muttered on. There were Roger
+and Nicholas and Jolyon; they all had grandsons. And Swithin and Timothy
+had never married. He had done his best; but he would soon be gone now.
+And, as though he had uttered words of profound consolation, he was
+silent, eating brains with a fork and a piece of bread, and swallowing
+the bread.
+
+Soames excused himself directly after dinner. It was not really cold,
+but he put on his fur coat, which served to fortify him against the
+fits of nervous shivering to which he had been subject all day.
+Subconsciously, he knew that he looked better thus than in an ordinary
+black overcoat. Then, feeling the morocco case flat against his heart,
+he sallied forth. He was no smoker, but he lit a cigarette, and smoked
+it gingerly as he walked along. He moved slowly down the Row towards
+Knightsbridge, timing himself to get to Chelsea at nine-fifteen. What
+did she do with herself evening after evening in that little hole? How
+mysterious women were! One lived alongside and knew nothing of them.
+What could she have seen in that fellow Bosinney to send her mad? For
+there was madness after all in what she had done--crazy moonstruck
+madness, in which all sense of values had been lost, and her life
+and his life ruined! And for a moment he was filled with a sort of
+exaltation, as though he were a man read of in a story who, possessed by
+the Christian spirit, would restore to her all the prizes of existence,
+forgiving and forgetting, and becoming the godfather of her future.
+Under a tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the moon-light
+struck down clear and white, he took out once more the morocco case, and
+let the beams draw colour from those stones. Yes, they were of the first
+water! But, at the hard closing snap of the case, another cold shiver
+ran through his nerves; and he walked on faster, clenching his gloved
+hands in the pockets of his coat, almost hoping she would not be in. The
+thought of how mysterious she was again beset him. Dining alone there
+night after night--in an evening dress, too, as if she were making
+believe to be in society! Playing the piano--to herself! Not even a dog
+or cat, so far as he had seen. And that reminded him suddenly of the
+mare he kept for station work at Mapledurham. If ever he went to the
+stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her home
+journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if longing to be
+back and lonely in her stable! 'I would treat her well,' he thought
+incoherently. 'I would be very careful.' And all that capacity for
+home life of which a mocking Fate seemed for ever to have deprived him
+swelled suddenly in Soames, so that he dreamed dreams opposite South
+Kensington Station. In the King's Road a man came slithering out of a
+public house playing a concertina. Soames watched him for a moment dance
+crazily on the pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds, then crossed
+over to avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery. A night in the
+lock-up! What asses people were! But the man had noticed his movement
+of avoidance, and streams of genial blasphemy followed him across the
+street. 'I hope they'll run him in,' thought Soames viciously. 'To have
+ruffians like that about, with women out alone!' A woman's figure in
+front had induced this thought. Her walk seemed oddly familiar, and when
+she turned the corner for which he was bound, his heart began to beat.
+He hastened on to the corner to make certain. Yes! It was Irene; he
+could not mistake her walk in that little drab street. She threaded two
+more turnings, and from the last corner he saw her enter her block of
+flats. To make sure of her now, he ran those few paces, hurried up the
+stairs, and caught her standing at her door. He heard the latchkey in
+the lock, and reached her side just as she turned round, startled, in
+the open doorway.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he said, breathless. "I happened to see you. Let me
+come in a minute."
+
+She had put her hand up to her breast, her face was colourless, her eyes
+widened by alarm. Then seeming to master herself, she inclined her head,
+and said: "Very well."
+
+Soames closed the door. He, too, had need to recover, and when she had
+passed into the sitting-room, waited a full minute, taking deep breaths
+to still the beating of his heart. At this moment, so fraught with the
+future, to take out that morocco case seemed crude. Yet, not to take it
+out left him there before her with no preliminary excuse for coming. And
+in this dilemma he was seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia
+of excuse and justification. This was a scene--it could be nothing else,
+and he must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, pathetically
+soft:
+
+"Why have you come again? Didn't you understand that I would rather you
+did not?"
+
+He noticed her clothes--a dark brown velvet corduroy, a sable boa, a
+small round toque of the same. They suited her admirably. She had money
+to spare for dress, evidently! He said abruptly:
+
+"It's your birthday. I brought you this," and he held out to her the
+green morocco case.
+
+"Oh! No-no!"
+
+Soames pressed the clasp; the seven stones gleamed out on the pale grey
+velvet.
+
+"Why not?" he said. "Just as a sign that you don't bear me ill-feeling
+any longer."
+
+"I couldn't."
+
+Soames took it out of the case.
+
+"Let me just see how it looks."
+
+She shrank back.
+
+He followed, thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the front
+of her dress. She shrank again.
+
+Soames dropped his hand.
+
+"Irene," he said, "let bygones be bygones. If I can, surely you might.
+Let's begin again, as if nothing had been. Won't you?" His voice was
+wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in them a sort of
+supplication.
+
+She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall, gave a
+little gulp, and that was all her answer. Soames went on:
+
+"Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this little
+hole? Come back to me, and I'll give you all you want. You shall live
+your own life; I swear it."
+
+He saw her face quiver ironically.
+
+"Yes," he repeated, "but I mean it this time. I'll only ask one thing.
+I just want--I just want a son. Don't look like that! I want one. It's
+hard." His voice had grown hurried, so that he hardly knew it for his
+own, and twice he jerked his head back as if struggling for breath. It
+was the sight of her eyes fixed on him, dark with a sort of fascinated
+fright, which pulled him together and changed that painful incoherence
+to anger.
+
+"Is it so very unnatural?" he said between his teeth, "Is it unnatural
+to want a child from one's own wife? You wrecked our life and put this
+blight on everything. We go on only half alive, and without any future.
+Is it so very unflattering to you that in spite of everything I--I still
+want you for my wife? Speak, for Goodness' sake! do speak."
+
+Irene seemed to try, but did not succeed.
+
+"I don't want to frighten you," said Soames more gently. "Heaven knows.
+I only want you to see that I can't go on like this. I want you back. I
+want you."
+
+Irene raised one hand and covered the lower part of her face, but her
+eyes never moved from his, as though she trusted in them to keep him at
+bay. And all those years, barren and bitter, since--ah! when?--almost
+since he had first known her, surged up in one great wave of
+recollection in Soames; and a spasm that for his life he could not
+control constricted his face.
+
+"It's not too late," he said; "it's not--if you'll only believe it."
+
+Irene uncovered her lips, and both her hands made a writhing gesture in
+front of her breast. Soames seized them.
+
+"Don't!" she said under her breath. But he stood holding on to them,
+trying to stare into her eyes which did not waver. Then she said
+quietly:
+
+"I am alone here. You won't behave again as you once behaved."
+
+Dropping her hands as though they had been hot irons, he turned away.
+Was it possible that there could be such relentless unforgiveness! Could
+that one act of violent possession be still alive within her? Did it bar
+him thus utterly? And doggedly he said, without looking up:
+
+"I am not going till you've answered me. I am offering what few men
+would bring themselves to offer, I want a--a reasonable answer."
+
+And almost with surprise he heard her say:
+
+"You can't have a reasonable answer. Reason has nothing to do with it.
+You can only have the brutal truth: I would rather die."
+
+Soames stared at her.
+
+"Oh!" he said. And there intervened in him a sort of paralysis of speech
+and movement, the kind of quivering which comes when a man has received
+a deadly insult, and does not yet know how he is going to take it, or
+rather what it is going to do with him.
+
+"Oh!" he said again, "as bad as that? Indeed! You would rather die.
+That's pretty!"
+
+"I am sorry. You wanted me to answer. I can't help the truth, can I?"
+
+At that queer spiritual appeal Soames turned for relief to actuality. He
+snapped the brooch back into its case and put it in his pocket.
+
+"The truth!" he said; "there's no such thing with women. It's
+nerves-nerves."
+
+He heard the whisper:
+
+"Yes; nerves don't lie. Haven't you discovered that?" He was silent,
+obsessed by the thought: 'I will hate this woman. I will hate her.' That
+was the trouble! If only he could! He shot a glance at her who stood
+unmoving against the wall with her head up and her hands clasped, for
+all the world as if she were going to be shot. And he said quickly:
+
+"I don't believe a word of it. You have a lover. If you hadn't, you
+wouldn't be such a--such a little idiot." He was conscious, before the
+expression in her eyes, that he had uttered something of a non-sequitur,
+and dropped back too abruptly into the verbal freedom of his connubial
+days. He turned away to the door. But he could not go out. Something
+within him--that most deep and secret Forsyte quality, the impossibility
+of letting go, the impossibility of seeing the fantastic and forlorn
+nature of his own tenacity--prevented him. He turned about again, and
+there stood, with his back against the door, as hers was against
+the wall opposite, quite unconscious of anything ridiculous in this
+separation by the whole width of the room.
+
+"Do you ever think of anybody but yourself?" he said.
+
+Irene's lips quivered; then she answered slowly:
+
+"Do you ever think that I found out my mistake--my hopeless, terrible
+mistake--the very first week of our marriage; that I went on trying
+three years--you know I went on trying? Was it for myself?"
+
+Soames gritted his teeth. "God knows what it was. I've never understood
+you; I shall never understand you. You had everything you wanted; and
+you can have it again, and more. What's the matter with me? I ask you a
+plain question: What is it?" Unconscious of the pathos in that enquiry,
+he went on passionately: "I'm not lame, I'm not loathsome, I'm not a
+boor, I'm not a fool. What is it? What's the mystery about me?"
+
+Her answer was a long sigh.
+
+He clasped his hands with a gesture that for him was strangely full
+of expression. "When I came here to-night I was--I hoped--I meant
+everything that I could to do away with the past, and start fair again.
+And you meet me with 'nerves,' and silence, and sighs. There's nothing
+tangible. It's like--it's like a spider's web."
+
+"Yes."
+
+That whisper from across the room maddened Soames afresh.
+
+"Well, I don't choose to be in a spider's web. I'll cut it." He walked
+straight up to her. "Now!" What he had gone up to her to do he really
+did not know. But when he was close, the old familiar scent of her
+clothes suddenly affected him. He put his hands on her shoulders and
+bent forward to kiss her. He kissed not her lips, but a little hard line
+where the lips had been drawn in; then his face was pressed away by her
+hands; he heard her say: "Oh! No!" Shame, compunction, sense of futility
+flooded his whole being, he turned on his heel and went straight out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--VISIT TO IRENE
+
+Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at Paddington. She had
+received his telegram while at breakfast. Her abode--a studio and two
+bedrooms in a St. John's Wood garden--had been selected by her for the
+complete independence which it guaranteed. Unwatched by Mrs. Grundy,
+unhindered by permanent domestics, she could receive lame ducks at any
+hour of day or night, and not seldom had a duck without studio of its
+own made use of June's. She enjoyed her freedom, and possessed herself
+with a sort of virginal passion; the warmth which she would have
+lavished on Bosinney, and of which--given her Forsyte tenacity--he must
+surely have tired, she now expended in championship of the underdogs and
+budding 'geniuses' of the artistic world. She lived, in fact, to turn
+ducks into the swans she believed they were. The very fervour of her
+protection warped her judgments. But she was loyal and liberal; her
+small eager hand was ever against the oppressions of academic and
+commercial opinion, and though her income was considerable, her bank
+balance was often a minus quantity.
+
+She had come to Paddington Station heated in her soul by a visit to Eric
+Cobbley. A miserable Gallery had refused to let that straight-haired
+genius have his one-man show after all. Its impudent manager, after
+visiting his studio, had expressed the opinion that it would only be a
+'one-horse show from the selling point of view.' This crowning example
+of commercial cowardice towards her favourite lame duck--and he so hard
+up, with a wife and two children, that he had caused her account to be
+overdrawn--was still making the blood glow in her small, resolute face,
+and her red-gold hair to shine more than ever. She gave her father a
+hug, and got into a cab with him, having as many fish to fry with him as
+he with her. It became at once a question which would fry them first.
+
+Jolyon had reached the words: "My dear, I want you to come with me,"
+when, glancing at her face, he perceived by her blue eyes moving from
+side to side--like the tail of a preoccupied cat--that she was not
+attending. "Dad, is it true that I absolutely can't get at any of my
+money?"
+
+"Only the income, fortunately, my love."
+
+"How perfectly beastly! Can't it be done somehow? There must be a way. I
+know I could buy a small Gallery for ten thousand pounds."
+
+"A small Gallery," murmured Jolyon, "seems a modest desire. But your
+grandfather foresaw it."
+
+"I think," cried June vigorously, "that all this care about money is
+awful, when there's so much genius in the world simply crushed out for
+want of a little. I shall never marry and have children; why shouldn't
+I be able to do some good instead of having it all tied up in case of
+things which will never come off?"
+
+"Our name is Forsyte, my dear," replied Jolyon in the ironical voice
+to which his impetuous daughter had never quite grown accustomed; "and
+Forsytes, you know, are people who so settle their property that their
+grandchildren, in case they should die before their parents, have to
+make wills leaving the property that will only come to themselves
+when their parents die. Do you follow that? Nor do I, but it's a fact,
+anyway; we live by the principle that so long as there is a possibility
+of keeping wealth in the family it must not go out; if you die
+unmarried, your money goes to Jolly and Holly and their children if they
+marry. Isn't it pleasant to know that whatever you do you can none of
+you be destitute?"
+
+"But can't I borrow the money?"
+
+Jolyon shook his head. "You could rent a Gallery, no doubt, if you could
+manage it out of your income."
+
+June uttered a contemptuous sound.
+
+"Yes; and have no income left to help anybody with."
+
+"My dear child," murmured Jolyon, "wouldn't it come to the same thing?"
+
+"No," said June shrewdly, "I could buy for ten thousand; that would only
+be four hundred a year. But I should have to pay a thousand a year rent,
+and that would only leave me five hundred. If I had the Gallery, Dad,
+think what I could do. I could make Eric Cobbley's name in no time, and
+ever so many others."
+
+"Names worth making make themselves in time."
+
+"When they're dead."
+
+"Did you ever know anybody living, my dear, improved by having his name
+made?"
+
+"Yes, you," said June, pressing his arm.
+
+Jolyon started. 'I?' he thought. 'Oh! Ah! Now she's going to ask me to
+do something. We take it out, we Forsytes, each in our different ways.'
+
+June came closer to him in the cab.
+
+"Darling," she said, "you buy the Gallery, and I'll pay you four hundred
+a year for it. Then neither of us will be any the worse off. Besides,
+it's a splendid investment."
+
+Jolyon wriggled. "Don't you think," he said, "that for an artist to buy
+a Gallery is a bit dubious? Besides, ten thousand pounds is a lump, and
+I'm not a commercial character."
+
+June looked at him with admiring appraisement.
+
+"Of course you're not, but you're awfully businesslike. And I'm sure we
+could make it pay. It'll be a perfect way of scoring off those wretched
+dealers and people." And again she squeezed her father's arm.
+
+Jolyon's face expressed quizzical despair.
+
+"Where is this desirable Gallery? Splendidly situated, I suppose?"
+
+"Just off Cork Street."
+
+'Ah!' thought Jolyon, 'I knew it was just off somewhere. Now for what I
+want out of her!'
+
+"Well, I'll think of it, but not just now. You remember Irene? I want
+you to come with me and see her. Soames is after her again. She might be
+safer if we could give her asylum somewhere."
+
+The word asylum, which he had used by chance, was of all most calculated
+to rouse June's interest.
+
+"Irene! I haven't seen her since! Of course! I'd love to help her."
+
+It was Jolyon's turn to squeeze her arm, in warm admiration for this
+spirited, generous-hearted little creature of his begetting.
+
+"Irene is proud," he said, with a sidelong glance, in sudden doubt of
+June's discretion; "she's difficult to help. We must tread gently. This
+is the place. I wired her to expect us. Let's send up our cards."
+
+"I can't bear Soames," said June as she got out; "he sneers at
+everything that isn't successful."
+
+Irene was in what was called the 'Ladies' drawing-room' of the Piedmont
+Hotel.
+
+Nothing if not morally courageous, June walked straight up to her former
+friend, kissed her cheek, and the two settled down on a sofa never sat
+on since the hotel's foundation. Jolyon could see that Irene was deeply
+affected by this simple forgiveness.
+
+"So Soames has been worrying you?" he said.
+
+"I had a visit from him last night; he wants me to go back to him."
+
+"You're not going, of course?" cried June.
+
+Irene smiled faintly and shook her head. "But his position is horrible,"
+she murmured.
+
+"It's his own fault; he ought to have divorced you when he could."
+
+Jolyon remembered how fervently in the old days June had hoped that no
+divorce would smirch her dead and faithless lover's name.
+
+"Let us hear what Irene is going to do," he said.
+
+Irene's lips quivered, but she spoke calmly.
+
+"I'd better give him fresh excuse to get rid of me."
+
+"How horrible!" cried June.
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"Out of the question," said Jolyon very quietly, "sans amour."
+
+He thought she was going to cry; but, getting up quickly, she half
+turned her back on them, and stood regaining control of herself.
+
+June said suddenly:
+
+"Well, I shall go to Soames and tell him he must leave you alone. What
+does he want at his age?"
+
+"A child. It's not unnatural"
+
+"A child!" cried June scornfully. "Of course! To leave his money to. If
+he wants one badly enough let him take somebody and have one; then you
+can divorce him, and he can marry her."
+
+Jolyon perceived suddenly that he had made a mistake to bring June--her
+violent partizanship was fighting Soames' battle.
+
+"It would be best for Irene to come quietly to us at Robin Hill, and see
+how things shape."
+
+"Of course," said June; "only...."
+
+Irene looked full at Jolyon--in all his many attempts afterwards to
+analyze that glance he never could succeed.
+
+"No! I should only bring trouble on you all. I will go abroad."
+
+He knew from her voice that this was final. The irrelevant thought
+flashed through him: 'Well, I could see her there.' But he said:
+
+"Don't you think you would be more helpless abroad, in case he
+followed?"
+
+"I don't know. I can but try."
+
+June sprang up and paced the room. "It's all horrible," she said. "Why
+should people be tortured and kept miserable and helpless year after
+year by this disgusting sanctimonious law?" But someone had come into
+the room, and June came to a standstill. Jolyon went up to Irene:
+
+"Do you want money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And would you like me to let your flat?"
+
+"Yes, Jolyon, please."
+
+"When shall you be going?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"You won't go back there in the meantime, will you?" This he said with
+an anxiety strange to himself.
+
+"No; I've got all I want here."
+
+"You'll send me your address?"
+
+She put out her hand to him. "I feel you're a rock."
+
+"Built on sand," answered Jolyon, pressing her hand hard; "but it's a
+pleasure to do anything, at any time, remember that. And if you change
+your mind...! Come along, June; say good-bye."
+
+June came from the window and flung her arms round Irene.
+
+"Don't think of him," she said under her breath; "enjoy yourself, and
+bless you!"
+
+With a memory of tears in Irene's eyes, and of a smile on her lips, they
+went away extremely silent, passing the lady who had interrupted the
+interview and was turning over the papers on the table.
+
+Opposite the National Gallery June exclaimed:
+
+"Of all undignified beasts and horrible laws!"
+
+But Jolyon did not respond. He had something of his father's balance,
+and could see things impartially even when his emotions were roused.
+Irene was right; Soames' position was as bad or worse than her own. As
+for the law--it catered for a human nature of which it took a naturally
+low view. And, feeling that if he stayed in his daughter's company he
+would in one way or another commit an indiscretion, he told her he must
+catch his train back to Oxford; and hailing a cab, left her to Turner's
+water-colours, with the promise that he would think over that Gallery.
+
+But he thought over Irene instead. Pity, they said, was akin to love!
+If so he was certainly in danger of loving her, for he pitied her
+profoundly. To think of her drifting about Europe so handicapped and
+lonely! 'I hope to goodness she'll keep her head!' he thought; 'she
+might easily grow desperate.' In fact, now that she had cut loose from
+her poor threads of occupation, he couldn't imagine how she would go
+on--so beautiful a creature, hopeless, and fair game for anyone! In his
+exasperation was more than a little fear and jealousy. Women did strange
+things when they were driven into corners. 'I wonder what Soames will do
+now!' he thought. 'A rotten, idiotic state of things! And I suppose they
+would say it was her own fault.' Very preoccupied and sore at heart, he
+got into his train, mislaid his ticket, and on the platform at Oxford
+took his hat off to a lady whose face he seemed to remember without
+being able to put a name to her, not even when he saw her having tea at
+the Rainbow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD
+
+Quivering from the defeat of his hopes, with the green morocco case
+still flat against his heart, Soames revolved thoughts bitter as death.
+A spider's web! Walking fast, and noting nothing in the moonlight,
+he brooded over the scene he had been through, over the memory of her
+figure rigid in his grasp. And the more he brooded, the more certain
+he became that she had a lover--her words, 'I would sooner die!' were
+ridiculous if she had not. Even if she had never loved him, she had made
+no fuss until Bosinney came on the scene. No; she was in love again, or
+she would not have made that melodramatic answer to his proposal, which
+in all the circumstances was reasonable! Very well! That simplified
+matters.
+
+'I'll take steps to know where I am,' he thought; 'I'll go to Polteed's
+the first thing tomorrow morning.'
+
+But even in forming that resolution he knew he would have trouble with
+himself. He had employed Polteed's agency several times in the routine
+of his profession, even quite lately over Dartie's case, but he had
+never thought it possible to employ them to watch his own wife.
+
+It was too insulting to himself!
+
+He slept over that project and his wounded pride--or rather, kept vigil.
+Only while shaving did he suddenly remember that she called herself
+by her maiden name of Heron. Polteed would not know, at first at all
+events, whose wife she was, would not look at him obsequiously and leer
+behind his back. She would just be the wife of one of his clients. And
+that would be true--for was he not his own solicitor?
+
+He was literally afraid not to put his design into execution at the
+first possible moment, lest, after all, he might fail himself. And
+making Warmson bring him an early cup of coffee; he stole out of the
+house before the hour of breakfast. He walked rapidly to one of those
+small West End streets where Polteed's and other firms ministered to the
+virtues of the wealthier classes. Hitherto he had always had Polteed to
+see him in the Poultry; but he well knew their address, and reached it
+at the opening hour. In the outer office, a room furnished so cosily
+that it might have been a money-lender's, he was attended by a lady who
+might have been a schoolmistress.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Claud Polteed. He knows me--never mind my name."
+
+To keep everybody from knowing that he, Soames Forsyte, was reduced to
+having his wife spied on, was the overpowering consideration.
+
+Mr. Claud Polteed--so different from Mr. Lewis Polteed--was one of those
+men with dark hair, slightly curved noses, and quick brown eyes, who
+might be taken for Jews but are really Phoenicians; he received Soames
+in a room hushed by thickness of carpet and curtains. It was, in fact,
+confidentially furnished, without trace of document anywhere to be seen.
+
+Greeting Soames deferentially, he turned the key in the only door with a
+certain ostentation.
+
+"If a client sends for me," he was in the habit of saying, "he takes
+what precaution he likes. If he comes here, we convince him that we
+have no leakages. I may safely say we lead in security, if in nothing
+else....Now, sir, what can I do for you?"
+
+Soames' gorge had risen so that he could hardly speak. It was absolutely
+necessary to hide from this man that he had any but professional
+interest in the matter; and, mechanically, his face assumed its sideway
+smile.
+
+"I've come to you early like this because there's not an hour to
+lose"--if he lost an hour he might fail himself yet! "Have you a really
+trustworthy woman free?"
+
+Mr. Polteed unlocked a drawer, produced a memorandum, ran his eyes over
+it, and locked the drawer up again.
+
+"Yes," he said; "the very woman."
+
+Soames had seated himself and crossed his legs--nothing but a faint
+flush, which might have been his normal complexion, betrayed him.
+
+"Send her off at once, then, to watch a Mrs. Irene Heron of Flat C,
+Truro Mansions, Chelsea, till further notice."
+
+"Precisely," said Mr. Polteed; "divorce, I presume?" and he blew into
+a speaking-tube. "Mrs. Blanch in? I shall want to speak to her in ten
+minutes."
+
+"Deal with any reports yourself," resumed Soames, "and send them to me
+personally, marked confidential, sealed and registered. My client exacts
+the utmost secrecy."
+
+Mr. Polteed smiled, as though saying, 'You are teaching your
+grandmother, my dear sir;' and his eyes slid over Soames' face for one
+unprofessional instant.
+
+"Make his mind perfectly easy," he said. "Do you smoke?"
+
+"No," said Soames. "Understand me: Nothing may come of this. If a
+name gets out, or the watching is suspected, it may have very serious
+consequences."
+
+Mr. Polteed nodded. "I can put it into the cipher category. Under that
+system a name is never mentioned; we work by numbers."
+
+He unlocked another drawer and took out two slips of paper, wrote on
+them, and handed one to Soames.
+
+"Keep that, sir; it's your key. I retain this duplicate. The case we'll
+call 7x. The party watched will be 17; the watcher 19; the Mansions 25;
+yourself--I should say, your firm--31; my firm 32, myself 2. In case you
+should have to mention your client in writing I have called him 43; any
+person we suspect will be 47; a second person 51. Any special hint or
+instruction while we're about it?"
+
+"No," said Soames; "that is--every consideration compatible."
+
+Again Mr. Polteed nodded. "Expense?"
+
+Soames shrugged. "In reason," he answered curtly, and got up. "Keep it
+entirely in your own hands."
+
+"Entirely," said Mr. Polteed, appearing suddenly between him and the
+door. "I shall be seeing you in that other case before long. Good
+morning, sir." His eyes slid unprofessionally over Soames once more, and
+he unlocked the door.
+
+"Good morning," said Soames, looking neither to right nor left.
+
+Out in the street he swore deeply, quietly, to himself. A spider's
+web, and to cut it he must use this spidery, secret, unclean method,
+so utterly repugnant to one who regarded his private life as his most
+sacred piece of property. But the die was cast, he could not go back.
+And he went on into the Poultry, and locked away the green morocco case
+and the key to that cipher destined to make crystal-clear his domestic
+bankruptcy.
+
+Odd that one whose life was spent in bringing to the public eye all the
+private coils of property, the domestic disagreements of others, should
+dread so utterly the public eye turned on his own; and yet not odd,
+for who should know so well as he the whole unfeeling process of legal
+regulation.
+
+He worked hard all day. Winifred was due at four o'clock; he was to take
+her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C., and waiting
+for her he re-read the letter he had caused her to write the day of
+Dartie's departure, requiring him to return.
+
+
+"DEAR MONTAGUE,
+
+"I have received your letter with the news that you have left me for
+ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires. It has naturally been a great
+shock. I am taking this earliest opportunity of writing to tell you
+that I am prepared to let bygones be bygones if you will return to me
+at once. I beg you to do so. I am very much upset, and will not say any
+more now. I am sending this letter registered to the address you left at
+your Club. Please cable to me.
+
+"Your still affectionate wife,
+
+"WINIFRED DARTIE."
+
+
+Ugh! What bitter humbug! He remembered leaning over Winifred while she
+copied what he had pencilled, and how she had said, laying down her pen,
+"Suppose he comes, Soames!" in such a strange tone of voice, as if she
+did not know her own mind. "He won't come," he had answered, "till he's
+spent his money. That's why we must act at once." Annexed to the copy of
+that letter was the original of Dartie's drunken scrawl from the Iseeum
+Club. Soames could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in
+liquor. Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on. He seemed to
+hear the Judge's voice say: "You took this seriously! Seriously enough
+to write him as you did? Do you think he meant it?" Never mind! The fact
+was clear that Dartie had sailed and had not returned. Annexed also was
+his cabled answer: "Impossible return. Dartie." Soames shook his head.
+If the whole thing were not disposed of within the next few months the
+fellow would turn up again like a bad penny. It saved a thousand a year
+at least to get rid of him, besides all the worry to Winifred and his
+father. 'I must stiffen Dreamer's back,' he thought; 'we must push it
+on.'
+
+Winifred, who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became her fair
+hair and tall figure very well, arrived in James' barouche drawn by
+James' pair. Soames had not seen it in the City since his father retired
+from business five years ago, and its incongruity gave him a shock.
+'Times are changing,' he thought; 'one doesn't know what'll go next!'
+Top hats even were scarcer. He enquired after Val. Val, said Winifred,
+wrote that he was going to play polo next term. She thought he was in a
+very good set. She added with fashionably disguised anxiety: "Will there
+be much publicity about my affair, Soames? Must it be in the papers?
+It's so bad for him, and the girls."
+
+With his own calamity all raw within him, Soames answered:
+
+"The papers are a pushing lot; it's very difficult to keep things out.
+They pretend to be guarding the public's morals, and they corrupt them
+with their beastly reports. But we haven't got to that yet. We're
+only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution question. Of course he
+understands that it's to lead to a divorce; but you must seem genuinely
+anxious to get Dartie back--you might practice that attitude to-day."
+
+Winifred sighed.
+
+"Oh! What a clown Monty's been!" she said.
+
+Soames gave her a sharp look. It was clear to him that she could not
+take her Dartie seriously, and would go back on the whole thing if given
+half a chance. His own instinct had been firm in this matter from the
+first. To save a little scandal now would only bring on his sister and
+her children real disgrace and perhaps ruin later on if Dartie were
+allowed to hang on to them, going down-hill and spending the money James
+would leave his daughter. Though it was all tied up, that fellow would
+milk the settlements somehow, and make his family pay through the
+nose to keep him out of bankruptcy or even perhaps gaol! They left
+the shining carriage, with the shining horses and the shining-hatted
+servants on the Embankment, and walked up to Dreamer Q.C.'s Chambers in
+Crown Office Row.
+
+"Mr. Bellby is here, sir," said the clerk; "Mr. Dreamer will be ten
+minutes."
+
+Mr. Bellby, the junior--not as junior as he might have been, for Soames
+only employed barristers of established reputation; it was, indeed,
+something of a mystery to him how barristers ever managed to establish
+that which made him employ them--Mr. Bellby was seated, taking a final
+glance through his papers. He had come from Court, and was in wig and
+gown, which suited a nose jutting out like the handle of a tiny pump,
+his small shrewd blue eyes, and rather protruding lower lip--no better
+man to supplement and stiffen Dreamer.
+
+The introduction to Winifred accomplished, they leaped the weather and
+spoke of the war. Soames interrupted suddenly:
+
+"If he doesn't comply we can't bring proceedings for six months. I want
+to get on with the matter, Bellby."
+
+Mr. Bellby, who had the ghost of an Irish brogue, smiled at Winifred and
+murmured: "The Law's delays, Mrs. Dartie."
+
+"Six months!" repeated Soames; "it'll drive it up to June! We shan't
+get the suit on till after the long vacation. We must put the screw on,
+Bellby"--he would have all his work cut out to keep Winifred up to the
+scratch.
+
+"Mr. Dreamer will see you now, sir."
+
+They filed in, Mr. Bellby going first, and Soames escorting Winifred
+after an interval of one minute by his watch.
+
+Dreamer Q.C., in a gown but divested of wig, was standing before the
+fire, as if this conference were in the nature of a treat; he had the
+leathery, rather oily complexion which goes with great learning,
+a considerable nose with glasses perched on it, and little greyish
+whiskers; he luxuriated in the perpetual cocking of one eye, and the
+concealment of his lower with his upper lip, which gave a smothered turn
+to his speech. He had a way, too, of coming suddenly round the corner on
+the person he was talking to; this, with a disconcerting tone of
+voice, and a habit of growling before he began to speak--had secured a
+reputation second in Probate and Divorce to very few. Having listened,
+eye cocked, to Mr. Bellby's breezy recapitulation of the facts, he
+growled, and said:
+
+"I know all that;" and coming round the corner at Winifred, smothered
+the words:
+
+"We want to get him back, don't we, Mrs. Dartie?"
+
+Soames interposed sharply:
+
+"My sister's position, of course, is intolerable."
+
+Dreamer growled. "Exactly. Now, can we rely on the cabled refusal,
+or must we wait till after Christmas to give him a chance to have
+written--that's the point, isn't it?"
+
+"The sooner...." Soames began.
+
+"What do you say, Bellby?" said Dreamer, coming round his corner.
+
+Mr. Bellby seemed to sniff the air like a hound.
+
+"We won't be on till the middle of December. We've no need to give um
+more rope than that."
+
+"No," said Soames, "why should my sister be incommoded by his choosing
+to go..."
+
+"To Jericho!" said Dreamer, again coming round his corner; "quite so.
+People oughtn't to go to Jericho, ought they, Mrs. Dartie?" And he
+raised his gown into a sort of fantail. "I agree. We can go forward. Is
+there anything more?"
+
+"Nothing at present," said Soames meaningly; "I wanted you to see my
+sister."
+
+Dreamer growled softly: "Delighted. Good evening!" And let fall the
+protection of his gown.
+
+They filed out. Winifred went down the stairs. Soames lingered. In spite
+of himself he was impressed by Dreamer.
+
+"The evidence is all right, I think," he said to Bellby. "Between
+ourselves, if we don't get the thing through quick, we never may. D'you
+think he understands that?"
+
+"I'll make um," said Bellby. "Good man though--good man."
+
+Soames nodded and hastened after his sister. He found her in a draught,
+biting her lips behind her veil, and at once said:
+
+"The evidence of the stewardess will be very complete."
+
+Winifred's face hardened; she drew herself up, and they walked to the
+carriage. And, all through that silent drive back to Green Street, the
+souls of both of them revolved a single thought: 'Why, oh! why should I
+have to expose my misfortune to the public like this? Why have to employ
+spies to peer into my private troubles? They were not of my making.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT
+
+The possessive instinct, which, so determinedly balked, was animating
+two members of the Forsyte family towards riddance of what they could
+no longer possess, was hardening daily in the British body politic.
+Nicholas, originally so doubtful concerning a war which must affect
+property, had been heard to say that these Boers were a pig-headed lot;
+they were causing a lot of expense, and the sooner they had their lesson
+the better. He would send out Wolseley! Seeing always a little further
+than other people--whence the most considerable fortune of all the
+Forsytes--he had perceived already that Buller was not the man--'a bull
+of a chap, who just went butting, and if they didn't look out Ladysmith
+would fall.' This was early in December, so that when Black Week came,
+he was enabled to say to everybody: 'I told you so.' During that week of
+gloom such as no Forsyte could remember, very young Nicholas attended
+so many drills in his corps, 'The Devil's Own,' that young Nicholas
+consulted the family physician about his son's health and was alarmed
+to find that he was perfectly sound. The boy had only just eaten his
+dinners and been called to the bar, at some expense, and it was in a
+way a nightmare to his father and mother that he should be playing with
+military efficiency at a time when military efficiency in the civilian
+population might conceivably be wanted. His grandfather, of course,
+pooh-poohed the notion, too thoroughly educated in the feeling that no
+British war could be other than little and professional, and profoundly
+distrustful of Imperial commitments, by which, moreover, he stood to
+lose, for he owned De Beers, now going down fast, more than a sufficient
+sacrifice on the part of his grandson.
+
+At Oxford, however, rather different sentiments prevailed. The inherent
+effervescence of conglomerate youth had, during the two months of the
+term before Black Week, been gradually crystallising out into vivid
+oppositions. Normal adolescence, ever in England of a conservative
+tendency though not taking things too seriously, was vehement for a
+fight to a finish and a good licking for the Boers. Of this larger
+faction Val Dartie was naturally a member. Radical youth, on the other
+hand, a small but perhaps more vocal body, was for stopping the war and
+giving the Boers autonomy. Until Black Week, however, the groups were
+amorphous, without sharp edges, and argument remained but academic.
+Jolly was one of those who knew not where he stood. A streak of his
+grandfather old Jolyon's love of justice prevented, him from seeing
+one side only. Moreover, in his set of 'the best' there was a
+'jumping-Jesus' of extremely advanced opinions and some personal
+magnetism. Jolly wavered. His father, too, seemed doubtful in his views.
+And though, as was proper at the age of twenty, he kept a sharp eye on
+his father, watchful for defects which might still be remedied, still
+that father had an 'air' which gave a sort of glamour to his creed of
+ironic tolerance. Artists of course; were notoriously Hamlet-like, and
+to this extent one must discount for one's father, even if one loved
+him. But Jolyon's original view, that to 'put your nose in where you
+aren't wanted' (as the Uitlanders had done) 'and then work the oracle
+till you get on top is not being quite the clean potato,' had, whether
+founded in fact or no, a certain attraction for his son, who thought a
+deal about gentility. On the other hand Jolly could not abide such as
+his set called 'cranks,' and Val's set called 'smugs,' so that he was
+still balancing when the clock of Black Week struck. One--two--three,
+came those ominous repulses at Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso. The
+sturdy English soul reacting after the first cried, 'Ah! but Methuen!'
+after the second: 'Ah! but Buller!' then, in inspissated gloom,
+hardened. And Jolly said to himself: 'No, damn it! We've got to lick the
+beggars now; I don't care whether we're right or wrong.' And, if he had
+known it, his father was thinking the same thought.
+
+That next Sunday, last of the term, Jolly was bidden to wine with 'one
+of the best.' After the second toast, 'Buller and damnation to the
+Boers,' drunk--no heel taps--in the college Burgundy, he noticed that
+Val Dartie, also a guest, was looking at him with a grin and saying
+something to his neighbour. He was sure it was disparaging. The last boy
+in the world to make himself conspicuous or cause public disturbance,
+Jolly grew rather red and shut his lips. The queer hostility he
+had always felt towards his second-cousin was strongly and suddenly
+reinforced. 'All right!' he thought, 'you wait, my friend!' More wine
+than was good for him, as the custom was, helped him to remember, when
+they all trooped forth to a secluded spot, to touch Val on the arm.
+
+"What did you say about me in there?"
+
+"Mayn't I say what I like?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I said you were a pro-Boer--and so you are!"
+
+"You're a liar!"
+
+"D'you want a row?"
+
+"Of course, but not here; in the garden."
+
+"All right. Come on."
+
+They went, eyeing each other askance, unsteady, and unflinching; they
+climbed the garden railings. The spikes on the top slightly ripped Val's
+sleeve, and occupied his mind. Jolly's mind was occupied by the thought
+that they were going to fight in the precincts of a college foreign to
+them both. It was not the thing, but never mind--the young beast!
+
+They passed over the grass into very nearly darkness, and took off their
+coats.
+
+"You're not screwed, are you?" said Jolly suddenly. "I can't fight you
+if you're screwed."
+
+"No more than you."
+
+"All right then."
+
+Without shaking hands, they put themselves at once into postures of
+defence. They had drunk too much for science, and so were especially
+careful to assume correct attitudes, until Jolly smote Val almost
+accidentally on the nose. After that it was all a dark and ugly
+scrimmage in the deep shadow of the old trees, with no one to call
+'time,' till, battered and blown, they unclinched and staggered back
+from each other, as a voice said:
+
+"Your names, young gentlemen?"
+
+At this bland query spoken from under the lamp at the garden gate, like
+some demand of a god, their nerves gave way, and snatching up their
+coats, they ran at the railings, shinned up them, and made for the
+secluded spot whence they had issued to the fight. Here, in dim light,
+they mopped their faces, and without a word walked, ten paces apart, to
+the college gate. They went out silently, Val going towards the Broad
+along the Brewery, Jolly down the lane towards the High. His head, still
+fumed, was busy with regret that he had not displayed more science,
+passing in review the counters and knockout blows which he had not
+delivered. His mind strayed on to an imagined combat, infinitely unlike
+that which he had just been through, infinitely gallant, with sash and
+sword, with thrust and parry, as if he were in the pages of his beloved
+Dumas. He fancied himself La Mole, and Aramis, Bussy, Chicot, and
+D'Artagnan rolled into one, but he quite failed to envisage Val as
+Coconnas, Brissac, or Rochefort. The fellow was just a confounded cousin
+who didn't come up to Cocker. Never mind! He had given him one or two.
+'Pro-Boer!' The word still rankled, and thoughts of enlisting jostled
+his aching head; of riding over the veldt, firing gallantly, while the
+Boers rolled over like rabbits. And, turning up his smarting eyes, he
+saw the stars shining between the housetops of the High, and himself
+lying out on the Karoo (whatever that was) rolled in a blanket, with his
+rifle ready and his gaze fixed on a glittering heaven.
+
+He had a fearful 'head' next morning, which he doctored, as became one
+of 'the best,' by soaking it in cold water, brewing strong coffee which
+he could not drink, and only sipping a little Hock at lunch. The legend
+that 'some fool' had run into him round a corner accounted for a bruise
+on his cheek. He would on no account have mentioned the fight, for, on
+second thoughts, it fell far short of his standards.
+
+The next day he went 'down,' and travelled through to Robin Hill. Nobody
+was there but June and Holly, for his father had gone to Paris. He spent
+a restless and unsettled Vacation, quite out of touch with either of his
+sisters. June, indeed, was occupied with lame ducks, whom, as a rule,
+Jolly could not stand, especially that Eric Cobbley and his family,
+'hopeless outsiders,' who were always littering up the house in the
+Vacation. And between Holly and himself there was a strange division,
+as if she were beginning to have opinions of her own, which was
+so--unnecessary. He punched viciously at a ball, rode furiously but
+alone in Richmond Park, making a point of jumping the stiff, high
+hurdles put up to close certain worn avenues of grass--keeping his nerve
+in, he called it. Jolly was more afraid of being afraid than most boys
+are. He bought a rifle, too, and put a range up in the home field,
+shooting across the pond into the kitchen-garden wall, to the peril of
+gardeners, with the thought that some day, perhaps, he would enlist and
+save South Africa for his country. In fact, now that they were appealing
+for Yeomanry recruits the boy was thoroughly upset. Ought he to go?
+None of 'the best,' so far as he knew--and he was in correspondence with
+several--were thinking of joining. If they had been making a move he
+would have gone at once--very competitive, and with a strong sense of
+form, he could not bear to be left behind in anything--but to do it
+off his own bat might look like 'swagger'; because of course it wasn't
+really necessary. Besides, he did not want to go, for the other side
+of this young Forsyte recoiled from leaping before he looked. It was
+altogether mixed pickles within him, hot and sickly pickles, and he
+became quite unlike his serene and rather lordly self.
+
+And then one day he saw that which moved him to uneasy wrath--two
+riders, in a glade of the Park close to the Ham Gate, of whom she on
+the left-hand was most assuredly Holly on her silver roan, and he on the
+right-hand as assuredly that 'squirt' Val Dartie. His first impulse was
+to urge on his own horse and demand the meaning of this portent, tell
+the fellow to 'bunk,' and take Holly home. His second--to feel that he
+would look a fool if they refused. He reined his horse in behind a tree,
+then perceived that it was equally impossible to spy on them. Nothing
+for it but to go home and await her coming! Sneaking out with that young
+bounder! He could not consult with June, because she had gone up that
+morning in the train of Eric Cobbley and his lot. And his father was
+still in 'that rotten Paris.' He felt that this was emphatically one of
+those moments for which he had trained himself, assiduously, at school,
+where he and a boy called Brent had frequently set fire to newspapers
+and placed them in the centre of their studies to accustom them to
+coolness in moments of danger. He did not feel at all cool waiting in
+the stable-yard, idly stroking the dog Balthasar, who queasy as an old
+fat monk, and sad in the absence of his master, turned up his face,
+panting with gratitude for this attention. It was half an hour before
+Holly came, flushed and ever so much prettier than she had any right to
+look. He saw her look at him quickly--guiltily of course--then followed
+her in, and, taking her arm, conducted her into what had been their
+grandfather's study. The room, not much used now, was still vaguely
+haunted for them both by a presence with which they associated
+tenderness, large drooping white moustaches, the scent of cigar smoke,
+and laughter. Here Jolly, in the prime of his youth, before he went to
+school at all, had been wont to wrestle with his grandfather, who even
+at eighty had an irresistible habit of crooking his leg. Here Holly,
+perched on the arm of the great leather chair, had stroked hair curving
+silvery over an ear into which she would whisper secrets. Through that
+window they had all three sallied times without number to cricket on the
+lawn, and a mysterious game called 'Wopsy-doozle,' not to be understood
+by outsiders, which made old Jolyon very hot. Here once on a warm night
+Holly had appeared in her 'nighty,' having had a bad dream, to have the
+clutch of it released. And here Jolly, having begun the day badly by
+introducing fizzy magnesia into Mademoiselle Beauce's new-laid egg, and
+gone on to worse, had been sent down (in the absence of his father) to
+the ensuing dialogue:
+
+"Now, my boy, you mustn't go on like this."
+
+"Well, she boxed my ears, Gran, so I only boxed hers, and then she boxed
+mine again."
+
+"Strike a lady? That'll never do! Have you begged her pardon?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Then you must go and do it at once. Come along."
+
+"But she began it, Gran; and she had two to my one."
+
+"My dear, it was an outrageous thing to do."
+
+"Well, she lost her temper; and I didn't lose mine."
+
+"Come along."
+
+"You come too, then, Gran."
+
+"Well--this time only."
+
+And they had gone hand in hand.
+
+Here--where the Waverley novels and Byron's works and Gibbon's Roman
+Empire and Humboldt's Cosmos, and the bronzes on the mantelpiece, and
+that masterpiece of the oily school, 'Dutch Fishing-Boats at Sunset,'
+were fixed as fate, and for all sign of change old Jolyon might have
+been sitting there still, with legs crossed, in the arm chair, and domed
+forehead and deep eyes grave above The Times--here they came, those two
+grandchildren. And Jolly said:
+
+"I saw you and that fellow in the Park."
+
+The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some satisfaction;
+she ought to be ashamed!
+
+"Well?" she said.
+
+Jolly was surprised; he had expected more, or less.
+
+"Do you know," he said weightily, "that he called me a pro-Boer last
+term? And I had to fight him."
+
+"Who won?"
+
+Jolly wished to answer: 'I should have,' but it seemed beneath him.
+
+"Look here!" he said, "what's the meaning of it? Without telling
+anybody!"
+
+"Why should I? Dad isn't here; why shouldn't I ride with him?"
+
+"You've got me to ride with. I think he's an awful young rotter."
+
+Holly went pale with anger.
+
+"He isn't. It's your own fault for not liking him."
+
+And slipping past her brother she went out, leaving him staring at the
+bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise, which had been shielded from him so
+far by his sister's dark head under her soft felt riding hat. He
+felt queerly disturbed, shaken to his young foundations. A lifelong
+domination lay shattered round his feet. He went up to the Venus and
+mechanically inspected the tortoise.
+
+Why didn't he like Val Dartie? He could not tell. Ignorant of family
+history, barely aware of that vague feud which had started thirteen
+years before with Bosinney's defection from June in favour of Soames'
+wife, knowing really almost nothing about Val he was at sea. He just did
+dislike him. The question, however, was: What should he do? Val Dartie,
+it was true, was a second-cousin, but it was not the thing for Holly
+to go about with him. And yet to 'tell' of what he had chanced on was
+against his creed. In this dilemma he went and sat in the old leather
+chair and crossed his legs. It grew dark while he sat there staring out
+through the long window at the old oak-tree, ample yet bare of leaves,
+becoming slowly just a shape of deeper dark printed on the dusk.
+
+'Grandfather!' he thought without sequence, and took out his watch. He
+could not see the hands, but he set the repeater going. 'Five o'clock!'
+His grandfather's first gold hunter watch, butter-smooth with age--all
+the milling worn from it, and dented with the mark of many a fall. The
+chime was like a little voice from out of that golden age, when they
+first came from St. John's Wood, London, to this house--came driving
+with grandfather in his carriage, and almost instantly took to the
+trees. Trees to climb, and grandfather watering the geranium-beds below!
+What was to be done? Tell Dad he must come home? Confide in June?--only
+she was so--so sudden! Do nothing and trust to luck? After all, the Vac.
+would soon be over. Go up and see Val and warn him off? But how get
+his address? Holly wouldn't give it him! A maze of paths, a cloud of
+possibilities! He lit a cigarette. When he had smoked it halfway through
+his brow relaxed, almost as if some thin old hand had been passed gently
+over it; and in his ear something seemed to whisper: 'Do nothing; be
+nice to Holly, be nice to her, my dear!' And Jolly heaved a sigh of
+contentment, blowing smoke through his nostrils....
+
+But up in her room, divested of her habit, Holly was still frowning. 'He
+is not--he is not!' were the words which kept forming on her lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--JOLYON IN TWO MINDS
+
+A little private hotel over a well-known restaurant near the Gare
+St. Lazare was Jolyon's haunt in Paris. He hated his fellow Forsytes
+abroad--vapid as fish out of water in their well-trodden runs, the
+Opera, Rue de Rivoli, and Moulin Rouge. Their air of having come because
+they wanted to be somewhere else as soon as possible annoyed him. But
+no other Forsyte came near this haunt, where he had a wood fire in
+his bedroom and the coffee was excellent. Paris was always to him
+more attractive in winter. The acrid savour from woodsmoke and
+chestnut-roasting braziers, the sharpness of the wintry sunshine
+on bright rays, the open cafes defying keen-aired winter, the
+self-contained brisk boulevard crowds, all informed him that in winter
+Paris possessed a soul which, like a migrant bird, in high summer flew
+away.
+
+He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places where
+pleasant dishes could be met with, queer types observed. He felt
+philosophic in Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a
+subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a
+darkness shot with shifting gleams of light.
+
+When in the first week of December he decided to go to Paris, he was
+far from admitting that Irene's presence was influencing him. He had not
+been there two days before he owned that the wish to see her had
+been more than half the reason. In England one did not admit what was
+natural. He had thought it might be well to speak to her about the
+letting of her flat and other matters, but in Paris he at once knew
+better. There was a glamour over the city. On the third day he wrote to
+her, and received an answer which procured him a pleasurable shiver of
+the nerves:
+
+
+"MY DEAR JOLYON,
+
+"It will be a happiness for me to see you.
+
+"IRENE."
+
+
+He took his way to her hotel on a bright day with a feeling such as he
+had often had going to visit an adored picture. No woman, so far as
+he remembered, had ever inspired in him this special sensuous and yet
+impersonal sensation. He was going to sit and feast his eyes, and come
+away knowing her no better, but ready to go and feast his eyes again
+to-morrow. Such was his feeling, when in the tarnished and ornate little
+lounge of a quiet hotel near the river she came to him preceded by a
+small page-boy who uttered the word, "Madame," and vanished. Her face,
+her smile, the poise of her figure, were just as he had pictured, and
+the expression of her face said plainly: 'A friend!'
+
+"Well," he said, "what news, poor exile?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Nothing from Soames?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I have let the flat for you, and like a good steward I bring you some
+money. How do you like Paris?"
+
+While he put her through this catechism, it seemed to him that he had
+never seen lips so fine and sensitive, the lower lip curving just a
+little upwards, the upper touched at one corner by the least conceivable
+dimple. It was like discovering a woman in what had hitherto been a sort
+of soft and breathed-on statue, almost impersonally admired. She owned
+that to be alone in Paris was a little difficult; and yet, Paris was so
+full of its own life that it was often, she confessed, as innocuous as a
+desert. Besides, the English were not liked just now!
+
+"That will hardly be your case," said Jolyon; "you should appeal to the
+French."
+
+"It has its disadvantages."
+
+Jolyon nodded.
+
+"Well, you must let me take you about while I'm here. We'll start
+to-morrow. Come and dine at my pet restaurant; and we'll go to the
+Opera-Comique."
+
+It was the beginning of daily meetings.
+
+Jolyon soon found that for those who desired a static condition of the
+affections, Paris was at once the first and last place in which to be
+friendly with a pretty woman. Revelation was alighting like a bird in
+his heart, singing: 'Elle est ton reve! Elle est ton reve! Sometimes
+this seemed natural, sometimes ludicrous--a bad case of elderly rapture.
+Having once been ostracised by Society, he had never since had any real
+regard for conventional morality; but the idea of a love which she could
+never return--and how could she at his age?--hardly mounted beyond his
+subconscious mind. He was full, too, of resentment, at the waste and
+loneliness of her life. Aware of being some comfort to her, and of the
+pleasure she clearly took in their many little outings, he was amiably
+desirous of doing and saying nothing to destroy that pleasure. It was
+like watching a starved plant draw up water, to see her drink in his
+companionship. So far as they could tell, no one knew her address except
+himself; she was unknown in Paris, and he but little known, so that
+discretion seemed unnecessary in those walks, talks, visits to concerts,
+picture-galleries, theatres, little dinners, expeditions to Versailles,
+St. Cloud, even Fontainebleau. And time fled--one of those full months
+without past to it or future. What in his youth would certainly have
+been headlong passion, was now perhaps as deep a feeling, but
+far gentler, tempered to protective companionship by admiration,
+hopelessness, and a sense of chivalry--arrested in his veins at least so
+long as she was there, smiling and happy in their friendship, and always
+to him more beautiful and spiritually responsive: for her philosophy
+of life seemed to march in admirable step with his own, conditioned
+by emotion more than by reason, ironically mistrustful, susceptible
+to beauty, almost passionately humane and tolerant, yet subject to
+instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable. And
+during all this companionable month he never quite lost that feeling
+with which he had set out on the first day as if to visit an adored work
+of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire. The future--inexorable pendant
+to the present he took care not to face, for fear of breaking up his
+untroubled manner; but he made plans to renew this time in places still
+more delightful, where the sun was hot and there were strange things
+to see and paint. The end came swiftly on the 20th of January with a
+telegram:
+
+"Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry. JOLLY."
+
+Jolyon received it just as he was setting out to meet her at the Louvre.
+It brought him up with a round turn. While he was lotus-eating here, his
+boy, whose philosopher and guide he ought to be, had taken this great
+step towards danger, hardship, perhaps even death. He felt disturbed
+to the soul, realising suddenly how Irene had twined herself round the
+roots of his being. Thus threatened with severance, the tie between
+them--for it had become a kind of tie--no longer had impersonal quality.
+The tranquil enjoyment of things in common, Jolyon perceived, was gone
+for ever. He saw his feeling as it was, in the nature of an infatuation.
+Ridiculous, perhaps, but so real that sooner or later it must disclose
+itself. And now, as it seemed to him, he could not, must not, make any
+such disclosure. The news of Jolly stood inexorably in the way. He was
+proud of this enlistment; proud of his boy for going off to fight for
+the country; for on Jolyon's pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had left its
+mark. And so the end was reached before the beginning! Well, luckily he
+had never made a sign!
+
+When he came into the Gallery she was standing before the 'Virgin of the
+Rocks,' graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious. 'Have I to give up
+seeing that?' he thought. 'It's unnatural, so long as she's willing that
+I should see her.' He stood, unnoticed, watching her, storing up the
+image of her figure, envying the picture on which she was bending that
+long scrutiny. Twice she turned her head towards the entrance, and he
+thought: 'That's for me!' At last he went forward.
+
+"Look!" he said.
+
+She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.
+
+That sigh, too, was for him! His position was really cruel! To be
+loyal to his son he must just shake her hand and go. To be loyal to the
+feeling in his heart he must at least tell her what that feeling was.
+Could she, would she understand the silence in which he was gazing at
+that picture?
+
+"I'm afraid I must go home at once," he said at last. "I shall miss all
+this awfully."
+
+"So shall I; but, of course, you must go."
+
+"Well!" said Jolyon holding out his hand.
+
+Meeting her eyes, a flood of feeling nearly mastered him.
+
+"Such is life!" he said. "Take care of yourself, my dear!"
+
+He had a stumbling sensation in his legs and feet, as if his brain
+refused to steer him away from her. From the doorway, he saw her
+lift her hand and touch its fingers with her lips. He raised his hat
+solemnly, and did not look back again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE
+
+The suit--Dartie versus Dartie--for restitution of those conjugal rights
+concerning which Winifred was at heart so deeply undecided, followed the
+laws of subtraction towards day of judgment. This was not reached before
+the Courts rose for Christmas, but the case was third on the list when
+they sat again. Winifred spent the Christmas holidays a thought more
+fashionably than usual, with the matter locked up in her low-cut bosom.
+James was particularly liberal to her that Christmas, expressing thereby
+his sympathy, and relief, at the approaching dissolution of her marriage
+with that 'precious rascal,' which his old heart felt but his old lips
+could not utter.
+
+The disappearance of Dartie made the fall in Consols a comparatively
+small matter; and as to the scandal--the real animus he felt against
+that fellow, and the increasing lead which property was attaining over
+reputation in a true Forsyte about to leave this world, served to drug
+a mind from which all allusions to the matter (except his own) were
+studiously kept. What worried him as a lawyer and a parent was the fear
+that Dartie might suddenly turn up and obey the Order of the Court when
+made. That would be a pretty how-de-do! The fear preyed on him in fact
+so much that, in presenting Winifred with a large Christmas cheque, he
+said: "It's chiefly for that chap out there; to keep him from coming
+back." It was, of course, to pitch away good money, but all in the
+nature of insurance against that bankruptcy which would no longer hang
+over him if only the divorce went through; and he questioned Winifred
+rigorously until she could assure him that the money had been sent. Poor
+woman!--it cost her many a pang to send what must find its way into the
+vanity-bag of 'that creature!' Soames, hearing of it, shook his head.
+They were not dealing with a Forsyte, reasonably tenacious of his
+purpose. It was very risky without knowing how the land lay out there.
+Still, it would look well with the Court; and he would see that Dreamer
+brought it out. "I wonder," he said suddenly, "where that ballet goes
+after the Argentine"; never omitting a chance of reminder; for he knew
+that Winifred still had a weakness, if not for Dartie, at least for
+not laundering him in public. Though not good at showing admiration, he
+admitted that she was behaving extremely well, with all her children at
+home gaping like young birds for news of their father--Imogen just on
+the point of coming out, and Val very restive about the whole thing.
+He felt that Val was the real heart of the matter to Winifred, who
+certainly loved him beyond her other children. The boy could spoke the
+wheel of this divorce yet if he set his mind to it. And Soames was very
+careful to keep the proximity of the preliminary proceedings from his
+nephew's ears. He did more. He asked him to dine at the Remove, and over
+Val's cigar introduced the subject which he knew to be nearest to his
+heart.
+
+"I hear," he said, "that you want to play polo up at Oxford."
+
+Val became less recumbent in his chair.
+
+"Rather!" he said.
+
+"Well," continued Soames, "that's a very expensive business. Your
+grandfather isn't likely to consent to it unless he can make sure that
+he's not got any other drain on him." And he paused to see whether the
+boy understood his meaning.
+
+Val's thick dark lashes concealed his eyes, but a slight grimace
+appeared on his wide mouth, and he muttered:
+
+"I suppose you mean my Dad!"
+
+"Yes," said Soames; "I'm afraid it depends on whether he continues to be
+a drag or not;" and said no more, letting the boy dream it over.
+
+But Val was also dreaming in those days of a silver-roan palfrey and a
+girl riding it. Though Crum was in town and an introduction to Cynthia
+Dark to be had for the asking, Val did not ask; indeed, he shunned Crum
+and lived a life strange even to himself, except in so far as accounts
+with tailor and livery stable were concerned. To his mother, his
+sisters, his young brother, he seemed to spend this Vacation in 'seeing
+fellows,' and his evenings sleepily at home. They could not propose
+anything in daylight that did not meet with the one response: "Sorry;
+I've got to see a fellow"; and he was put to extraordinary shifts to get
+in and out of the house unobserved in riding clothes; until, being made
+a member of the Goat's Club, he was able to transport them there, where
+he could change unregarded and slip off on his hack to Richmond Park. He
+kept his growing sentiment religiously to himself. Not for a world
+would he breathe to the 'fellows,' whom he was not 'seeing,' anything so
+ridiculous from the point of view of their creed and his. But he could
+not help its destroying his other appetites. It was coming between him
+and the legitimate pleasures of youth at last on its own in a way which
+must, he knew, make him a milksop in the eyes of Crum. All he cared
+for was to dress in his last-created riding togs, and steal away to the
+Robin Hill Gate, where presently the silver roan would come demurely
+sidling with its slim and dark-haired rider, and in the glades bare of
+leaves they would go off side by side, not talking very much, riding
+races sometimes, and sometimes holding hands. More than once of an
+evening, in a moment of expansion, he had been tempted to tell his
+mother how this shy sweet cousin had stolen in upon him and wrecked his
+'life.' But bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five were
+spoil-sports, prevented him. After all, he supposed he would have to
+go through with College, and she would have to 'come out,' before they
+could be married; so why complicate things, so long as he could see her?
+Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic beings, a brother worse, so there
+was no one to confide in. Ah! And this beastly divorce business! What a
+misfortune to have a name which other people hadn't! If only he had
+been called Gordon or Scott or Howard or something fairly common! But
+Dartie--there wasn't another in the directory! One might as well have
+been named Morkin for all the covert it afforded! So matters went on,
+till one day in the middle of January the silver-roan palfrey and its
+rider were missing at the tryst. Lingering in the cold, he debated
+whether he should ride on to the house: But Jolly might be there, and
+the memory of their dark encounter was still fresh within him. One could
+not be always fighting with her brother! So he returned dismally to town
+and spent an evening plunged in gloom. At breakfast next day he noticed
+that his mother had on an unfamiliar dress and was wearing her hat.
+The dress was black with a glimpse of peacock blue, the hat black and
+large--she looked exceptionally well. But when after breakfast she said
+to him, "Come in here, Val," and led the way to the drawing-room, he was
+at once beset by qualms. Winifred carefully shut the door and passed her
+handkerchief over her lips; inhaling the violette de Parme with which it
+had been soaked, Val thought: 'Has she found out about Holly?'
+
+Her voice interrupted
+
+"Are you going to be nice to me, dear boy?"
+
+Val grinned doubtfully.
+
+"Will you come with me this morning...."
+
+"I've got to see...." began Val, but something in her face stopped him.
+"I say," he said, "you don't mean...."
+
+"Yes, I have to go to the Court this morning." Already!--that d---d
+business which he had almost succeeded in forgetting, since nobody ever
+mentioned it. In self-commiseration he stood picking little bits of skin
+off his fingers. Then noticing that his mother's lips were all awry,
+he said impulsively: "All right, mother; I'll come. The brutes!" What
+brutes he did not know, but the expression exactly summed up their joint
+feeling, and restored a measure of equanimity.
+
+"I suppose I'd better change into a 'shooter,"' he muttered, escaping to
+his room. He put on the 'shooter,' a higher collar, a pearl pin, and his
+neatest grey spats, to a somewhat blasphemous accompaniment. Looking at
+himself in the glass, he said, "Well, I'm damned if I'm going to show
+anything!" and went down. He found his grandfather's carriage at the
+door, and his mother in furs, with the appearance of one going to a
+Mansion House Assembly. They seated themselves side by side in the
+closed barouche, and all the way to the Courts of Justice Val made but
+one allusion to the business in hand. "There'll be nothing about those
+pearls, will there?"
+
+The little tufted white tails of Winifred's muff began to shiver.
+
+"Oh, no," she said, "it'll be quite harmless to-day. Your grandmother
+wanted to come too, but I wouldn't let her. I thought you could take
+care of me. You look so nice, Val. Just pull your coat collar up a
+little more at the back--that's right."
+
+"If they bully you...." began Val.
+
+"Oh! they won't. I shall be very cool. It's the only way."
+
+"They won't want me to give evidence or anything?"
+
+"No, dear; it's all arranged." And she patted his hand. The determined
+front she was putting on it stayed the turmoil in Val's chest, and he
+busied himself in drawing his gloves off and on. He had taken what he
+now saw was the wrong pair to go with his spats; they should have been
+grey, but were deerskin of a dark tan; whether to keep them on or not he
+could not decide. They arrived soon after ten. It was his first visit to
+the Law Courts, and the building struck him at once.
+
+"By Jove!" he said as they passed into the hall, "this'd make four or
+five jolly good racket courts."
+
+Soames was awaiting them at the foot of some stairs.
+
+"Here you are!" he said, without shaking hands, as if the event had made
+them too familiar for such formalities. "It's Happerly Browne, Court I.
+We shall be on first."
+
+A sensation such as he had known when going in to bat was playing now in
+the top of Val's chest, but he followed his mother and uncle doggedly,
+looking at no more than he could help, and thinking that the place
+smelled 'fuggy.' People seemed to be lurking everywhere, and he plucked
+Soames by the sleeve.
+
+"I say, Uncle, you're not going to let those beastly papers in, are
+you?"
+
+Soames gave him the sideway look which had reduced many to silence in
+its time.
+
+"In here," he said. "You needn't take off your furs, Winifred."
+
+Val entered behind them, nettled and with his head up. In this
+confounded hole everybody--and there were a good many of them--seemed
+sitting on everybody else's knee, though really divided from each other
+by pews; and Val had a feeling that they might all slip down together
+into the well. This, however, was but a momentary vision--of mahogany,
+and black gowns, and white blobs of wigs and faces and papers, all
+rather secret and whispery--before he was sitting next his mother in the
+front row, with his back to it all, glad of her violette de Parme, and
+taking off his gloves for the last time. His mother was looking at him;
+he was suddenly conscious that she had really wanted him there next to
+her, and that he counted for something in this business.
+
+All right! He would show them! Squaring his shoulders, he crossed his
+legs and gazed inscrutably at his spats. But just then an 'old Johnny'
+in a gown and long wig, looking awfully like a funny raddled woman, came
+through a door into the high pew opposite, and he had to uncross his
+legs hastily, and stand up with everybody else.
+
+'Dartie versus Dartie!'
+
+It seemed to Val unspeakably disgusting to have one's name called out
+like this in public! And, suddenly conscious that someone nearly behind
+him had begun talking about his family, he screwed his face round to
+see an old be-wigged buffer, who spoke as if he were eating his own
+words--queer-looking old cuss, the sort of man he had seen once or twice
+dining at Park Lane and punishing the port; he knew now where they 'dug
+them up.' All the same he found the old buffer quite fascinating, and
+would have continued to stare if his mother had not touched his arm.
+Reduced to gazing before him, he fixed his eyes on the Judge's face
+instead. Why should that old 'sportsman' with his sarcastic mouth
+and his quick-moving eyes have the power to meddle with their private
+affairs--hadn't he affairs of his own, just as many, and probably just
+as nasty? And there moved in Val, like an illness, all the deep-seated
+individualism of his breed. The voice behind him droned along:
+"Differences about money matters--extravagance of the respondent" (What
+a word! Was that his father?)--"strained situation--frequent absences
+on the part of Mr. Dartie. My client, very rightly, your
+Ludship will agree, was anxious to check a course--but lead to
+ruin--remonstrated--gambling at cards and on the racecourse--" ('That's
+right!' thought Val, 'pile it on!') "Crisis early in October, when the
+respondent wrote her this letter from his Club." Val sat up and his
+ears burned. "I propose to read it with the emendations necessary to the
+epistle of a gentleman who has been--shall we say dining, me Lud?"
+
+'Old brute!' thought Val, flushing deeper; 'you're not paid to make
+jokes!'
+
+"'You will not get the chance to insult me again in my own house. I am
+leaving the country to-morrow. It's played out'--an expression, your
+Ludship, not unknown in the mouths of those who have not met with
+conspicuous success."
+
+'Sniggering owls!' thought Val, and his flush deepened.
+
+"'I am tired of being insulted by you.' My client will tell your
+Ludship that these so-called insults consisted in her calling him
+'the limit',--a very mild expression, I venture to suggest, in all the
+circumstances."
+
+Val glanced sideways at his mother's impassive face, it had a hunted
+look in the eyes. 'Poor mother,' he thought, and touched her arm with
+his own. The voice behind droned on.
+
+"'I am going to live a new life. M. D.'"
+
+"And next day, me Lud, the respondent left by the steamship Tuscarora
+for Buenos Aires. Since then we have nothing from him but a cabled
+refusal in answer to the letter which my client wrote the following day
+in great distress, begging him to return to her. With your Ludship's
+permission. I shall now put Mrs. Dartie in the box."
+
+When his mother rose, Val had a tremendous impulse to rise too and say:
+'Look here! I'm going to see you jolly well treat her decently.' He
+subdued it, however; heard her saying, 'the truth, the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth,' and looked up. She made a rich figure of it, in
+her furs and large hat, with a slight flush on her cheek-bones, calm,
+matter-of-fact; and he felt proud of her thus confronting all these
+'confounded lawyers.' The examination began. Knowing that this was
+only the preliminary to divorce, Val followed with a certain glee the
+questions framed so as to give the impression that she really wanted
+his father back. It seemed to him that they were 'foxing Old Bagwigs
+finely.'
+
+And he received a most unpleasant jar when the Judge said suddenly:
+
+"Now, why did your husband leave you--not because you called him 'the
+limit,' you know?"
+
+Val saw his uncle lift his eyes to the witness box, without moving his
+face; heard a shuffle of papers behind him; and instinct told him that
+the issue was in peril. Had Uncle Soames and the old buffer behind made
+a mess of it? His mother was speaking with a slight drawl.
+
+"No, my Lord, but it had gone on a long time."
+
+"What had gone on?"
+
+"Our differences about money."
+
+"But you supplied the money. Do you suggest that he left you to better
+his position?"
+
+'The brute! The old brute, and nothing but the brute!' thought Val
+suddenly. 'He smells a rat he's trying to get at the pastry!' And his
+heart stood still. If--if he did, then, of course, he would know that
+his mother didn't really want his father back. His mother spoke again, a
+thought more fashionably.
+
+"No, my Lord, but you see I had refused to give him any more money. It
+took him a long time to believe that, but he did at last--and when he
+did...."
+
+"I see, you had refused. But you've sent him some since."
+
+"My Lord, I wanted him back."
+
+"And you thought that would bring him?"
+
+"I don't know, my Lord, I acted on my father's advice."
+
+Something in the Judge's face, in the sound of the papers behind him, in
+the sudden crossing of his uncle's legs, told Val that she had made just
+the right answer. 'Crafty!' he thought; 'by Jove, what humbug it all
+is!'
+
+The Judge was speaking:
+
+"Just one more question, Mrs. Dartie. Are you still fond of your
+husband?"
+
+Val's hands, slack behind him, became fists. What business had that
+Judge to make things human suddenly? To make his mother speak out of her
+heart, and say what, perhaps, she didn't know herself, before all these
+people! It wasn't decent. His mother answered, rather low: "Yes, my
+Lord." Val saw the Judge nod. 'Wish I could take a cock-shy at your
+head!' he thought irreverently, as his mother came back to her seat
+beside him. Witnesses to his father's departure and continued absence
+followed--one of their own maids even, which struck Val as particularly
+beastly; there was more talking, all humbug; and then the Judge
+pronounced the decree for restitution, and they got up to go. Val walked
+out behind his mother, chin squared, eyelids drooped, doing his level
+best to despise everybody. His mother's voice in the corridor roused him
+from an angry trance.
+
+"You behaved beautifully, dear. It was such a comfort to have you. Your
+uncle and I are going to lunch."
+
+"All right," said Val; "I shall have time to go and see that fellow."
+And, parting from them abruptly, he ran down the stairs and out into the
+air. He bolted into a hansom, and drove to the Goat's Club. His thoughts
+were on Holly and what he must do before her brother showed her this
+thing in to-morrow's paper.
+
+              *****
+
+When Val had left them Soames and Winifred made their way to the
+Cheshire Cheese. He had suggested it as a meeting place with Mr.
+Bellby. At that early hour of noon they would have it to themselves,
+and Winifred had thought it would be 'amusing' to see this far-famed
+hostelry. Having ordered a light repast, to the consternation of the
+waiter, they awaited its arrival together with that of Mr. Bellby, in
+silent reaction after the hour and a half's suspense on the tenterhooks
+of publicity. Mr. Bellby entered presently, preceded by his nose,
+as cheerful as they were glum. Well! they had got the decree of
+restitution, and what was the matter with that!
+
+"Quite," said Soames in a suitably low voice, "but we shall have to
+begin again to get evidence. He'll probably try the divorce--it will
+look fishy if it comes out that we knew of misconduct from the start.
+His questions showed well enough that he doesn't like this restitution
+dodge."
+
+"Pho!" said Mr. Bellby cheerily, "he'll forget! Why, man, he'll have
+tried a hundred cases between now and then. Besides, he's bound by
+precedent to give ye your divorce, if the evidence is satisfactory. We
+won't let um know that Mrs. Dartie had knowledge of the facts. Dreamer
+did it very nicely--he's got a fatherly touch about um!"
+
+Soames nodded.
+
+"And I compliment ye, Mrs. Dartie," went on Mr. Bellby; "ye've a natural
+gift for giving evidence. Steady as a rock."
+
+Here the waiter arrived with three plates balanced on one arm, and the
+remark: "I 'urried up the pudden, sir. You'll find plenty o' lark in it
+to-day."
+
+Mr. Bellby applauded his forethought with a dip of his nose. But Soames
+and Winifred looked with dismay at their light lunch of gravified
+brown masses, touching them gingerly with their forks in the hope of
+distinguishing the bodies of the tasty little song-givers. Having begun,
+however, they found they were hungrier than they thought, and finished
+the lot, with a glass of port apiece. Conversation turned on the war.
+Soames thought Ladysmith would fall, and it might last a year. Bellby
+thought it would be over by the summer. Both agreed that they wanted
+more men. There was nothing for it but complete victory, since it was
+now a question of prestige. Winifred brought things back to more solid
+ground by saying that she did not want the divorce suit to come on till
+after the summer holidays had begun at Oxford, then the boys would have
+forgotten about it before Val had to go up again; the London season too
+would be over. The lawyers reassured her, an interval of six months was
+necessary--after that the earlier the better. People were now beginning
+to come in, and they parted--Soames to the city, Bellby to his chambers,
+Winifred in a hansom to Park Lane to let her mother know how she had
+fared. The issue had been so satisfactory on the whole that it was
+considered advisable to tell James, who never failed to say day after
+day that he didn't know about Winifred's affair, he couldn't tell. As
+his sands ran out; the importance of mundane matters became increasingly
+grave to him, as if he were feeling: 'I must make the most of it, and
+worry well; I shall soon have nothing to worry about.'
+
+He received the report grudgingly. It was a new-fangled way of going
+about things, and he didn't know! But he gave Winifred a cheque, saying:
+
+"I expect you'll have a lot of expense. That's a new hat you've got on.
+Why doesn't Val come and see us?"
+
+Winifred promised to bring him to dinner soon. And, going home, she
+sought her bedroom where she could be alone. Now that her husband had
+been ordered back into her custody with a view to putting him away from
+her for ever, she would try once more to find out from her sore and
+lonely heart what she really wanted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--THE CHALLENGE
+
+The morning had been misty, verging on frost, but the sun came out while
+Val was jogging towards the Roehampton Gate, whence he would canter
+on to the usual tryst. His spirits were rising rapidly. There had been
+nothing so very terrible in the morning's proceedings beyond the general
+disgrace of violated privacy. 'If we were engaged!' he thought, 'what
+happens wouldn't matter.' He felt, indeed, like human society, which
+kicks and clamours at the results of matrimony, and hastens to get
+married. And he galloped over the winter-dried grass of Richmond Park,
+fearing to be late. But again he was alone at the trysting spot, and
+this second defection on the part of Holly upset him dreadfully. He
+could not go back without seeing her to-day! Emerging from the Park, he
+proceeded towards Robin Hill. He could not make up his mind for whom to
+ask. Suppose her father were back, or her sister or brother were in!
+He decided to gamble, and ask for them all first, so that if he were in
+luck and they were not there, it would be quite natural in the end to
+ask for Holly; while if any of them were in--an 'excuse for a ride' must
+be his saving grace.
+
+"Only Miss Holly is in, sir."
+
+"Oh! thanks. Might I take my horse round to the stables? And would you
+say--her cousin, Mr. Val Dartie."
+
+When he returned she was in the hall, very flushed and shy. She led him
+to the far end, and they sat down on a wide window-seat.
+
+"I've been awfully anxious," said Val in a low voice. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"Jolly knows about our riding."
+
+"Is he in?"
+
+"No; but I expect he will be soon."
+
+"Then!" cried Val, and diving forward, he seized her hand. She tried to
+withdraw it, failed, gave up the attempt, and looked at him wistfully.
+
+"First of all," he said, "I want to tell you something about my family.
+My Dad, you know, isn't altogether--I mean, he's left my mother and
+they're trying to divorce him; so they've ordered him to come back, you
+see. You'll see that in the paper to-morrow."
+
+Her eyes deepened in colour and fearful interest; her hand squeezed his.
+But the gambler in Val was roused now, and he hurried on:
+
+"Of course there's nothing very much at present, but there will be, I
+expect, before it's over; divorce suits are beastly, you know. I wanted
+to tell you, because--because--you ought to know--if--" and he began
+to stammer, gazing at her troubled eyes, "if--if you're going to be
+a darling and love me, Holly. I love you--ever so; and I want to be
+engaged." He had done it in a manner so inadequate that he could have
+punched his own head; and dropping on his knees, he tried to get nearer
+to that soft, troubled face. "You do love me--don't you? If you don't
+I...." There was a moment of silence and suspense, so awful that he
+could hear the sound of a mowing-machine far out on the lawn pretending
+there was grass to cut. Then she swayed forward; her free hand touched
+his hair, and he gasped: "Oh, Holly!"
+
+Her answer was very soft: "Oh, Val!"
+
+He had dreamed of this moment, but always in an imperative mood, as the
+masterful young lover, and now he felt humble, touched, trembly. He was
+afraid to stir off his knees lest he should break the spell; lest, if he
+did, she should shrink and deny her own surrender--so tremulous was she
+in his grasp, with her eyelids closed and his lips nearing them. Her
+eyes opened, seemed to swim a little; he pressed his lips to hers.
+Suddenly he sprang up; there had been footsteps, a sort of startled
+grunt. He looked round. No one! But the long curtains which barred off
+the outer hall were quivering.
+
+"My God! Who was that?"
+
+Holly too was on her feet.
+
+"Jolly, I expect," she whispered.
+
+Val clenched fists and resolution.
+
+"All right!" he said, "I don't care a bit now we're engaged," and
+striding towards the curtains, he drew them aside. There at the
+fireplace in the hall stood Jolly, with his back elaborately turned. Val
+went forward. Jolly faced round on him.
+
+"I beg your pardon for hearing," he said.
+
+With the best intentions in the world, Val could not help admiring him
+at that moment; his face was clear, his voice quiet, he looked somehow
+distinguished, as if acting up to principle.
+
+"Well!" Val said abruptly, "it's nothing to you."
+
+"Oh!" said Jolly; "you come this way," and he crossed the hall. Val
+followed. At the study door he felt a touch on his arm; Holly's voice
+said:
+
+"I'm coming too."
+
+"No," said Jolly.
+
+"Yes," said Holly.
+
+Jolly opened the door, and they all three went in. Once in the little
+room, they stood in a sort of triangle on three corners of the worn
+Turkey carpet; awkwardly upright, not looking at each other, quite
+incapable of seeing any humour in the situation.
+
+Val broke the silence.
+
+"Holly and I are engaged."
+
+Jolly stepped back and leaned against the lintel of the window.
+
+"This is our house," he said; "I'm not going to insult you in it. But my
+father's away. I'm in charge of my sister. You've taken advantage of me.
+
+"I didn't mean to," said Val hotly.
+
+"I think you did," said Jolly. "If you hadn't meant to, you'd have
+spoken to me, or waited for my father to come back."
+
+"There were reasons," said Val.
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"About my family--I've just told her. I wanted her to know before things
+happen."
+
+Jolly suddenly became less distinguished.
+
+"You're kids," he said, "and you know you are.
+
+"I am not a kid," said Val.
+
+"You are--you're not twenty."
+
+"Well, what are you?"
+
+"I am twenty," said Jolly.
+
+"Only just; anyway, I'm as good a man as you."
+
+Jolly's face crimsoned, then clouded. Some struggle was evidently taking
+place in him; and Val and Holly stared at him, so clearly was that
+struggle marked; they could even hear him breathing. Then his face
+cleared up and became oddly resolute.
+
+"We'll see that," he said. "I dare you to do what I'm going to do."
+
+"Dare me?"
+
+Jolly smiled. "Yes," he said, "dare you; and I know very well you
+won't."
+
+A stab of misgiving shot through Val; this was riding very blind.
+
+"I haven't forgotten that you're a fire-eater," said Jolly slowly, "and
+I think that's about all you are; or that you called me a pro-Boer."
+
+Val heard a gasp above the sound of his own hard breathing, and saw
+Holly's face poked a little forward, very pale, with big eyes.
+
+"Yes," went on Jolly with a sort of smile, "we shall soon see. I'm going
+to join the Imperial Yeomanry, and I dare you to do the same, Mr. Val
+Dartie."
+
+Val's head jerked on its stem. It was like a blow between the eyes, so
+utterly unthought of, so extreme and ugly in the midst of his dreaming;
+and he looked at Holly with eyes grown suddenly, touchingly haggard.
+
+"Sit down!" said Jolly. "Take your time! Think it over well." And he
+himself sat down on the arm of his grandfather's chair.
+
+Val did not sit down; he stood with hands thrust deep into his breeches'
+pockets-hands clenched and quivering. The full awfulness of this
+decision one way or the other knocked at his mind with double knocks as
+of an angry postman. If he did not take that 'dare' he was disgraced
+in Holly's eyes, and in the eyes of that young enemy, her brute of a
+brother. Yet if he took it, ah! then all would vanish--her face, her
+eyes, her hair, her kisses just begun!
+
+"Take your time," said Jolly again; "I don't want to be unfair."
+
+And they both looked at Holly. She had recoiled against the bookshelves
+reaching to the ceiling; her dark head leaned against Gibbon's Roman
+Empire, her eyes in a sort of soft grey agony were fixed on Val. And he,
+who had not much gift of insight, had suddenly a gleam of vision. She
+would be proud of her brother--that enemy! She would be ashamed of him!
+His hands came out of his pockets as if lifted by a spring.
+
+"All right!" he said. "Done!"
+
+Holly's face--oh! it was queer! He saw her flush, start forward. He
+had done the right thing--her face was shining with wistful admiration.
+Jolly stood up and made a little bow as who should say: 'You've passed.'
+
+"To-morrow, then," he said, "we'll go together."
+
+Recovering from the impetus which had carried him to that decision,
+Val looked at him maliciously from under his lashes. 'All right,' he
+thought, 'one to you. I shall have to join--but I'll get back on you
+somehow.' And he said with dignity: "I shall be ready."
+
+"We'll meet at the main Recruiting Office, then," said Jolly, "at
+twelve o'clock." And, opening the window, he went out on to the terrace,
+conforming to the creed which had made him retire when he surprised them
+in the hall.
+
+The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for whom he
+had paid this sudden price was extreme. The mood of 'showing-off' was
+still, however, uppermost. One must do the wretched thing with an air.
+
+"We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway," he said; "that's
+one comfort." And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to hear the sigh
+which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.
+
+"Oh! the war'll soon be over," he said; "perhaps we shan't even have
+to go out. I don't care, except for you." He would be out of the way
+of that beastly divorce. It was an ill-wind! He felt her warm hand slip
+into his. Jolly thought he had stopped their loving each other, did he?
+He held her tightly round the waist, looking at her softly through his
+lashes, smiling to cheer her up, promising to come down and see her
+soon, feeling somehow six inches taller and much more in command of her
+than he had ever dared feel before. Many times he kissed her before he
+mounted and rode back to town. So, swiftly, on the least provocation,
+does the possessive instinct flourish and grow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--DINNER AT JAMES'
+
+Dinner parties were not now given at James' in Park Lane--to every house
+the moment comes when Master or Mistress is no longer 'up to it'; no
+more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above twenty fine
+white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer wonder why she is
+suddenly shut up.
+
+So with something like excitement Emily--who at seventy would still have
+liked a little feast and fashion now and then--ordered dinner for six
+instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign words on cards, and
+arranged the flowers--mimosa from the Riviera, and white Roman hyacinths
+not from Rome. There would only be, of course, James and herself,
+Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen--but she liked to pretend a little and
+dally in imagination with the glory of the past. She so dressed herself
+that James remarked:
+
+"What are you putting on that thing for? You'll catch cold."
+
+But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of shining,
+unto fourscore years, and she only answered:
+
+"Let me put you on one of those dickies I got you, James; then you'll
+only have to change your trousers, and put on your velvet coat, and
+there you'll be. Val likes you to look nice."
+
+"Dicky!" said James. "You're always wasting your money on something."
+
+But he suffered the change to be made till his neck also shone,
+murmuring vaguely:
+
+"He's an extravagant chap, I'm afraid."
+
+A little brighter in the eye, with rather more colour than usual in his
+cheeks, he took his seat in the drawing-room to wait for the sound of
+the front-door bell.
+
+"I've made it a proper dinner party," Emily said comfortably; "I thought
+it would be good practice for Imogen--she must get used to it now she's
+coming out."
+
+James uttered an indeterminate sound, thinking of Imogen as she used to
+climb about his knee or pull Christmas crackers with him.
+
+"She'll be pretty," he muttered, "I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"She is pretty," said Emily; "she ought to make a good match."
+
+"There you go," murmured James; "she'd much better stay at home and look
+after her mother." A second Dartie carrying off his pretty granddaughter
+would finish him! He had never quite forgiven Emily for having been as
+much taken in by Montague Dartie as he himself had been.
+
+"Where's Warmson?" he said suddenly. "I should like a glass of Madeira
+to-night."
+
+"There's champagne, James."
+
+James shook his head. "No body," he said; "I can't get any good out of
+it."
+
+Emily reached forward on her side of the fire and rang the bell.
+
+"Your master would like a bottle of Madeira opened, Warmson."
+
+"No, no!" said James, the tips of his ears quivering with vehemence, and
+his eyes fixed on an object seen by him alone. "Look here, Warmson, you
+go to the inner cellar, and on the middle shelf of the end bin on the
+left you'll see seven bottles; take the one in the centre, and don't
+shake it. It's the last of the Madeira I had from Mr. Jolyon when we
+came in here--never been moved; it ought to be in prime condition still;
+but I don't know, I can't tell."
+
+"Very good, sir," responded the withdrawing Warmson.
+
+"I was keeping it for our golden wedding," said James suddenly, "but I
+shan't live three years at my age."
+
+"Nonsense, James," said Emily, "don't talk like that."
+
+"I ought to have got it up myself," murmured James, "he'll shake it as
+likely as not." And he sank into silent recollection of long moments
+among the open gas-jets, the cobwebs and the good smell of wine-soaked
+corks, which had been appetiser to so many feasts. In the wine from that
+cellar was written the history of the forty odd years since he had come
+to the Park Lane house with his young bride, and of the many generations
+of friends and acquaintances who had passed into the unknown; its
+depleted bins preserved the record of family festivity--all the
+marriages, births, deaths of his kith and kin. And when he was gone
+there it would be, and he didn't know what would become of it. It'd be
+drunk or spoiled, he shouldn't wonder!
+
+From that deep reverie the entrance of his son dragged him, followed
+very soon by that of Winifred and her two eldest.
+
+They went down arm-in-arm--James with Imogen, the debutante, because
+his pretty grandchild cheered him; Soames with Winifred; Emily with Val,
+whose eyes lighting on the oysters brightened. This was to be a proper
+full 'blowout' with 'fizz' and port! And he felt in need of it, after
+what he had done that day, as yet undivulged. After the first glass or
+two it became pleasant to have this bombshell up his sleeve, this piece
+of sensational patriotism, or example, rather, of personal daring, to
+display--for his pleasure in what he had done for his Queen and Country
+was so far entirely personal. He was now a 'blood,' indissolubly
+connected with guns and horses; he had a right to swagger--not, of
+course, that he was going to. He should just announce it quietly, when
+there was a pause. And, glancing down the menu, he determined on 'Bombe
+aux fraises' as the proper moment; there would be a certain solemnity
+while they were eating that. Once or twice before they reached that rosy
+summit of the dinner he was attacked by remembrance that his grandfather
+was never told anything! Still, the old boy was drinking Madeira, and
+looking jolly fit! Besides, he ought to be pleased at this set-off to
+the disgrace of the divorce. The sight of his uncle opposite, too, was
+a sharp incentive. He was so far from being a sportsman that it would be
+worth a lot to see his face. Besides, better to tell his mother in this
+way than privately, which might upset them both! He was sorry for her,
+but after all one couldn't be expected to feel much for others when one
+had to part from Holly.
+
+His grandfather's voice travelled to him thinly. "Val, try a little of
+the Madeira with your ice. You won't get that up at college."
+
+Val watched the slow liquid filling his glass, the essential oil of the
+old wine glazing the surface; inhaled its aroma, and thought: 'Now for
+it!' It was a rich moment. He sipped, and a gentle glow spread in his
+veins, already heated. With a rapid look round, he said, "I joined
+the Imperial Yeomanry to-day, Granny," and emptied his glass as though
+drinking the health of his own act.
+
+"What!" It was his mother's desolate little word.
+
+"Young Jolly Forsyte and I went down there together."
+
+"You didn't sign?" from Uncle Soames.
+
+"Rather! We go into camp on Monday."
+
+"I say!" cried Imogen.
+
+All looked at James. He was leaning forward with his hand behind his
+ear.
+
+"What's that?" he said. "What's he saying? I can't hear."
+
+Emily reached forward to pat Val's hand.
+
+"It's only that Val has joined the Yeomanry, James; it's very nice for
+him. He'll look his best in uniform."
+
+"Joined the--rubbish!" came from James, tremulously loud. "You can't see
+two yards before your nose. He--he'll have to go out there. Why! he'll
+be fighting before he knows where he is."
+
+Val saw Imogen's eyes admiring him, and his mother still and fashionable
+with her handkerchief before her lips.
+
+Suddenly his uncle spoke.
+
+"You're under age."
+
+"I thought of that," smiled Val; "I gave my age as twenty-one."
+
+He heard his grandmother's admiring, "Well, Val, that was plucky of
+you;" was conscious of Warmson deferentially filling his champagne
+glass; and of his grandfather's voice moaning: "I don't know what'll
+become of you if you go on like this."
+
+Imogen was patting his shoulder, his uncle looking at him sidelong; only
+his mother sat unmoving, till, affected by her stillness, Val said:
+
+"It's all right, you know; we shall soon have them on the run. I only
+hope I shall come in for something."
+
+He felt elated, sorry, tremendously important all at once. This would
+show Uncle Soames, and all the Forsytes, how to be sportsmen. He had
+certainly done something heroic and exceptional in giving his age as
+twenty-one.
+
+Emily's voice brought him back to earth.
+
+"You mustn't have a second glass, James. Warmson!"
+
+"Won't they be astonished at Timothy's!" burst out Imogen. "I'd give
+anything to see their faces. Do you have a sword, Val, or only a
+popgun?"
+
+"What made you?"
+
+His uncle's voice produced a slight chill in the pit of Val's stomach.
+Made him? How answer that? He was grateful for his grandmother's
+comfortable:
+
+"Well, I think it's very plucky of Val. I'm sure he'll make a splendid
+soldier; he's just the figure for it. We shall all be proud of him."
+
+"What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it? Why did you go together?"
+pursued Soames, uncannily relentless. "I thought you weren't friendly
+with him?"
+
+"I'm not," mumbled Val, "but I wasn't going to be beaten by him." He
+saw his uncle look at him quite differently, as if approving. His
+grandfather was nodding too, his grandmother tossing her head. They all
+approved of his not being beaten by that cousin of his. There must be
+a reason! Val was dimly conscious of some disturbing point outside his
+range of vision; as it might be, the unlocated centre of a cyclone. And,
+staring at his uncle's face, he had a quite unaccountable vision of a
+woman with dark eyes, gold hair, and a white neck, who smelt nice, and
+had pretty silken clothes which he had liked feeling when he was quite
+small. By Jove, yes! Aunt Irene! She used to kiss him, and he had bitten
+her arm once, playfully, because he liked it--so soft. His grandfather
+was speaking:
+
+"What's his father doing?"
+
+"He's away in Paris," Val said, staring at the very queer expression on
+his uncle's face, like--like that of a snarling dog.
+
+"Artists!" said James. The word coming from the very bottom of his soul,
+broke up the dinner.
+
+Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the after-fruits
+of heroism, like medlars over-ripe.
+
+She only said, indeed, that he must go to his tailor's at once and have
+his uniform properly made, and not just put up with what they gave him.
+But he could feel that she was very much upset. It was on his lips to
+console her with the spoken thought that he would be out of the way of
+that beastly divorce, but the presence of Imogen, and the knowledge
+that his mother would not be out of the way, restrained him. He felt
+aggrieved that she did not seem more proud of him. When Imogen had gone
+to bed, he risked the emotional.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry to have to leave you, Mother."
+
+"Well, I must make the best of it. We must try and get you a commission
+as soon as we can; then you won't have to rough it so. Do you know any
+drill, Val?"
+
+"Not a scrap."
+
+"I hope they won't worry you much. I must take you about to get the
+things to-morrow. Good-night; kiss me."
+
+With that kiss, soft and hot, between his eyes, and those words, 'I hope
+they won't worry you much,' in his ears, he sat down to a cigarette,
+before a dying fire. The heat was out of him--the glow of cutting a
+dash. It was all a damned heart-aching bore. 'I'll be even with that
+chap Jolly,' he thought, trailing up the stairs, past the room where his
+mother was biting her pillow to smother a sense of desolation which was
+trying to make her sob.
+
+And soon only one of the diners at James' was awake--Soames, in his
+bedroom above his father's.
+
+So that fellow Jolyon was in Paris--what was he doing there? Hanging
+round Irene! The last report from Polteed had hinted that there might
+be something soon. Could it be this? That fellow, with his beard and his
+cursed amused way of speaking--son of the old man who had given him the
+nickname 'Man of Property,' and bought the fatal house from him. Soames
+had ever resented having had to sell the house at Robin Hill; never
+forgiven his uncle for having bought it, or his cousin for living in it.
+
+Reckless of the cold, he threw his window up and gazed out across the
+Park. Bleak and dark the January night; little sound of traffic; a frost
+coming; bare trees; a star or two. 'I'll see Polteed to-morrow,' he
+thought. 'By God! I'm mad, I think, to want her still. That fellow!
+If...? Um! No!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR
+
+Jolyon, who had crossed from Calais by night, arrived at Robin Hill on
+Sunday morning. He had sent no word beforehand, so walked up from the
+station, entering his domain by the coppice gate. Coming to the log
+seat fashioned out of an old fallen trunk, he sat down, first laying his
+overcoat on it.
+
+'Lumbago!' he thought; 'that's what love ends in at my time of life!'
+And suddenly Irene seemed very near, just as she had been that day of
+rambling at Fontainebleau when they had sat on a log to eat their lunch.
+Hauntingly near! Odour drawn out of fallen leaves by the pale-filtering
+sunlight soaked his nostrils. 'I'm glad it isn't spring,' he thought.
+With the scent of sap, and the song of birds, and the bursting of the
+blossoms, it would have been unbearable! 'I hope I shall be over it by
+then, old fool that I am!' and picking up his coat, he walked on into
+the field. He passed the pond and mounted the hill slowly.
+
+Near the top a hoarse barking greeted him. Up on the lawn above the
+fernery he could see his old dog Balthasar. The animal, whose dim eyes
+took his master for a stranger, was warning the world against him.
+Jolyon gave his special whistle. Even at that distance of a hundred
+yards and more he could see the dawning recognition in the obese
+brown-white body. The old dog got off his haunches, and his tail,
+close-curled over his back, began a feeble, excited fluttering; he came
+waddling forward, gathered momentum, and disappeared over the edge
+of the fernery. Jolyon expected to meet him at the wicket gate, but
+Balthasar was not there, and, rather alarmed, he turned into the
+fernery. On his fat side, looking up with eyes already glazing, the old
+dog lay.
+
+"What is it, my poor old man?" cried Jolyon. Balthasar's curled and
+fluffy tail just moved; his filming eyes seemed saying: "I can't get up,
+master, but I'm glad to see you."
+
+Jolyon knelt down; his eyes, very dimmed, could hardly see the slowly
+ceasing heave of the dog's side. He raised the head a little--very
+heavy.
+
+"What is it, dear man? Where are you hurt?" The tail fluttered once; the
+eyes lost the look of life. Jolyon passed his hands all over the inert
+warm bulk. There was nothing--the heart had simply failed in that obese
+body from the emotion of his master's return. Jolyon could feel the
+muzzle, where a few whitish bristles grew, cooling already against his
+lips. He stayed for some minutes kneeling; with his hand beneath the
+stiffening head. The body was very heavy when he bore it to the top of
+the field; leaves had drifted there, and he strewed it with a covering
+of them; there was no wind, and they would keep him from curious eyes
+until the afternoon. 'I'll bury him myself,' he thought. Eighteen years
+had gone since he first went into the St. John's Wood house with that
+tiny puppy in his pocket. Strange that the old dog should die just now!
+Was it an omen? He turned at the gate to look back at that russet mound,
+then went slowly towards the house, very choky in the throat.
+
+June was at home; she had come down hotfoot on hearing the news of
+Jolly's enlistment. His patriotism had conquered her feeling for the
+Boers. The atmosphere of his house was strange and pocketty when Jolyon
+came in and told them of the dog Balthasar's death. The news had a
+unifying effect. A link with the past had snapped--the dog Balthasar!
+Two of them could remember nothing before his day; to June he
+represented the last years of her grandfather; to Jolyon that life of
+domestic stress and aesthetic struggle before he came again into the
+kingdom of his father's love and wealth! And he was gone!
+
+In the afternoon he and Jolly took picks and spades and went out to the
+field. They chose a spot close to the russet mound, so that they need
+not carry him far, and, carefully cutting off the surface turf, began to
+dig. They dug in silence for ten minutes, and then rested.
+
+"Well, old man," said Jolyon, "so you thought you ought?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jolly; "I don't want to a bit, of course."
+
+How exactly those words represented Jolyon's own state of mind
+
+"I admire you for it, old boy. I don't believe I should have done it at
+your age--too much of a Forsyte, I'm afraid. But I suppose the type gets
+thinner with each generation. Your son, if you have one, may be a pure
+altruist; who knows?"
+
+"He won't be like me, then, Dad; I'm beastly selfish."
+
+"No, my dear, that you clearly are not." Jolly shook his head, and they
+dug again.
+
+"Strange life a dog's," said Jolyon suddenly: "The only four-footer with
+rudiments of altruism and a sense of God!"
+
+Jolly looked at his father.
+
+"Do you believe in God, Dad? I've never known."
+
+At so searching a question from one to whom it was impossible to make
+a light reply, Jolyon stood for a moment feeling his back tried by the
+digging.
+
+"What do you mean by God?" he said; "there are two irreconcilable ideas
+of God. There's the Unknowable Creative Principle--one believes in That.
+And there's the Sum of altruism in man--naturally one believes in That."
+
+"I see. That leaves out Christ, doesn't it?"
+
+Jolyon stared. Christ, the link between those two ideas! Out of the
+mouth of babes! Here was orthodoxy scientifically explained at last!
+The sublime poem of the Christ life was man's attempt to join those two
+irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the Sum of human altruism
+was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative Principle as anything else
+in Nature and the Universe, a worse link might have been chosen after
+all! Funny--how one went through life without seeing it in that sort of
+way!
+
+"What do you think, old man?" he said.
+
+Jolly frowned. "Of course, my first year we talked a good bit about
+that sort of thing. But in the second year one gives it up; I don't know
+why--it's awfully interesting."
+
+Jolyon remembered that he also had talked a good deal about it his first
+year at Cambridge, and given it up in his second.
+
+"I suppose," said Jolly, "it's the second God, you mean, that old
+Balthasar had a sense of."
+
+"Yes, or he would never have burst his poor old heart because of
+something outside himself."
+
+"But wasn't that just selfish emotion, really?"
+
+Jolyon shook his head. "No, dogs are not pure Forsytes, they love
+something outside themselves."
+
+Jolly smiled.
+
+"Well, I think I'm one," he said. "You know, I only enlisted because I
+dared Val Dartie to."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"We bar each other," said Jolly shortly.
+
+"Ah!" muttered Jolyon. So the feud went on, unto the third
+generation--this modern feud which had no overt expression?
+
+'Shall I tell the boy about it?' he thought. But to what end--if he had
+to stop short of his own part?
+
+And Jolly thought: 'It's for Holly to let him know about that chap.
+If she doesn't, it means she doesn't want him told, and I should be
+sneaking. Anyway, I've stopped it. I'd better leave well alone!'
+
+So they dug on in silence, till Jolyon said:
+
+"Now, old man, I think it's big enough." And, resting on their spades,
+they gazed down into the hole where a few leaves had drifted already on
+a sunset wind.
+
+"I can't bear this part of it," said Jolyon suddenly.
+
+"Let me do it, Dad. He never cared much for me."
+
+Jolyon shook his head.
+
+"We'll lift him very gently, leaves and all. I'd rather not see him
+again. I'll take his head. Now!"
+
+With extreme care they raised the old dog's body, whose faded tan and
+white showed here and there under the leaves stirred by the wind. They
+laid it, heavy, cold, and unresponsive, in the grave, and Jolly spread
+more leaves over it, while Jolyon, deeply afraid to show emotion before
+his son, began quickly shovelling the earth on to that still shape.
+There went the past! If only there were a joyful future to look forward
+to! It was like stamping down earth on one's own life. They replaced the
+turf carefully on the smooth little mound, and, grateful that they had
+spared each other's feelings, returned to the house arm-in-arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT
+
+On Forsyte 'Change news of the enlistment spread fast, together with
+the report that June, not to be outdone, was going to become a Red Cross
+nurse. These events were so extreme, so subversive of pure Forsyteism,
+as to have a binding effect upon the family, and Timothy's was thronged
+next Sunday afternoon by members trying to find out what they thought
+about it all, and exchange with each other a sense of family credit.
+Giles and Jesse Hayman would no longer defend the coast but go to South
+Africa quite soon; Jolly and Val would be following in April; as to
+June--well, you never knew what she would really do.
+
+The retirement from Spion Kop and the absence of any good news from
+the seat of war imparted an air of reality to all this, clinched in
+startling fashion by Timothy. The youngest of the old Forsytes--scarcely
+eighty, in fact popularly supposed to resemble their father, 'Superior
+Dosset,' even in his best-known characteristic of drinking Sherry--had
+been invisible for so many years that he was almost mythical. A long
+generation had elapsed since the risks of a publisher's business had
+worked on his nerves at the age of forty, so that he had got out with a
+mere thirty-five thousand pounds in the world, and started to make
+his living by careful investment. Putting by every year, at compound
+interest, he had doubled his capital in forty years without having once
+known what it was like to shake in his shoes over money matters. He was
+now putting aside some two thousand a year, and, with the care he was
+taking of himself, expected, so Aunt Hester said, to double his capital
+again before he died. What he would do with it then, with his sisters
+dead and himself dead, was often mockingly queried by free spirits such
+as Francie, Euphemia, or young Nicholas' second, Christopher, whose
+spirit was so free that he had actually said he was going on the stage.
+All admitted, however, that this was best known to Timothy himself, and
+possibly to Soames, who never divulged a secret.
+
+Those few Forsytes who had seen him reported a man of thick and robust
+appearance, not very tall, with a brown-red complexion, grey hair, and
+little of the refinement of feature with which most of the Forsytes had
+been endowed by 'Superior Dosset's' wife, a woman of some beauty and a
+gentle temperament. It was known that he had taken surprising interest
+in the war, sticking flags into a map ever since it began, and there was
+uneasiness as to what would happen if the English were driven into the
+sea, when it would be almost impossible for him to put the flags in the
+right places. As to his knowledge of family movements or his views about
+them, little was known, save that Aunt Hester was always declaring
+that he was very upset. It was, then, in the nature of a portent when
+Forsytes, arriving on the Sunday after the evacuation of Spion Kop,
+became conscious, one after the other, of a presence seated in the only
+really comfortable armchair, back to the light, concealing the lower
+part of his face with a large hand, and were greeted by the awed voice
+of Aunt Hester:
+
+"Your Uncle Timothy, my dear."
+
+Timothy's greeting to them all was somewhat identical; and rather, as it
+were, passed over by him than expressed:
+
+"How de do? How de do? 'Xcuse me gettin' up!"
+
+Francie was present, and Eustace had come in his car; Winifred had
+brought Imogen, breaking the ice of the restitution proceedings with the
+warmth of family appreciation at Val's enlistment; and Marian Tweetyman
+with the last news of Giles and Jesse. These with Aunt Juley and Hester,
+young Nicholas, Euphemia, and--of all people!--George, who had come
+with Eustace in the car, constituted an assembly worthy of the family's
+palmiest days. There was not one chair vacant in the whole of the little
+drawing-room, and anxiety was felt lest someone else should arrive.
+
+The constraint caused by Timothy's presence having worn off a little,
+conversation took a military turn. George asked Aunt Juley when she was
+going out with the Red Cross, almost reducing her to a state of gaiety;
+whereon he turned to Nicholas and said:
+
+"Young Nick's a warrior bold, isn't he? When's he going to don the wild
+khaki?"
+
+Young Nicholas, smiling with a sort of sweet deprecation, intimated that
+of course his mother was very anxious.
+
+"The Dromios are off, I hear," said George, turning to Marian Tweetyman;
+"we shall all be there soon. En avant, the Forsytes! Roll, bowl, or
+pitch! Who's for a cooler?"
+
+Aunt Juley gurgled, George was so droll! Should Hester get Timothy's
+map? Then he could show them all where they were.
+
+At a sound from Timothy, interpreted as assent, Aunt Hester left the
+room.
+
+George pursued his image of the Forsyte advance, addressing Timothy
+as Field Marshal; and Imogen, whom he had noted at once for 'a pretty
+filly,'--as Vivandiere; and holding his top hat between his knees, he
+began to beat it with imaginary drumsticks. The reception accorded to
+his fantasy was mixed. All laughed--George was licensed; but all felt
+that the family was being 'rotted'; and this seemed to them unnatural,
+now that it was going to give five of its members to the service of the
+Queen. George might go too far; and there was relief when he got up,
+offered his arm to Aunt Juley, marched up to Timothy, saluted him,
+kissed his aunt with mock passion, said, "Oh! what a treat, dear papa!
+Come on, Eustace!" and walked out, followed by the grave and fastidious
+Eustace, who had never smiled.
+
+Aunt Juley's bewildered, "Fancy not waiting for the map! You mustn't
+mind him, Timothy. He's so droll!" broke the hush, and Timothy removed
+the hand from his mouth.
+
+"I don't know what things are comin' to," he was heard to say. "What's
+all this about goin' out there? That's not the way to beat those Boers."
+
+Francie alone had the hardihood to observe: "What is, then, Uncle
+Timothy?"
+
+"All this new-fangled volunteerin' and expense--lettin' money out of the
+country."
+
+Just then Aunt Hester brought in the map, handling it like a baby with
+eruptions. With the assistance of Euphemia it was laid on the piano, a
+small Colwood grand, last played on, it was believed, the summer before
+Aunt Ann died, thirteen years ago. Timothy rose. He walked over to the
+piano, and stood looking at his map while they all gathered round.
+
+"There you are," he said; "that's the position up to date; and very poor
+it is. H'm!"
+
+"Yes," said Francie, greatly daring, "but how are you going to alter it,
+Uncle Timothy, without more men?"
+
+"Men!" said Timothy; "you don't want men--wastin' the country's money.
+You want a Napoleon, he'd settle it in a month."
+
+"But if you haven't got him, Uncle Timothy?"
+
+"That's their business," replied Timothy. "What have we kept the Army up
+for--to eat their heads off in time of peace! They ought to be ashamed
+of themselves, comin' on the country to help them like this! Let every
+man stick to his business, and we shall get on."
+
+And looking round him, he added almost angrily:
+
+"Volunteerin', indeed! Throwin' good money after bad! We must save!
+Conserve energy that's the only way." And with a prolonged sound, not
+quite a sniff and not quite a snort, he trod on Euphemia's toe, and went
+out, leaving a sensation and a faint scent of barley-sugar behind him.
+
+The effect of something said with conviction by one who has evidently
+made a sacrifice to say it is ever considerable. And the eight Forsytes
+left behind, all women except young Nicholas, were silent for a moment
+round the map. Then Francie said:
+
+"Really, I think he's right, you know. After all, what is the Army for?
+They ought to have known. It's only encouraging them."
+
+"My dear!" cried Aunt Juley, "but they've been so progressive. Think of
+their giving up their scarlet. They were always so proud of it. And now
+they all look like convicts. Hester and I were saying only yesterday we
+were sure they must feel it very much. Fancy what the Iron Duke would
+have said!"
+
+"The new colour's very smart," said Winifred; "Val looks quite nice in
+his."
+
+Aunt Juley sighed.
+
+"I do so wonder what Jolyon's boy is like. To think we've never seen
+him! His father must be so proud of him."
+
+"His father's in Paris," said Winifred.
+
+Aunt Hester's shoulder was seen to mount suddenly, as if to ward off her
+sister's next remark, for Juley's crumpled cheeks had gushed.
+
+"We had dear little Mrs. MacAnder here yesterday, just back from Paris.
+And whom d'you think she saw there in the street? You'll never guess."
+
+"We shan't try, Auntie," said Euphemia.
+
+"Irene! Imagine! After all this time; walking with a fair beard...."
+
+"Auntie! you'll kill me! A fair beard...."
+
+"I was going to say," said Aunt Juley severely, "a fair-bearded
+gentleman. And not a day older; she was always so pretty," she added,
+with a sort of lingering apology.
+
+"Oh! tell us about her, Auntie," cried Imogen; "I can just remember her.
+She's the skeleton in the family cupboard, isn't she? And they're such
+fun."
+
+Aunt Hester sat down. Really, Juley had done it now!
+
+"She wasn't much of a skeleton as I remember her," murmured Euphemia,
+"extremely well-covered."
+
+"My dear!" said Aunt Juley, "what a peculiar way of putting it--not very
+nice."
+
+"No, but what was she like?" persisted Imogen.
+
+"I'll tell you, my child," said Francie; "a kind of modern Venus, very
+well-dressed."
+
+Euphemia said sharply: "Venus was never dressed, and she had blue eyes
+of melting sapphire."
+
+At this juncture Nicholas took his leave.
+
+"Mrs. Nick is awfully strict," said Francie with a laugh.
+
+"She has six children," said Aunt Juley; "it's very proper she should be
+careful."
+
+"Was Uncle Soames awfully fond of her?" pursued the inexorable Imogen,
+moving her dark luscious eyes from face to face.
+
+Aunt Hester made a gesture of despair, just as Aunt Juley answered:
+
+"Yes, your Uncle Soames was very much attached to her."
+
+"I suppose she ran off with someone?"
+
+"No, certainly not; that is--not precisely.'
+
+"What did she do, then, Auntie?"
+
+"Come along, Imogen," said Winifred, "we must be getting back."
+
+But Aunt Juley interjected resolutely: "She--she didn't behave at all
+well."
+
+"Oh, bother!" cried Imogen; "that's as far as I ever get."
+
+"Well, my dear," said Francie, "she had a love affair which ended with
+the young man's death; and then she left your uncle. I always rather
+liked her."
+
+"She used to give me chocolates," murmured Imogen, "and smell nice."
+
+"Of course!" remarked Euphemia.
+
+"Not of course at all!" replied Francie, who used a particularly
+expensive essence of gillyflower herself.
+
+"I can't think what we are about," said Aunt Juley, raising her hands,
+"talking of such things!"
+
+"Was she divorced?" asked Imogen from the door.
+
+"Certainly not," cried Aunt Juley; "that is--certainly not."
+
+A sound was heard over by the far door. Timothy had re-entered the back
+drawing-room. "I've come for my map," he said. "Who's been divorced?"
+
+"No one, Uncle," replied Francie with perfect truth.
+
+Timothy took his map off the piano.
+
+"Don't let's have anything of that sort in the family," he said. "All
+this enlistin's bad enough. The country's breakin' up; I don't know what
+we're comin' to." He shook a thick finger at the room: "Too many women
+nowadays, and they don't know what they want."
+
+So saying, he grasped the map firmly with both hands, and went out as if
+afraid of being answered.
+
+The seven women whom he had addressed broke into a subdued murmur, out
+of which emerged Francie's, "Really, the Forsytes!" and Aunt Juley's:
+"He must have his feet in mustard and hot water to-night, Hester; will
+you tell Jane? The blood has gone to his head again, I'm afraid...."
+
+That evening, when she and Hester were sitting alone after dinner, she
+dropped a stitch in her crochet, and looked up:
+
+"Hester, I can't think where I've heard that dear Soames wants Irene to
+come back to him again. Who was it told us that George had made a funny
+drawing of him with the words, 'He won't be happy till he gets it'?"
+
+"Eustace," answered Aunt Hester from behind The Times; "he had it in his
+pocket, but he wouldn't show it us."
+
+Aunt Juley was silent, ruminating. The clock ticked, The Times crackled,
+the fire sent forth its rustling purr. Aunt Juley dropped another
+stitch.
+
+"Hester," she said, "I have had such a dreadful thought."
+
+"Then don't tell me," said Aunt Hester quickly.
+
+"Oh! but I must. You can't think how dreadful!" Her voice sank to a
+whisper:
+
+"Jolyon--Jolyon, they say, has a--has a fair beard, now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--PROGRESS OF THE CHASE
+
+Two days after the dinner at James', Mr. Polteed provided Soames with
+food for thought.
+
+"A gentleman," he said, consulting the key concealed in his left hand,
+"47 as we say, has been paying marked attention to 17 during the last
+month in Paris. But at present there seems to have been nothing very
+conclusive. The meetings have all been in public places, without
+concealment--restaurants, the Opera, the Comique, the Louvre, Luxembourg
+Gardens, lounge of the hotel, and so forth. She has not yet been traced
+to his rooms, nor vice versa. They went to Fontainebleau--but nothing
+of value. In short, the situation is promising, but requires patience."
+And, looking up suddenly, he added:
+
+"One rather curious point--47 has the same name as--er--31!"
+
+'The fellow knows I'm her husband,' thought Soames.
+
+"Christian name--an odd one--Jolyon," continued Mr. Polteed. "We know
+his address in Paris and his residence here. We don't wish, of course,
+to be running a wrong hare."
+
+"Go on with it, but be careful," said Soames doggedly.
+
+Instinctive certainty that this detective fellow had fathomed his secret
+made him all the more reticent.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Polteed, "I'll just see if there's anything fresh
+in."
+
+He returned with some letters. Relocking the door, he glanced at the
+envelopes.
+
+"Yes, here's a personal one from 19 to myself."
+
+"Well?" said Soames.
+
+ "Um!" said Mr. Polteed, "she says: '47 left for England to-day.
+Address on his baggage: Robin Hill. Parted from 17 in Louvre Gallery
+at 3.30; nothing very striking. Thought it best to stay and continue
+observation of 17. You will deal with 47 in England if you think
+desirable, no doubt.'" And Mr. Polteed lifted an unprofessional glance
+on Soames, as though he might be storing material for a book on human
+nature after he had gone out of business. "Very intelligent woman, 19,
+and a wonderful make-up. Not cheap, but earns her money well. There's
+no suspicion of being shadowed so far. But after a time, as you know,
+sensitive people are liable to get the feeling of it, without anything
+definite to go on. I should rather advise letting-up on 17, and keeping
+an eye on 47. We can't get at correspondence without great risk. I
+hardly advise that at this stage. But you can tell your client that
+it's looking up very well." And again his narrowed eyes gleamed at his
+taciturn customer.
+
+"No," said Soames suddenly, "I prefer that you should keep the watch
+going discreetly in Paris, and not concern yourself with this end."
+
+"Very well," replied Mr. Polteed, "we can do it."
+
+"What--what is the manner between them?"
+
+"I'll read you what she says," said Mr. Polteed, unlocking a bureau
+drawer and taking out a file of papers; "she sums it up somewhere
+confidentially. Yes, here it is! '17 very attractive--conclude
+47, longer in the tooth' (slang for age, you know)--'distinctly
+gone--waiting his time--17 perhaps holding off for terms, impossible to
+say without knowing more. But inclined to think on the whole--doesn't
+know her mind--likely to act on impulse some day. Both have style.'"
+
+"What does that mean?" said Soames between close lips.
+
+"Well," murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white teeth,
+"an expression we use. In other words, it's not likely to be a weekend
+business--they'll come together seriously or not at all."
+
+"H'm!" muttered Soames, "that's all, is it?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Polteed, "but quite promising."
+
+'Spider!' thought Soames. "Good-day!"
+
+He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria Station
+and take the Underground into the City. For so late in January it was
+warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the frosty grass--an
+illumined cobweb of a day.
+
+Little spiders--and great spiders! And the greatest spinner of all, his
+own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads round any clear
+way out. What was that fellow hanging round Irene for? Was it really
+as Polteed suggested? Or was Jolyon but taking compassion on her
+loneliness, as he would call it--sentimental radical chap that he had
+always been? If it were, indeed, as Polteed hinted! Soames stood still.
+It could not be! The fellow was seven years older than himself, no
+better looking! No richer! What attraction had he?
+
+'Besides, he's come back,' he thought; 'that doesn't look---I'll go and
+see him!' and, taking out a card, he wrote:
+
+"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall be
+at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could come to the
+Hotch Potch if you prefer it. I want to see you.--S. F."
+
+He walked up St. James's Street and confided it to the porter at the
+Hotch Potch.
+
+"Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in," he said, and took
+one of the new motor cabs into the City....
+
+Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face
+towards the Connoisseurs. What did Soames want now? Had he got wind of
+Paris? And stepping across St. James's Street, he determined to make
+no secret of his visit. 'But it won't do,' he thought, 'to let him know
+she's there, unless he knows already.' In this complicated state of mind
+he was conducted to where Soames was drinking tea in a small bay-window.
+
+"No tea, thanks," said Jolyon, "but I'll go on smoking if I may."
+
+The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were lighted;
+the two cousins sat waiting on each other.
+
+"You've been in Paris, I hear," said Soames at last.
+
+"Yes; just back."
+
+"Young Val told me; he and your boy are going off, then?" Jolyon nodded.
+
+"You didn't happen to see Irene, I suppose. It appears she's abroad
+somewhere."
+
+Jolyon wreathed himself in smoke before he answered: "Yes, I saw her."
+
+"How was she?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+There was another silence; then Soames roused himself in his chair.
+
+"When I saw you last," he said, "I was in two minds. We talked, and you
+expressed your opinion. I don't wish to reopen that discussion. I only
+wanted to say this: My position with her is extremely difficult. I don't
+want you to go using your influence against me. What happened is a very
+long time ago. I'm going to ask her to let bygones be bygones."
+
+"You have asked her, you know," murmured Jolyon.
+
+"The idea was new to her then; it came as a shock. But the more she
+thinks of it, the more she must see that it's the only way out for both
+of us."
+
+"That's not my impression of her state of mind," said Jolyon with
+particular calm. "And, forgive my saying, you misconceive the matter if
+you think reason comes into it at all."
+
+He saw his cousin's pale face grow paler--he had used, without knowing
+it, Irene's own words.
+
+"Thanks," muttered Soames, "but I see things perhaps more plainly than
+you think. I only want to be sure that you won't try to influence her
+against me."
+
+"I don't know what makes you think I have any influence," said Jolyon;
+"but if I have I'm bound to use it in the direction of what I think is
+her happiness. I am what they call a 'feminist,' I believe."
+
+"Feminist!" repeated Soames, as if seeking to gain time. "Does that mean
+that you're against me?"
+
+"Bluntly," said Jolyon, "I'm against any woman living with any man whom
+she definitely dislikes. It appears to me rotten."
+
+"And I suppose each time you see her you put your opinions into her
+mind."
+
+"I am not likely to be seeing her."
+
+"Not going back to Paris?"
+
+"Not so far as I know," said Jolyon, conscious of the intent
+watchfulness in Soames' face.
+
+"Well, that's all I had to say. Anyone who comes between man and wife,
+you know, incurs heavy responsibility."
+
+Jolyon rose and made him a slight bow.
+
+"Good-bye," he said, and, without offering to shake hands, moved away,
+leaving Soames staring after him. 'We Forsytes,' thought Jolyon, hailing
+a cab, 'are very civilised. With simpler folk that might have come to a
+row. If it weren't for my boy going to the war....' The war! A gust of
+his old doubt swept over him. A precious war! Domination of peoples or
+of women! Attempts to master and possess those who did not want you! The
+negation of gentle decency! Possession, vested rights; and anyone 'agin'
+'em--outcast! 'Thank Heaven!' he thought, 'I always felt "agin" 'em,
+anyway!' Yes! Even before his first disastrous marriage he could
+remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the matrimonial
+suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed. Parsons would have
+it that freedom of soul and body were quite different things! Pernicious
+doctrine! Body and soul could not thus be separated. Free will was
+the strength of any tie, and not its weakness. 'I ought to have told
+Soames,' he thought, 'that I think him comic. Ah! but he's tragic, too!'
+Was there anything, indeed, more tragic in the world than a man enslaved
+by his own possessive instinct, who couldn't see the sky for it, or even
+enter fully into what another person felt! 'I must write and warn her,'
+he thought; 'he's going to have another try.' And all the way home to
+Robin Hill he rebelled at the strength of that duty to his son which
+prevented him from posting back to Paris....
+
+But Soames sat long in his chair, the prey of a no less gnawing ache--a
+jealous ache, as if it had been revealed to him that this fellow held
+precedence of himself, and had spun fresh threads of resistance to his
+way out. 'Does that mean that you're against me?' he had got nothing out
+of that disingenuous question. Feminist! Phrasey fellow! 'I mustn't rush
+things,' he thought. 'I have some breathing space; he's not going back
+to Paris, unless he was lying. I'll let the spring come!' Though how the
+spring could serve him, save by adding to his ache, he could not tell.
+And gazing down into the street, where figures were passing from pool
+to pool of the light from the high lamps, he thought: 'Nothing seems any
+good--nothing seems worth while. I'm loney--that's the trouble.'
+
+He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark street
+below a church--passing, turning her neck so that he caught the gleam of
+her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark hat, which had gold
+spangles on it and a veil hanging down behind. He opened his eyes--so
+vividly he had seen her! A woman was passing below, but not she! Oh no,
+there was nothing there!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--'HERE WE ARE AGAIN!'
+
+Imogen's frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of her
+mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month of March.
+With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection. It took her
+mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give her a freedom
+but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her boy and his
+fast approaching departure for a war from which the news remained
+disquieting. Like bees busy on summer flowers, or bright gadflies
+hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms, she and her 'little
+daughter,' tall nearly as herself and with a bust measurement not far
+inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent Street, the establishments of
+Hanover Square and of Bond Street, lost in consideration and the feel of
+fabrics. Dozens of young women of striking deportment and peculiar
+gait paraded before Winifred and Imogen, draped in 'creations.' The
+models--'Very new, modom; quite the latest thing--' which those two
+reluctantly turned down, would have filled a museum; the models which
+they were obliged to have nearly emptied James' bank. It was no good
+doing things by halves, Winifred felt, in view of the need for making
+this first and sole untarnished season a conspicuous success. Their
+patience in trying the patience of those impersonal creatures who swam
+about before them could alone have been displayed by such as were moved
+by faith. It was for Winifred a long prostration before her dear goddess
+Fashion, fervent as a Catholic might make before the Virgin; for Imogen
+an experience by no means too unpleasant--she often looked so nice, and
+flattery was implicit everywhere: in a word it was 'amusing.'
+
+On the afternoon of the 20th of March, having, as it were, gutted
+Skywards, they had sought refreshment over the way at Caramel and
+Baker's, and, stored with chocolate frothed at the top with cream,
+turned homewards through Berkeley Square of an evening touched with
+spring. Opening the door--freshly painted a light olive-green; nothing
+neglected that year to give Imogen a good send-off--Winifred passed
+towards the silver basket to see if anyone had called, and suddenly her
+nostrils twitched. What was that scent?
+
+Imogen had taken up a novel sent from the library, and stood absorbed.
+Rather sharply, because of the queer feeling in her breast, Winifred
+said:
+
+"Take that up, dear, and have a rest before dinner."
+
+Imogen, still reading, passed up the stairs. Winifred heard the door
+of her room slammed to, and drew a long savouring breath. Was it spring
+tickling her senses--whipping up nostalgia for her 'clown,' against all
+wisdom and outraged virtue? A male scent! A faint reek of cigars and
+lavender-water not smelt since that early autumn night six months ago,
+when she had called him 'the limit.' Whence came it, or was it ghost of
+scent--sheer emanation from memory? She looked round her. Nothing--not
+a thing, no tiniest disturbance of her hall, nor of the diningroom. A
+little day-dream of a scent--illusory, saddening, silly! In the silver
+basket were new cards, two with 'Mr. and Mrs. Polegate Thom,' and one
+with 'Mr. Polegate Thom' thereon; she sniffed them, but they smelled
+severe. 'I must be tired,' she thought, 'I'll go and lie down.' Upstairs
+the drawing-room was darkened, waiting for some hand to give it
+evening light; and she passed on up to her bedroom. This, too, was
+half-curtained and dim, for it was six o'clock. Winifred threw off her
+coat--that scent again!--then stood, as if shot, transfixed against the
+bed-rail. Something dark had risen from the sofa in the far corner. A
+word of horror--in her family--escaped her: "God!"
+
+"It's I--Monty," said a voice.
+
+Clutching the bed-rail, Winifred reached up and turned the switch of the
+light hanging above her dressing-table. He appeared just on the rim
+of the light's circumference, emblazoned from the absence of his
+watch-chain down to boots neat and sooty brown, but--yes!--split at the
+toecap. His chest and face were shadowy. Surely he was thin--or was it a
+trick of the light? He advanced, lighted now from toe-cap to the top of
+his dark head--surely a little grizzled! His complexion had darkened,
+sallowed; his black moustache had lost boldness, become sardonic; there
+were lines which she did not know about his face. There was no pin in
+his tie. His suit--ah!--she knew that--but how unpressed, unglossy! She
+stared again at the toe-cap of his boot. Something big and relentless
+had been 'at him,' had turned and twisted, raked and scraped him. And
+she stayed, not speaking, motionless, staring at that crack across the
+toe.
+
+"Well!" he said, "I got the order. I'm back."
+
+Winifred's bosom began to heave. The nostalgia for her husband which had
+rushed up with that scent was struggling with a deeper jealousy than any
+she had felt yet. There he was--a dark, and as if harried, shadow of
+his sleek and brazen self! What force had done this to him--squeezed him
+like an orange to its dry rind! That woman!
+
+"I'm back," he said again. "I've had a beastly time. By God! I came
+steerage. I've got nothing but what I stand up in, and that bag."
+
+"And who has the rest?" cried Winifred, suddenly alive. "How dared you
+come? You knew it was just for divorce that you got that order to come
+back. Don't touch me!"
+
+They held each to the rail of the big bed where they had spent so many
+years of nights together. Many times, yes--many times she had wanted him
+back. But now that he had come she was filled with this cold and deadly
+resentment. He put his hand up to his moustache; but did not frizz and
+twist it in the old familiar way, he just pulled it downwards.
+
+"Gad!" he said: "If you knew the time I've had!"
+
+"I'm glad I don't!"
+
+"Are the kids all right?"
+
+Winifred nodded. "How did you get in?"
+
+"With my key."
+
+"Then the maids don't know. You can't stay here, Monty."
+
+He uttered a little sardonic laugh.
+
+"Where then?"
+
+"Anywhere."
+
+"Well, look at me! That--that damned...."
+
+"If you mention her," cried Winifred, "I go straight out to Park Lane
+and I don't come back."
+
+Suddenly he did a simple thing, but so uncharacteristic that it moved
+her. He shut his eyes. It was as if he had said: 'All right! I'm dead to
+the world!'
+
+"You can have a room for the night," she said; "your things are still
+here. Only Imogen is at home."
+
+He leaned back against the bed-rail. "Well, it's in your hands," and his
+own made a writhing movement. "I've been through it. You needn't hit too
+hard--it isn't worth while. I've been frightened; I've been frightened,
+Freddie."
+
+That old pet name, disused for years and years, sent a shiver through
+Winifred.
+
+'What am I to do with him?' she thought. 'What in God's name am I to do
+with him?'
+
+"Got a cigarette?"
+
+She gave him one from a little box she kept up there for when
+she couldn't sleep at night, and lighted it. With that action the
+matter-of-fact side of her nature came to life again.
+
+"Go and have a hot bath. I'll put some clothes out for you in the
+dressing-room. We can talk later."
+
+He nodded, and fixed his eyes on her--they looked half-dead, or was it
+that the folds in the lids had become heavier?
+
+'He's not the same,' she thought. He would never be quite the same
+again! But what would he be?
+
+"All right!" he said, and went towards the door. He even moved
+differently, like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether it is
+worth while to move at all.
+
+When he was gone, and she heard the water in the bath running, she put
+out a complete set of garments on the bed in his dressing-room, then
+went downstairs and fetched up the biscuit box and whisky. Putting on
+her coat again, and listening a moment at the bathroom door, she went
+down and out. In the street she hesitated. Past seven o'clock! Would
+Soames be at his Club or at Park Lane? She turned towards the latter.
+Back!
+
+Soames had always feared it--she had sometimes hoped it.... Back! So
+like him--clown that he was--with this: 'Here we are again!' to make
+fools of them all--of the Law, of Soames, of herself!
+
+Yet to have done with the Law, not to have that murky cloud hanging over
+her and the children! What a relief! Ah! but how to accept his return?
+That 'woman' had ravaged him, taken from him passion such as he had
+never bestowed on herself, such as she had not thought him capable of.
+There was the sting! That selfish, blatant 'clown' of hers, whom she
+herself had never really stirred, had been swept and ungarnished by
+another woman! Insulting! Too insulting! Not right, not decent to take
+him back! And yet she had asked for him; the Law perhaps would make
+her now! He was as much her husband as ever--she had put herself out of
+court! And all he wanted, no doubt, was money--to keep him in cigars and
+lavender-water! That scent! 'After all, I'm not old,' she thought, 'not
+old yet!' But that woman who had reduced him to those words: 'I've been
+through it. I've been frightened--frightened, Freddie!' She neared her
+father's house, driven this way and that, while all the time the Forsyte
+undertow was drawing her to deep conclusion that after all he was her
+property, to be held against a robbing world. And so she came to James'.
+
+"Mr. Soames? In his room? I'll go up; don't say I'm here."
+
+Her brother was dressing. She found him before a mirror, tying a black
+bow with an air of despising its ends.
+
+"Hullo!" he said, contemplating her in the glass; "what's wrong?"
+
+"Monty!" said Winifred stonily.
+
+Soames spun round. "What!"
+
+"Back!"
+
+"Hoist," muttered Soames, "with our own petard. Why the deuce didn't you
+let me try cruelty? I always knew it was too much risk this way."
+
+"Oh! Don't talk about that! What shall I do?"
+
+Soames answered, with a deep, deep sound.
+
+"Well?" said Winifred impatiently.
+
+"What has he to say for himself?"
+
+"Nothing. One of his boots is split across the toe."
+
+Soames stared at her.
+
+"Ah!" he said, "of course! On his beam ends. So--it begins again!
+This'll about finish father."
+
+"Can't we keep it from him?"
+
+"Impossible. He has an uncanny flair for anything that's worrying."
+
+And he brooded, with fingers hooked into his blue silk braces. "There
+ought to be some way in law," he muttered, "to make him safe."
+
+"No," cried Winifred, "I won't be made a fool of again; I'd sooner put
+up with him."
+
+The two stared at each other. Their hearts were full of feeling, but
+they could give it no expression--Forsytes that they were.
+
+"Where did you leave him?"
+
+"In the bath," and Winifred gave a little bitter laugh. "The only thing
+he's brought back is lavender-water."
+
+"Steady!" said Soames, "you're thoroughly upset. I'll go back with you."
+
+"What's the use?"
+
+"We ought to make terms with him."
+
+"Terms! It'll always be the same. When he recovers--cards and betting,
+drink and...!" She was silent, remembering the look on her husband's
+face. The burnt child--the burnt child. Perhaps...!
+
+"Recovers?" replied Soames: "Is he ill?"
+
+"No; burnt out; that's all."
+
+Soames took his waistcoat from a chair and put it on, he took his
+coat and got into it, he scented his handkerchief with eau-de-Cologne,
+threaded his watch-chain, and said: "We haven't any luck."
+
+And in the midst of her own trouble Winifred was sorry for him, as if in
+that little saying he had revealed deep trouble of his own.
+
+"I'd like to see mother," she said.
+
+"She'll be with father in their room. Come down quietly to the study.
+I'll get her."
+
+Winifred stole down to the little dark study, chiefly remarkable for a
+Canaletto too doubtful to be placed elsewhere, and a fine collection of
+Law Reports unopened for many years. Here she stood, with her back to
+maroon-coloured curtains close-drawn, staring at the empty grate, till
+her mother came in followed by Soames.
+
+"Oh! my poor dear!" said Emily: "How miserable you look in here! This is
+too bad of him, really!"
+
+As a family they had so guarded themselves from the expression of all
+unfashionable emotion that it was impossible to go up and give her
+daughter a good hug. But there was comfort in her cushioned voice, and
+her still dimpled shoulders under some rare black lace. Summoning pride
+and the desire not to distress her mother, Winifred said in her most
+off-hand voice:
+
+"It's all right, Mother; no good fussing."
+
+"I don't see," said Emily, looking at Soames, "why Winifred shouldn't
+tell him that she'll prosecute him if he doesn't keep off the premises.
+He took her pearls; and if he's not brought them back, that's quite
+enough."
+
+Winifred smiled. They would all plunge about with suggestions of
+this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and
+that was--nothing. The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort of
+victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining ground in her.
+No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it at home without the
+world knowing.
+
+"Well," said Emily, "come into the dining-room comfortably--you must
+stay and have dinner with us. Leave it to me to tell your father." And,
+as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out the light. Not till
+then did they see the disaster in the corridor.
+
+There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was standing
+with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him, so that his arms
+were not free and his silvered head looked cut off from his fashionably
+trousered legs as if by an expanse of desert. He stood, inimitably
+stork-like, with an expression as if he saw before him a frog too large
+to swallow.
+
+"What's all this?" he said. "Tell your father? You never tell me
+anything."
+
+The moment found Emily without reply. It was Winifred who went up to
+him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless arms, said:
+
+"Monty's not gone bankrupt, Father. He's only come back."
+
+They all three expected something serious to happen, and were glad she
+had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know the depth of root
+in that shadowy old Forsyte. Something wry occurred about his shaven
+mouth and chin, something scratchy between those long silvery whiskers.
+Then he said with a sort of dignity: "He'll be the death of me. I knew
+how it would be."
+
+"You mustn't worry, Father," said Winifred calmly. "I mean to make him
+behave."
+
+"Ah!" said James. "Here, take this thing off, I'm hot." They unwound the
+shawl. He turned, and walked firmly to the dining-room.
+
+"I don't want any soup," he said to Warmson, and sat down in his chair.
+They all sat down too, Winifred still in her hat, while Warmson laid
+the fourth place. When he left the room, James said: "What's he brought
+back?"
+
+"Nothing, Father."
+
+James concentrated his eyes on his own image in a tablespoon. "Divorce!"
+he muttered; "rubbish! What was I about? I ought to have paid him an
+allowance to stay out of England. Soames you go and propose it to him."
+
+It seemed so right and simple a suggestion that even Winifred was
+surprised when she said: "No, I'll keep him now he's back; he must just
+behave--that's all."
+
+They all looked at her. It had always been known that Winifred had
+pluck.
+
+"Out there!" said James elliptically, "who knows what cut-throats!
+You look for his revolver! Don't go to bed without. You ought to have
+Warmson to sleep in the house. I'll see him myself tomorrow."
+
+They were touched by this declaration, and Emily said comfortably:
+"That's right, James, we won't have any nonsense."
+
+"Ah!" muttered James darkly, "I can't tell."
+
+The advent of Warmson with fish diverted conversation.
+
+When, directly after dinner, Winifred went over to kiss her father
+good-night, he looked up with eyes so full of question and distress that
+she put all the comfort she could into her voice.
+
+"It's all right, Daddy, dear; don't worry. I shan't need anyone--he's
+quite bland. I shall only be upset if you worry. Good-night, bless you!"
+
+James repeated the words, "Bless you!" as if he did not quite know what
+they meant, and his eyes followed her to the door.
+
+She reached home before nine, and went straight upstairs.
+
+Dartie was lying on the bed in his dressing-room, fully redressed in a
+blue serge suit and pumps; his arms were crossed behind his head, and an
+extinct cigarette drooped from his mouth.
+
+Winifred remembered ridiculously the flowers in her window-boxes after
+a blazing summer day; the way they lay, or rather stood--parched, yet
+rested by the sun's retreat. It was as if a little dew had come already
+on her burnt-up husband.
+
+He said apathetically: "I suppose you've been to Park Lane. How's the
+old man?"
+
+Winifred could not help the bitter answer: "Not dead."
+
+He winced, actually he winced.
+
+"Understand, Monty," she said, "I will not have him worried. If you
+aren't going to behave yourself, you may go back, you may go anywhere.
+Have you had dinner?"
+
+No.
+
+"Would you like some?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Imogen offered me some. I didn't want any."
+
+Imogen! In the plenitude of emotion Winifred had forgotten her.
+
+"So you've seen her? What did she say?"
+
+"She gave me a kiss."
+
+With mortification Winifred saw his dark sardonic face relaxed. 'Yes!'
+she thought, 'he cares for her, not for me a bit.'
+
+Dartie's eyes were moving from side to side.
+
+"Does she know about me?" he said.
+
+It flashed through Winifred that here was the weapon she needed. He
+minded their knowing!
+
+"No. Val knows. The others don't; they only know you went away."
+
+She heard him sigh with relief.
+
+"But they shall know," she said firmly, "if you give me cause."
+
+"All right!" he muttered, "hit me! I'm down!"
+
+Winifred went up to the bed. "Look here, Monty! I don't want to hit you.
+I don't want to hurt you. I shan't allude to anything. I'm not going
+to worry. What's the use?" She was silent a moment. "I can't stand any
+more, though, and I won't! You'd better know. You've made me suffer.
+But I used to be fond of you. For the sake of that...." She met the
+heavy-lidded gaze of his brown eyes with the downward stare of her
+green-grey eyes; touched his hand suddenly, turned her back, and went
+into her room.
+
+She sat there a long time before her glass, fingering her rings,
+thinking of this subdued dark man, almost a stranger to her, on the bed
+in the other room; resolutely not 'worrying,' but gnawed by jealousy of
+what he had been through, and now and again just visited by pity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV--OUTLANDISH NIGHT
+
+Soames doggedly let the spring come--no easy task for one conscious that
+time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer the hand, no issue from
+the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed reported nothing, except that his
+watch went on--costing a lot of money. Val and his cousin were gone to
+the war, whence came news more favourable; Dartie was behaving himself
+so far; James had retained his health; business prospered almost
+terribly--there was nothing to worry Soames except that he was 'held
+up,' could make no step in any direction.
+
+He did not exactly avoid Soho, for he could not afford to let them think
+that he had 'piped off,' as James would have put it--he might want
+to 'pipe on' again at any minute. But he had to be so restrained and
+cautious that he would often pass the door of the Restaurant Bretagne
+without going in, and wander out of the purlieus of that region which
+always gave him the feeling of having been possessively irregular.
+
+He wandered thus one May night into Regent Street and the most amazing
+crowd he had ever seen; a shrieking, whistling, dancing, jostling,
+grotesque and formidably jovial crowd, with false noses and
+mouth-organs, penny whistles and long feathers, every appanage of
+idiocy, as it seemed to him. Mafeking! Of course, it had been relieved!
+Good! But was that an excuse? Who were these people, what were they,
+where had they come from into the West End? His face was tickled, his
+ears whistled into. Girls cried: 'Keep your hair on, stucco!' A youth so
+knocked off his top-hat that he recovered it with difficulty. Crackers
+were exploding beneath his nose, between his feet. He was bewildered,
+exasperated, offended. This stream of people came from every quarter, as
+if impulse had unlocked flood-gates, let flow waters of whose existence
+he had heard, perhaps, but believed in never. This, then, was the
+populace, the innumerable living negation of gentility and Forsyteism.
+This was--egad!--Democracy! It stank, yelled, was hideous! In the East
+End, or even Soho, perhaps--but here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly!
+What were the police about! In 1900, Soames, with his Forsyte thousands,
+had never seen the cauldron with the lid off; and now looking into
+it, could hardly believe his scorching eyes. The whole thing was
+unspeakable! These people had no restraint, they seemed to think him
+funny; such swarms of them, rude, coarse, laughing--and what laughter!
+
+Nothing sacred to them! He shouldn't be surprised if they began to
+break windows. In Pall Mall, past those august dwellings, to enter which
+people paid sixty pounds, this shrieking, whistling, dancing dervish of
+a crowd was swarming. From the Club windows his own kind were looking
+out on them with regulated amusement. They didn't realise! Why, this was
+serious--might come to anything! The crowd was cheerful, but some day
+they would come in different mood! He remembered there had been a mob in
+the late eighties, when he was at Brighton; they had smashed things and
+made speeches. But more than dread, he felt a deep surprise. They were
+hysterical--it wasn't English! And all about the relief of a little town
+as big as--Watford, six thousand miles away. Restraint, reserve!
+Those qualities to him more dear almost than life, those indispensable
+attributes of property and culture, where were they? It wasn't English!
+No, it wasn't English! So Soames brooded, threading his way on. It was
+as if he had suddenly caught sight of someone cutting the covenant 'for
+quiet possession' out of his legal documents; or of a monster lurking
+and stalking out in the future, casting its shadow before. Their want
+of stolidity, their want of reverence! It was like discovering that
+nine-tenths of the people of England were foreigners. And if that were
+so--then, anything might happen!
+
+At Hyde Park Corner he ran into George Forsyte, very sunburnt from
+racing, holding a false nose in his hand.
+
+"Hallo, Soames!" he said, "have a nose!"
+
+Soames responded with a pale smile.
+
+"Got this from one of these sportsmen," went on George, who had
+evidently been dining; "had to lay him out--for trying to bash my hat.
+I say, one of these days we shall have to fight these chaps, they're
+getting so damned cheeky--all radicals and socialists. They want our
+goods. You tell Uncle James that, it'll make him sleep."
+
+'In vino veritas,' thought Soames, but he only nodded, and passed on up
+Hamilton Place. There was but a trickle of roysterers in Park Lane, not
+very noisy. And looking up at the houses he thought: 'After all, we're
+the backbone of the country. They won't upset us easily. Possession's
+nine points of the law.'
+
+But, as he closed the door of his father's house behind him, all that
+queer outlandish nightmare in the streets passed out of his mind almost
+as completely as if, having dreamed it, he had awakened in the warm
+clean morning comfort of his spring-mattressed bed.
+
+Walking into the centre of the great empty drawing-room, he stood still.
+
+A wife! Somebody to talk things over with. One had a right! Damn it! One
+had a right!
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--SOAMES IN PARIS
+
+Soames had travelled little. Aged nineteen he had made the 'petty tour'
+with his father, mother, and Winifred--Brussels, the Rhine, Switzerland,
+and home by way of Paris. Aged twenty-seven, just when he began to take
+interest in pictures, he had spent five hot weeks in Italy, looking into
+the Renaissance--not so much in it as he had been led to expect--and a
+fortnight in Paris on his way back, looking into himself, as became a
+Forsyte surrounded by people so strongly self-centred and 'foreign'
+as the French. His knowledge of their language being derived from his
+public school, he did not understand them when they spoke. Silence he
+had found better for all parties; one did not make a fool of oneself.
+He had disliked the look of the men's clothes, the closed-in cabs, the
+theatres which looked like bee-hives, the Galleries which smelled of
+beeswax. He was too cautious and too shy to explore that side of Paris
+supposed by Forsytes to constitute its attraction under the rose; and as
+for a collector's bargain--not one to be had! As Nicholas might have put
+it--they were a grasping lot. He had come back uneasy, saying Paris was
+overrated.
+
+When, therefore, in June of 1900 he went to Paris, it was but his third
+attempt on the centre of civilisation. This time, however, the mountain
+was going to Mahomet; for he felt by now more deeply civilised than
+Paris, and perhaps he really was. Moreover, he had a definite objective.
+This was no mere genuflexion to a shrine of taste and immorality, but
+the prosecution of his own legitimate affairs. He went, indeed,
+because things were getting past a joke. The watch went on and on,
+and--nothing--nothing! Jolyon had never returned to Paris, and no one
+else was 'suspect!' Busy with new and very confidential matters, Soames
+was realising more than ever how essential reputation is to a solicitor.
+But at night and in his leisure moments he was ravaged by the thought
+that time was always flying and money flowing in, and his own future as
+much 'in irons' as ever. Since Mafeking night he had become aware that
+a 'young fool of a doctor' was hanging round Annette. Twice he had come
+across him--a cheerful young fool, not more than thirty.
+
+Nothing annoyed Soames so much as cheerfulness--an indecent, extravagant
+sort of quality, which had no relation to facts. The mixture of his
+desires and hopes was, in a word, becoming torture; and lately the
+thought had come to him that perhaps Irene knew she was being shadowed:
+It was this which finally decided him to go and see for himself; to go
+and once more try to break down her repugnance, her refusal to make
+her own and his path comparatively smooth once more. If he failed
+again--well, he would see what she did with herself, anyway!
+
+He went to an hotel in the Rue Caumartin, highly recommended to
+Forsytes, where practically nobody spoke French. He had formed no plan.
+He did not want to startle her; yet must contrive that she had no chance
+to evade him by flight. And next morning he set out in bright weather.
+
+Paris had an air of gaiety, a sparkle over its star-shape which almost
+annoyed Soames. He stepped gravely, his nose lifted a little sideways
+in real curiosity. He desired now to understand things French. Was not
+Annette French? There was much to be got out of his visit, if he could
+only get it. In this laudable mood and the Place de la Concorde he was
+nearly run down three times. He came on the 'Cours la Reine,' where
+Irene's hotel was situated, almost too suddenly, for he had not yet
+fixed on his procedure. Crossing over to the river side, he noted the
+building, white and cheerful-looking, with green sunblinds, seen through
+a screen of plane-tree leaves. And, conscious that it would be far
+better to meet her casually in some open place than to risk a call, he
+sat down on a bench whence he could watch the entrance. It was not quite
+eleven o'clock, and improbable that she had yet gone out. Some pigeons
+were strutting and preening their feathers in the pools of sunlight
+between the shadows of the plane-trees. A workman in a blue blouse
+passed, and threw them crumbs from the paper which contained his dinner.
+A 'bonne' coiffed with ribbon shepherded two little girls with pig-tails
+and frilled drawers. A cab meandered by, whose cocher wore a blue coat
+and a black-glazed hat. To Soames a kind of affectation seemed to
+cling about it all, a sort of picturesqueness which was out of date. A
+theatrical people, the French! He lit one of his rare cigarettes, with
+a sense of injury that Fate should be casting his life into outlandish
+waters. He shouldn't wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life;
+she had never been properly English--even to look at! And he began
+considering which of those windows could be hers under the green
+sunblinds. How could he word what he had come to say so that it might
+pierce the defence of her proud obstinacy? He threw the fag-end of his
+cigarette at a pigeon, with the thought: 'I can't stay here for ever
+twiddling my thumbs. Better give it up and call on her in the late
+afternoon.' But he still sat on, heard twelve strike, and then
+half-past. 'I'll wait till one,' he thought, 'while I'm about it.' But
+just then he started up, and shrinkingly sat down again. A woman
+had come out in a cream-coloured frock, and was moving away under a
+fawn-coloured parasol. Irene herself! He waited till she was too far
+away to recognise him, then set out after her. She was strolling
+as though she had no particular objective; moving, if he remembered
+rightly, toward the Bois de Boulogne. For half an hour at least he kept
+his distance on the far side of the way till she had passed into the
+Bois itself. Was she going to meet someone after all? Some confounded
+Frenchman--one of those 'Bel Ami' chaps, perhaps, who had nothing to do
+but hang about women--for he had read that book with difficulty and a
+sort of disgusted fascination. He followed doggedly along a shady alley,
+losing sight of her now and then when the path curved. And it came back
+to him how, long ago, one night in Hyde Park he had slid and sneaked
+from tree to tree, from seat to seat, hunting blindly, ridiculously, in
+burning jealousy for her and young Bosinney. The path bent sharply, and,
+hurrying, he came on her sitting in front of a small fountain--a little
+green-bronze Niobe veiled in hair to her slender hips, gazing at the
+pool she had wept: He came on her so suddenly that he was past before
+he could turn and take off his hat. She did not start up. She had always
+had great self-command--it was one of the things he most admired in her,
+one of his greatest grievances against her, because he had never
+been able to tell what she was thinking. Had she realised that he
+was following? Her self-possession made him angry; and, disdaining to
+explain his presence, he pointed to the mournful little Niobe, and said:
+
+"That's rather a good thing."
+
+He could see, then, that she was struggling to preserve her composure.
+
+"I didn't want to startle you; is this one of your haunts?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A little lonely." As he spoke, a lady, strolling by, paused to look at
+the fountain and passed on.
+
+Irene's eyes followed her.
+
+"No," she said, prodding the ground with her parasol, "never lonely. One
+has always one's shadow."
+
+Soames understood; and, looking at her hard, he exclaimed:
+
+"Well, it's your own fault. You can be free of it at any moment. Irene,
+come back to me, and be free."
+
+Irene laughed.
+
+"Don't!" cried Soames, stamping his foot; "it's inhuman. Listen! Is
+there any condition I can make which will bring you back to me? If I
+promise you a separate house--and just a visit now and then?"
+
+Irene rose, something wild suddenly in her face and figure.
+
+"None! None! None! You may hunt me to the grave. I will not come."
+
+Outraged and on edge, Soames recoiled.
+
+"Don't make a scene!" he said sharply. And they both stood motionless,
+staring at the little Niobe, whose greenish flesh the sunlight was
+burnishing.
+
+"That's your last word, then," muttered Soames, clenching his hands;
+"you condemn us both."
+
+Irene bent her head. "I can't come back. Good-bye!"
+
+A feeling of monstrous injustice flared up in Soames.
+
+"Stop!" he said, "and listen to me a moment. You gave me a sacred
+vow--you came to me without a penny. You had all I could give you. You
+broke that vow without cause, you made me a by-word; you refused me a
+child; you've left me in prison; you--you still move me so that I want
+you--I want you. Well, what do you think of yourself?"
+
+Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.
+
+"God made me as I am," she said; "wicked if you like--but not so wicked
+that I'll give myself again to a man I hate."
+
+The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to lay a
+caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.
+
+Soames could neither speak nor move. That word 'hate'--so extreme, so
+primitive--made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep imprecation
+he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran almost into the arms
+of the lady sauntering back--the fool, the shadowing fool!
+
+He was soon dripping with perspiration, in the depths of the Bois.
+
+'Well,' he thought, 'I need have no consideration for her now; she has
+not a grain of it for me. I'll show her this very day that she's my wife
+still.'
+
+But on the way home to his hotel, he was forced to the conclusion that
+he did not know what he meant. One could not make scenes in public, and
+short of scenes in public what was there he could do? He almost cursed
+his own thin-skinnedness. She might deserve no consideration; but
+he--alas! deserved some at his own hands. And sitting lunchless in the
+hall of his hotel, with tourists passing every moment, Baedeker in hand,
+he was visited by black dejection. In irons! His whole life, with every
+natural instinct and every decent yearning gagged and fettered, and all
+because Fate had driven him seventeen years ago to set his heart upon
+this woman--so utterly, that even now he had no real heart to set on any
+other! Cursed was the day he had met her, and his eyes for seeing in her
+anything but the cruel Venus she was! And yet, still seeing her with the
+sunlight on the clinging China crepe of her gown, he uttered a little
+groan, so that a tourist who was passing, thought: 'Man in pain! Let's
+see! what did I have for lunch?'
+
+Later, in front of a cafe near the Opera, over a glass of cold tea with
+lemon and a straw in it, he took the malicious resolution to go and dine
+at her hotel. If she were there, he would speak to her; if she were not,
+he would leave a note. He dressed carefully, and wrote as follows:
+
+"Your idyll with that fellow Jolyon Forsyte is known to me at all
+events. If you pursue it, understand that I will leave no stone unturned
+to make things unbearable for him. 'S. F.'"
+
+He sealed this note but did not address it, refusing to write the maiden
+name which she had impudently resumed, or to put the word Forsyte on the
+envelope lest she should tear it up unread. Then he went out, and
+made his way through the glowing streets, abandoned to evening
+pleasure-seekers. Entering her hotel, he took his seat in a far corner
+of the dining-room whence he could see all entrances and exits. She
+was not there. He ate little, quickly, watchfully. She did not come. He
+lingered in the lounge over his coffee, drank two liqueurs of brandy.
+But still she did not come. He went over to the keyboard and examined
+the names. Number twelve, on the first floor! And he determined to
+take the note up himself. He mounted red-carpeted stairs, past a little
+salon; eight-ten-twelve! Should he knock, push the note under, or...?
+He looked furtively round and turned the handle. The door opened, but
+into a little space leading to another door; he knocked on that--no
+answer. The door was locked. It fitted very closely to the floor; the
+note would not go under. He thrust it back into his pocket, and stood
+a moment listening. He felt somehow certain that she was not there.
+And suddenly he came away, passing the little salon down the stairs. He
+stopped at the bureau and said:
+
+"Will you kindly see that Mrs. Heron has this note?"
+
+"Madame Heron left to-day, Monsieur--suddenly, about three o'clock.
+There was illness in her family."
+
+Soames compressed his lips. "Oh!" he said; "do you know her address?"
+
+"Non, Monsieur. England, I think."
+
+Soames put the note back into his pocket and went out. He hailed an open
+horse-cab which was passing.
+
+"Drive me anywhere!"
+
+The man, who, obviously, did not understand, smiled, and waved his whip.
+And Soames was borne along in that little yellow-wheeled Victoria all
+over star-shaped Paris, with here and there a pause, and the question,
+"C'est par ici, Monsieur?" "No, go on," till the man gave it up in
+despair, and the yellow-wheeled chariot continued to roll between the
+tall, flat-fronted shuttered houses and plane-tree avenues--a little
+Flying Dutchman of a cab.
+
+'Like my life,' thought Soames, 'without object, on and on!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--IN THE WEB
+
+Soames returned to England the following day, and on the third morning
+received a visit from Mr. Polteed, who wore a flower and carried a brown
+billycock hat. Soames motioned him to a seat.
+
+"The news from the war is not so bad, is it?" said Mr. Polteed. "I hope
+I see you well, sir."
+
+"Thanks! quite."
+
+Mr. Polteed leaned forward, smiled, opened his hand, looked into it, and
+said softly:
+
+"I think we've done your business for you at last."
+
+"What?" ejaculated Soames.
+
+"Nineteen reports quite suddenly what I think we shall be justified in
+calling conclusive evidence," and Mr. Polteed paused.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"On the 10th instant, after witnessing an interview between 17 and a
+party, earlier in the day, 19 can swear to having seen him coming out of
+her bedroom in the hotel about ten o'clock in the evening. With a little
+care in the giving of the evidence that will be enough, especially as 17
+has left Paris--no doubt with the party in question. In fact, they both
+slipped off, and we haven't got on to them again, yet; but we shall--we
+shall. She's worked hard under very difficult circumstances, and I'm
+glad she's brought it off at last." Mr. Polteed took out a cigarette,
+tapped its end against the table, looked at Soames, and put it back. The
+expression on his client's face was not encouraging.
+
+"Who is this new person?" said Soames abruptly.
+
+"That we don't know. She'll swear to the fact, and she's got his
+appearance pat."
+
+Mr. Polteed took out a letter, and began reading:
+
+"'Middle-aged, medium height, blue dittoes in afternoon, evening dress
+at night, pale, dark hair, small dark moustache, flat cheeks, good chin,
+grey eyes, small feet, guilty look....'"
+
+Soames rose and went to the window. He stood there in sardonic fury.
+Congenital idiot--spidery congenital idiot! Seven months at fifteen
+pounds a week--to be tracked down as his own wife's lover! Guilty look!
+He threw the window open.
+
+"It's hot," he said, and came back to his seat.
+
+Crossing his knees, he bent a supercilious glance on Mr. Polteed.
+
+"I doubt if that's quite good enough," he said, drawling the words,
+"with no name or address. I think you may let that lady have a rest, and
+take up our friend 47 at this end." Whether Polteed had spotted him he
+could not tell; but he had a mental vision of him in the midst of
+his cronies dissolved in inextinguishable laughter. 'Guilty look!'
+Damnation!
+
+Mr. Polteed said in a tone of urgency, almost of pathos: "I assure you
+we have put it through sometimes on less than that. It's Paris, you
+know. Attractive woman living alone. Why not risk it, sir? We might
+screw it up a peg."
+
+Soames had sudden insight. The fellow's professional zeal was stirred:
+'Greatest triumph of my career; got a man his divorce through a visit to
+his own wife's bedroom! Something to talk of there, when I retire!' And
+for one wild moment he thought: 'Why not?' After all, hundreds of men of
+medium height had small feet and a guilty look!
+
+"I'm not authorised to take any risk!" he said shortly.
+
+Mr. Polteed looked up.
+
+"Pity," he said, "quite a pity! That other affair seemed very costive."
+
+Soames rose.
+
+"Never mind that. Please watch 47, and take care not to find a mare's
+nest. Good-morning!"
+
+Mr. Polteed's eye glinted at the words 'mare's nest!'
+
+"Very good. You shall be kept informed."
+
+And Soames was alone again. The spidery, dirty, ridiculous business!
+Laying his arms on the table, he leaned his forehead on them. Full ten
+minutes he rested thus, till a managing clerk roused him with the draft
+prospectus of a new issue of shares, very desirable, in Manifold and
+Topping's. That afternoon he left work early and made his way to the
+Restaurant Bretagne. Only Madame Lamotte was in. Would Monsieur have tea
+with her?
+
+Soames bowed.
+
+When they were seated at right angles to each other in the little room,
+he said abruptly:
+
+"I want a talk with you, Madame."
+
+The quick lift of her clear brown eyes told him that she had long
+expected such words.
+
+"I have to ask you something first: That young doctor--what's his name?
+Is there anything between him and Annette?"
+
+Her whole personality had become, as it were, like jet--clear-cut,
+black, hard, shining.
+
+"Annette is young," she said; "so is monsieur le docteur. Between young
+people things move quickly; but Annette is a good daughter. Ah! what a
+jewel of a nature!"
+
+The least little smile twisted Soames' lips.
+
+"Nothing definite, then?"
+
+"But definite--no, indeed! The young man is veree nice, but--what would
+you? There is no money at present."
+
+She raised her willow-patterned tea-cup; Soames did the same. Their eyes
+met.
+
+"I am a married man," he said, "living apart from my wife for many
+years. I am seeking to divorce her."
+
+Madame Lamotte put down her cup. Indeed! What tragic things there were!
+The entire absence of sentiment in her inspired a queer species of
+contempt in Soames.
+
+"I am a rich man," he added, fully conscious that the remark was not
+in good taste. "It is useless to say more at present, but I think you
+understand."
+
+Madame's eyes, so open that the whites showed above them, looked at him
+very straight.
+
+"Ah! ca--mais nous avons le temps!" was all she said. "Another little
+cup?" Soames refused, and, taking his leave, walked westward.
+
+He had got that off his mind; she would not let Annette commit herself
+with that cheerful young ass until...! But what chance of his ever
+being able to say: 'I'm free.' What chance? The future had lost all
+semblance of reality. He felt like a fly, entangled in cobweb filaments,
+watching the desirable freedom of the air with pitiful eyes.
+
+He was short of exercise, and wandered on to Kensington Gardens, and
+down Queen's Gate towards Chelsea. Perhaps she had gone back to her
+flat. That at all events he could find out. For since that last and most
+ignominious repulse his wounded self-respect had taken refuge again in
+the feeling that she must have a lover. He arrived before the little
+Mansions at the dinner-hour. No need to enquire! A grey-haired lady was
+watering the flower-boxes in her window. It was evidently let. And he
+walked slowly past again, along the river--an evening of clear, quiet
+beauty, all harmony and comfort, except within his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--RICHMOND PARK
+
+On the afternoon that Soames crossed to France a cablegram was received
+by Jolyon at Robin Hill:
+
+"Your son down with enteric no immediate danger will cable again."
+
+It reached a household already agitated by the imminent departure of
+June, whose berth was booked for the following day. She was, indeed, in
+the act of confiding Eric Cobbley and his family to her father's care
+when the message arrived.
+
+The resolution to become a Red Cross nurse, taken under stimulus of
+Jolly's enlistment, had been loyally fulfilled with the irritation
+and regret which all Forsytes feel at what curtails their individual
+liberties. Enthusiastic at first about the 'wonderfulness' of the work,
+she had begun after a month to feel that she could train herself so much
+better than others could train her. And if Holly had not insisted on
+following her example, and being trained too, she must inevitably have
+'cried off.' The departure of Jolly and Val with their troop in April
+had further stiffened her failing resolve. But now, on the point of
+departure, the thought of leaving Eric Cobbley, with a wife and two
+children, adrift in the cold waters of an unappreciative world weighed
+on her so that she was still in danger of backing out. The reading of
+that cablegram, with its disquieting reality, clinched the matter. She
+saw herself already nursing Jolly--for of course they would let her
+nurse her own brother! Jolyon--ever wide and doubtful--had no such hope.
+Poor June!
+
+Could any Forsyte of her generation grasp how rude and brutal life was?
+Ever since he knew of his boy's arrival at Cape Town the thought of
+him had been a kind of recurrent sickness in Jolyon. He could not get
+reconciled to the feeling that Jolly was in danger all the time. The
+cablegram, grave though it was, was almost a relief. He was now safe
+from bullets, anyway. And yet--this enteric was a virulent disease! The
+Times was full of deaths therefrom. Why could he not be lying out there
+in that up-country hospital, and his boy safe at home? The un-Forsytean
+self-sacrifice of his three children, indeed, had quite bewildered
+Jolyon. He would eagerly change places with Jolly, because he loved his
+boy; but no such personal motive was influencing them. He could only
+think that it marked the decline of the Forsyte type.
+
+Late that afternoon Holly came out to him under the old oak-tree. She
+had grown up very much during these last months of hospital training
+away from home. And, seeing her approach, he thought: 'She has more
+sense than June, child though she is; more wisdom. Thank God she isn't
+going out.' She had seated herself in the swing, very silent and still.
+'She feels this,' thought Jolyon, 'as much as I' and, seeing her eyes
+fixed on him, he said: "Don't take it to heart too much, my child. If he
+weren't ill, he might be in much greater danger."
+
+Holly got out of the swing.
+
+"I want to tell you something, Dad. It was through me that Jolly
+enlisted and went out."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"When you were away in Paris, Val Dartie and I fell in love. We used to
+ride in Richmond Park; we got engaged. Jolly found it out, and thought
+he ought to stop it; so he dared Val to enlist. It was all my fault,
+Dad; and I want to go out too. Because if anything happens to either of
+them I should feel awful. Besides, I'm just as much trained as June."
+
+Jolyon gazed at her in a stupefaction that was tinged with irony. So
+this was the answer to the riddle he had been asking himself; and his
+three children were Forsytes after all. Surely Holly might have told
+him all this before! But he smothered the sarcastic sayings on his
+lips. Tenderness to the young was perhaps the most sacred article of his
+belief. He had got, no doubt, what he deserved. Engaged! So this was
+why he had so lost touch with her! And to young Val Dartie--nephew of
+Soames--in the other camp! It was all terribly distasteful. He closed
+his easel, and set his drawing against the tree.
+
+"Have you told June?"
+
+"Yes; she says she'll get me into her cabin somehow. It's a single
+cabin; but one of us could sleep on the floor. If you consent, she'll go
+up now and get permission."
+
+'Consent?' thought Jolyon. 'Rather late in the day to ask for that!' But
+again he checked himself.
+
+"You're too young, my dear; they won't let you."
+
+"June knows some people that she helped to go to Cape Town. If they
+won't let me nurse yet, I could stay with them and go on training there.
+Let me go, Dad!"
+
+Jolyon smiled because he could have cried.
+
+"I never stop anyone from doing anything," he said.
+
+Holly flung her arms round his neck.
+
+"Oh! Dad, you are the best in the world."
+
+'That means the worst,' thought Jolyon. If he had ever doubted his creed
+of tolerance he did so then.
+
+"I'm not friendly with Val's family," he said, "and I don't know Val,
+but Jolly didn't like him."
+
+Holly looked at the distance and said:
+
+"I love him."
+
+"That settles it," said Jolyon dryly, then catching the expression on
+her face, he kissed her, with the thought: 'Is anything more pathetic
+than the faith of the young?' Unless he actually forbade her going it
+was obvious that he must make the best of it, so he went up to town with
+June. Whether due to her persistence, or the fact that the official they
+saw was an old school friend of Jolyon's, they obtained permission for
+Holly to share the single cabin. He took them to Surbiton station the
+following evening, and they duly slid away from him, provided with
+money, invalid foods, and those letters of credit without which Forsytes
+do not travel.
+
+He drove back to Robin Hill under a brilliant sky to his late dinner,
+served with an added care by servants trying to show him that they
+sympathised, eaten with an added scrupulousness to show them that he
+appreciated their sympathy. But it was a real relief to get to his cigar
+on the terrace of flag-stones--cunningly chosen by young Bosinney for
+shape and colour--with night closing in around him, so beautiful a
+night, hardly whispering in the trees, and smelling so sweet that it
+made him ache. The grass was drenched with dew, and he kept to those
+flagstones, up and down, till presently it began to seem to him that he
+was one of three, not wheeling, but turning right about at each end,
+so that his father was always nearest to the house, and his son always
+nearest to the terrace edge. Each had an arm lightly within his arm; he
+dared not lift his hand to his cigar lest he should disturb them, and
+it burned away, dripping ash on him, till it dropped from his lips,
+at last, which were getting hot. They left him then, and his arms felt
+chilly. Three Jolyons in one Jolyon they had walked.
+
+He stood still, counting the sounds--a carriage passing on the highroad,
+a distant train, the dog at Gage's farm, the whispering trees, the groom
+playing on his penny whistle. A multitude of stars up there--bright and
+silent, so far off! No moon as yet! Just enough light to show him the
+dark flags and swords of the iris flowers along the terrace edge--his
+favourite flower that had the night's own colour on its curving crumpled
+petals. He turned round to the house. Big, unlighted, not a soul beside
+himself to live in all that part of it. Stark loneliness! He could
+not go on living here alone. And yet, so long as there was beauty, why
+should a man feel lonely? The answer--as to some idiot's riddle--was:
+Because he did. The greater the beauty, the greater the loneliness,
+for at the back of beauty was harmony, and at the back of harmony
+was--union. Beauty could not comfort if the soul were out of it. The
+night, maddeningly lovely, with bloom of grapes on it in starshine, and
+the breath of grass and honey coming from it, he could not enjoy, while
+she who was to him the life of beauty, its embodiment and essence, was
+cut off from him, utterly cut off now, he felt, by honourable decency.
+
+He made a poor fist of sleeping, striving too hard after that
+resignation which Forsytes find difficult to reach, bred to their own
+way and left so comfortably off by their fathers. But after dawn he
+dozed off, and soon was dreaming a strange dream.
+
+He was on a stage with immensely high rich curtains--high as the very
+stars--stretching in a semi-circle from footlights to footlights. He
+himself was very small, a little black restless figure roaming up and
+down; and the odd thing was that he was not altogether himself, but
+Soames as well, so that he was not only experiencing but watching. This
+figure of himself and Soames was trying to find a way out through the
+curtains, which, heavy and dark, kept him in. Several times he had
+crossed in front of them before he saw with delight a sudden narrow
+rift--a tall chink of beauty the colour of iris flowers, like a glimpse
+of Paradise, remote, ineffable. Stepping quickly forward to pass into
+it, he found the curtains closing before him. Bitterly disappointed
+he--or was it Soames?--moved on, and there was the chink again through
+the parted curtains, which again closed too soon. This went on and on
+and he never got through till he woke with the word "Irene" on his lips.
+The dream disturbed him badly, especially that identification of himself
+with Soames.
+
+Next morning, finding it impossible to work, he spent hours riding
+Jolly's horse in search of fatigue. And on the second day he made up his
+mind to move to London and see if he could not get permission to follow
+his daughters to South Africa. He had just begun to pack the following
+morning when he received this letter:
+
+
+"GREEN HOTEL,
+
+"June 13.
+
+"RICHMOND.
+
+"MY DEAR JOLYON,
+
+"You will be surprised to see how near I am to you. Paris became
+impossible--and I have come here to be within reach of your advice. I
+would so love to see you again. Since you left Paris I don't think I
+have met anyone I could really talk to. Is all well with you and with
+your boy? No one knows, I think, that I am here at present.
+
+"Always your friend,
+
+"IRENE."
+
+
+Irene within three miles of him!--and again in flight! He stood with a
+very queer smile on his lips. This was more than he had bargained for!
+
+About noon he set out on foot across Richmond Park, and as he went
+along, he thought: 'Richmond Park! By Jove, it suits us Forsytes!' Not
+that Forsytes lived there--nobody lived there save royalty, rangers, and
+the deer--but in Richmond Park Nature was allowed to go so far and no
+further, putting up a brave show of being natural, seeming to say: 'Look
+at my instincts--they are almost passions, very nearly out of hand, but
+not quite, of course; the very hub of possession is to possess oneself.'
+Yes! Richmond Park possessed itself, even on that bright day of June,
+with arrowy cuckoos shifting the tree-points of their calls, and the
+wood doves announcing high summer.
+
+The Green Hotel, which Jolyon entered at one o'clock, stood nearly
+opposite that more famous hostelry, the Crown and Sceptre; it was
+modest, highly respectable, never out of cold beef, gooseberry tart, and
+a dowager or two, so that a carriage and pair was almost always standing
+before the door.
+
+In a room draped in chintz so slippery as to forbid all emotion, Irene
+was sitting on a piano stool covered with crewel work, playing
+'Hansel and Gretel' out of an old score. Above her on a wall, not yet
+Morris-papered, was a print of the Queen on a pony, amongst deer-hounds,
+Scotch caps, and slain stags; beside her in a pot on the window-sill
+was a white and rosy fuchsia. The Victorianism of the room almost
+talked; and in her clinging frock Irene seemed to Jolyon like Venus
+emerging from the shell of the past century.
+
+"If the proprietor had eyes," he said, "he would show you the door; you
+have broken through his decorations." Thus lightly he smothered up an
+emotional moment. Having eaten cold beef, pickled walnut, gooseberry
+tart, and drunk stone-bottle ginger-beer, they walked into the Park, and
+light talk was succeeded by the silence Jolyon had dreaded.
+
+"You haven't told me about Paris," he said at last.
+
+"No. I've been shadowed for a long time; one gets used to that. But then
+Soames came. By the little Niobe--the same story; would I go back to
+him?"
+
+"Incredible!"
+
+She had spoken without raising her eyes, but she looked up now. Those
+dark eyes clinging to his said as no words could have: 'I have come to
+an end; if you want me, here I am.'
+
+For sheer emotional intensity had he ever--old as he was--passed through
+such a moment?
+
+The words: 'Irene, I adore you!' almost escaped him. Then, with a
+clearness of which he would not have believed mental vision capable, he
+saw Jolly lying with a white face turned to a white wall.
+
+"My boy is very ill out there," he said quietly.
+
+Irene slipped her arm through his.
+
+"Let's walk on; I understand."
+
+No miserable explanation to attempt! She had understood! And they walked
+on among the bracken, knee-high already, between the rabbit-holes and
+the oak-trees, talking of Jolly. He left her two hours later at the
+Richmond Hill Gate, and turned towards home.
+
+'She knows of my feeling for her, then,' he thought. Of course! One
+could not keep knowledge of that from such a woman!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--OVER THE RIVER
+
+Jolly was tired to death of dreams. They had left him now too wan and
+weak to dream again; left him to lie torpid, faintly remembering far-off
+things; just able to turn his eyes and gaze through the window near his
+cot at the trickle of river running by in the sands, at the straggling
+milk-bush of the Karoo beyond. He knew what the Karoo was now, even if
+he had not seen a Boer roll over like a rabbit, or heard the whine of
+flying bullets. This pestilence had sneaked on him before he had smelled
+powder. A thirsty day and a rash drink, or perhaps a tainted fruit--who
+knew? Not he, who had not even strength left to grudge the evil thing
+its victory--just enough to know that there were many lying here with
+him, that he was sore with frenzied dreaming; just enough to watch
+that thread of river and be able to remember faintly those far-away
+things....
+
+The sun was nearly down. It would be cooler soon. He would have liked
+to know the time--to feel his old watch, so butter-smooth, to hear the
+repeater strike. It would have been friendly, home-like. He had not even
+strength to remember that the old watch was last wound the day he began
+to lie here. The pulse of his brain beat so feebly that faces which came
+and went, nurse's, doctor's, orderly's, were indistinguishable, just
+one indifferent face; and the words spoken about him meant all the same
+thing, and that almost nothing. Those things he used to do, though far
+and faint, were more distinct--walking past the foot of the old steps
+at Harrow 'bill'--'Here, sir! Here, sir!'--wrapping boots in the
+Westminster Gazette, greenish paper, shining boots--grandfather coming
+from somewhere dark--a smell of earth--the mushroom house! Robin Hill!
+Burying poor old Balthasar in the leaves! Dad! Home....
+
+Consciousness came again with noticing that the river had no water in
+it--someone was speaking too. Want anything? No. What could one want?
+Too weak to want--only to hear his watch strike....
+
+Holly! She wouldn't bowl properly. Oh! Pitch them up! Not sneaks!...
+'Back her, Two and Bow!' He was Two!... Consciousness came once more
+with a sense of the violet dusk outside, and a rising blood-red
+crescent moon. His eyes rested on it fascinated; in the long minutes of
+brain-nothingness it went moving up and up....
+
+"He's going, doctor!" Not pack boots again? Never? 'Mind your form,
+Two!' Don't cry! Go quietly--over the river--sleep!... Dark? If somebody
+would--strike--his--watch!...
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--SOAMES ACTS
+
+A sealed letter in the handwriting of Mr. Polteed remained unopened
+in Soames' pocket throughout two hours of sustained attention to the
+affairs of the 'New Colliery Company,' which, declining almost from the
+moment of old Jolyon's retirement from the Chairmanship, had lately run
+down so fast that there was now nothing for it but a 'winding-up.' He
+took the letter out to lunch at his City Club, sacred to him for the
+meals he had eaten there with his father in the early seventies, when
+James used to like him to come and see for himself the nature of his
+future life.
+
+Here in a remote corner before a plate of roast mutton and mashed
+potato, he read:
+
+
+"DEAR SIR,
+
+"In accordance with your suggestion we have duly taken the matter up at
+the other end with gratifying results. Observation of 47 has enabled us
+to locate 17 at the Green Hotel, Richmond. The two have been observed
+to meet daily during the past week in Richmond Park. Nothing absolutely
+crucial has so far been notified. But in conjunction with what we had
+from Paris at the beginning of the year, I am confident we could now
+satisfy the Court. We shall, of course, continue to watch the matter
+until we hear from you.
+
+"Very faithfully yours,
+
+"CLAUD POLTEED."
+
+
+Soames read it through twice and beckoned to the waiter:
+
+"Take this away; it's cold."
+
+"Shall I bring you some more, sir?"
+
+"No. Get me some coffee in the other room."
+
+And, paying for what he had not eaten, he went out, passing two
+acquaintances without sign of recognition.
+
+'Satisfy the Court!' he thought, sitting at a little round marble
+table with the coffee before him. That fellow Jolyon! He poured out his
+coffee, sweetened and drank it. He would disgrace him in the eyes of his
+own children! And rising, with that resolution hot within him, he found
+for the first time the inconvenience of being his own solicitor. He
+could not treat this scandalous matter in his own office. He must commit
+the soul of his private dignity to a stranger, some other professional
+dealer in family dishonour. Who was there he could go to? Linkman and
+Laver in Budge Row, perhaps--reliable, not too conspicuous, only nodding
+acquaintances. But before he saw them he must see Polteed again. But
+at this thought Soames had a moment of sheer weakness. To part with his
+secret? How find the words? How subject himself to contempt and secret
+laughter? Yet, after all, the fellow knew already--oh yes, he knew! And,
+feeling that he must finish with it now, he took a cab into the West
+End.
+
+In this hot weather the window of Mr. Polteed's room was positively
+open, and the only precaution was a wire gauze, preventing the intrusion
+of flies. Two or three had tried to come in, and been caught, so that
+they seemed to be clinging there with the intention of being devoured
+presently. Mr. Polteed, following the direction of his client's eye,
+rose apologetically and closed the window.
+
+'Posing ass!' thought Soames. Like all who fundamentally believe in
+themselves he was rising to the occasion, and, with his little sideway
+smile, he said: "I've had your letter. I'm going to act. I suppose
+you know who the lady you've been watching really is?" Mr. Polteed's
+expression at that moment was a masterpiece. It so clearly said: 'Well,
+what do you think? But mere professional knowledge, I assure you--pray
+forgive it!' He made a little half airy movement with his hand, as who
+should say: 'Such things--such things will happen to us all!'
+
+"Very well, then," said Soames, moistening his lips: "there's no need to
+say more. I'm instructing Linkman and Laver of Budge Row to act for me.
+I don't want to hear your evidence, but kindly make your report to them
+at five o'clock, and continue to observe the utmost secrecy."
+
+Mr. Polteed half closed his eyes, as if to comply at once. "My dear
+sir," he said.
+
+"Are you convinced," asked Soames with sudden energy, "that there is
+enough?"
+
+The faintest movement occurred to Mr. Polteed's shoulders.
+
+"You can risk it," he murmured; "with what we have, and human nature,
+you can risk it."
+
+Soames rose. "You will ask for Mr. Linkman. Thanks; don't get up." He
+could not bear Mr. Polteed to slide as usual between him and the door.
+In the sunlight of Piccadilly he wiped his forehead. This had been the
+worst of it--he could stand the strangers better. And he went back into
+the City to do what still lay before him.
+
+That evening in Park Lane, watching his father dine, he was overwhelmed
+by his old longing for a son--a son, to watch him eat as he went down
+the years, to be taken on his knee as James on a time had been wont to
+take him; a son of his own begetting, who could understand him because
+he was the same flesh and blood--understand, and comfort him, and become
+more rich and cultured than himself because he would start even
+better off. To get old--like that thin, grey wiry-frail figure sitting
+there--and be quite alone with possessions heaping up around him; to
+take no interest in anything because it had no future and must pass away
+from him to hands and mouths and eyes for whom he cared no jot! No! He
+would force it through now, and be free to marry, and have a son to care
+for him before he grew to be like the old old man his father, wistfully
+watching now his sweetbread, now his son.
+
+In that mood he went up to bed. But, lying warm between those fine linen
+sheets of Emily's providing, he was visited by memories and torture.
+Visions of Irene, almost the solid feeling of her body, beset him. Why
+had he ever been fool enough to see her again, and let this flood
+back on him so that it was pain to think of her with that fellow--that
+stealing fellow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--A SUMMER DAY
+
+His boy was seldom absent from Jolyon's mind in the days which followed
+the first walk with Irene in Richmond Park. No further news had come;
+enquiries at the War Office elicited nothing; nor could he expect to
+hear from June and Holly for three weeks at least. In these days he felt
+how insufficient were his memories of Jolly, and what an amateur of a
+father he had been. There was not a single memory in which anger played
+a part; not one reconciliation, because there had never been a rupture;
+nor one heart-to-heart confidence, not even when Jolly's mother
+died. Nothing but half-ironical affection. He had been too afraid of
+committing himself in any direction, for fear of losing his liberty, or
+interfering with that of his boy.
+
+Only in Irene's presence had he relief, highly complicated by the
+ever-growing perception of how divided he was between her and his son.
+With Jolly was bound up all that sense of continuity and social creed of
+which he had drunk deeply in his youth and again during his boy's public
+school and varsity life--all that sense of not going back on what father
+and son expected of each other. With Irene was bound up all his delight
+in beauty and in Nature. And he seemed to know less and less which was
+the stronger within him. From such sentimental paralysis he was rudely
+awakened, however, one afternoon, just as he was starting off to
+Richmond, by a young man with a bicycle and a face oddly familiar, who
+came forward faintly smiling.
+
+"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte? Thank you!" Placing an envelope in Jolyon's hand he
+wheeled off the path and rode away. Bewildered, Jolyon opened it.
+
+"Admiralty Probate and Divorce, Forsyte v. Forsyte and Forsyte!"
+
+A sensation of shame and disgust was followed by the instant reaction
+'Why, here's the very thing you want, and you don't like it!' But she
+must have had one too; and he must go to her at once. He turned things
+over as he went along. It was an ironical business. For, whatever the
+Scriptures said about the heart, it took more than mere longings to
+satisfy the law. They could perfectly well defend this suit, or at least
+in good faith try to. But the idea of doing so revolted Jolyon. If not
+her lover in deed he was in desire, and he knew that she was ready
+to come to him. Her face had told him so. Not that he exaggerated her
+feeling for him. She had had her grand passion, and he could not expect
+another from her at his age. But she had trust in him, affection for
+him, and must feel that he would be a refuge. Surely she would not ask
+him to defend the suit, knowing that he adored her! Thank Heaven she had
+not that maddening British conscientiousness which refused happiness
+for the sake of refusing! She must rejoice at this chance of being free
+after seventeen years of death in life! As to publicity, the fat was in
+the fire! To defend the suit would not take away the slur. Jolyon had
+all the proper feeling of a Forsyte whose privacy is threatened: If he
+was to be hung by the Law, by all means let it be for a sheep! Moreover
+the notion of standing in a witness box and swearing to the truth that
+no gesture, not even a word of love had passed between them seemed
+to him more degrading than to take the tacit stigma of being an
+adulterer--more truly degrading, considering the feeling in his heart,
+and just as bad and painful for his children. The thought of explaining
+away, if he could, before a judge and twelve average Englishmen, their
+meetings in Paris, and the walks in Richmond Park, horrified him. The
+brutality and hypocritical censoriousness of the whole process; the
+probability that they would not be believed--the mere vision of her,
+whom he looked on as the embodiment of Nature and of Beauty, standing
+there before all those suspicious, gloating eyes was hideous to him.
+No, no! To defend a suit only made a London holiday, and sold the
+newspapers. A thousand times better accept what Soames and the gods had
+sent!
+
+'Besides,' he thought honestly, 'who knows whether, even for my boy's
+sake, I could have stood this state of things much longer? Anyway, her
+neck will be out of chancery at last!' Thus absorbed, he was hardly
+conscious of the heavy heat. The sky had become overcast, purplish with
+little streaks of white. A heavy heat-drop plashed a little star pattern
+in the dust of the road as he entered the Park. 'Phew!' he thought,
+'thunder! I hope she's not come to meet me; there's a ducking up there!'
+But at that very minute he saw Irene coming towards the Gate. 'We must
+scuttle back to Robin Hill,' he thought.
+
+                 *****
+
+The storm had passed over the Poultry at four o'clock, bringing welcome
+distraction to the clerks in every office. Soames was drinking a cup of
+tea when a note was brought in to him:
+
+
+"DEAR SIR,
+
+"Forsyte v. Forsyte and Forsyte
+
+"In accordance with your instructions, we beg to inform you that we
+personally served the respondent and co-respondent in this suit to-day,
+at Richmond, and Robin Hill, respectively.
+
+"Faithfully yours,
+
+"LINKMAN AND LAVER."
+
+
+For some minutes Soames stared at that note. Ever since he had given
+those instructions he had been tempted to annul them. It was so
+scandalous, such a general disgrace! The evidence, too, what he had
+heard of it, had never seemed to him conclusive; somehow, he believed
+less and less that those two had gone all lengths. But this, of course,
+would drive them to it; and he suffered from the thought. That fellow to
+have her love, where he had failed! Was it too late? Now that they had
+been brought up sharp by service of this petition, had he not a lever
+with which he could force them apart? 'But if I don't act at once,' he
+thought, 'it will be too late, now they've had this thing. I'll go and
+see him; I'll go down!'
+
+And, sick with nervous anxiety, he sent out for one of the 'new-fangled'
+motor-cabs. It might take a long time to run that fellow to ground, and
+Goodness knew what decision they might come to after such a shock! 'If
+I were a theatrical ass,' he thought, 'I suppose I should be taking a
+horse-whip or a pistol or something!' He took instead a bundle of papers
+in the case of 'Magentie versus Wake,' intending to read them on the way
+down. He did not even open them, but sat quite still, jolted and jarred,
+unconscious of the draught down the back of his neck, or the smell of
+petrol. He must be guided by the fellow's attitude; the great thing was
+to keep his head!
+
+London had already begun to disgorge its workers as he neared Putney
+Bridge; the ant-heap was on the move outwards. What a lot of ants, all
+with a living to get, holding on by their eyelids in the great scramble!
+Perhaps for the first time in his life Soames thought: 'I could let go
+if I liked! Nothing could touch me; I could snap my fingers, live as I
+wished--enjoy myself!' No! One could not live as he had and just drop
+it all--settle down in Capua, to spend the money and reputation he had
+made. A man's life was what he possessed and sought to possess. Only
+fools thought otherwise--fools, and socialists, and libertines!
+
+The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. 'Fifteen miles an
+hour, I should think!' he mused; 'this'll take people out of town to
+live!' and he thought of its bearing on the portions of London owned by
+his father--he himself had never taken to that form of investment, the
+gambler in him having all the outlet needed in his pictures. And the cab
+sped on, down the hill past Wimbledon Common. This interview! Surely a
+man of fifty-two with grown-up children, and hung on the line, would not
+be reckless. 'He won't want to disgrace the family,' he thought; 'he
+was as fond of his father as I am of mine, and they were brothers. That
+woman brings destruction--what is it in her? I've never known.' The
+cab branched off, along the side of a wood, and he heard a late cuckoo
+calling, almost the first he had heard that year. He was now almost
+opposite the site he had originally chosen for his house, and which
+had been so unceremoniously rejected by Bosinney in favour of his own
+choice. He began passing his handkerchief over his face and hands,
+taking deep breaths to give him steadiness. 'Keep one's head,' he
+thought, 'keep one's head!'
+
+The cab turned in at the drive which might have been his own, and the
+sound of music met him. He had forgotten the fellow's daughters.
+
+"I may be out again directly," he said to the driver, "or I may be kept
+some time"; and he rang the bell.
+
+Following the maid through the curtains into the inner hall, he felt
+relieved that the impact of this meeting would be broken by June or
+Holly, whichever was playing in there, so that with complete surprise
+he saw Irene at the piano, and Jolyon sitting in an armchair listening.
+They both stood up. Blood surged into Soames' brain, and all his
+resolution to be guided by this or that left him utterly. The look of
+his farmer forbears--dogged Forsytes down by the sea, from 'Superior
+Dosset' back--grinned out of his face.
+
+"Very pretty!" he said.
+
+He heard the fellow murmur:
+
+"This is hardly the place--we'll go to the study, if you don't mind."
+And they both passed him through the curtain opening. In the little
+room to which he followed them, Irene stood by the open window, and the
+'fellow' close to her by a big chair. Soames pulled the door to behind
+him with a slam; the sound carried him back all those years to the day
+when he had shut out Jolyon--shut him out for meddling with his affairs.
+
+"Well," he said, "what have you to say for yourselves?"
+
+The fellow had the effrontery to smile.
+
+"What we have received to-day has taken away your right to ask. I should
+imagine you will be glad to have your neck out of chancery."
+
+"Oh!" said Soames; "you think so! I came to tell you that I'll divorce
+her with every circumstance of disgrace to you both, unless you swear to
+keep clear of each other from now on."
+
+He was astonished at his fluency, because his mind was stammering and
+his hands twitching. Neither of them answered; but their faces seemed to
+him as if contemptuous.
+
+"Well," he said; "you--Irene?"
+
+Her lips moved, but Jolyon laid his hand on her arm.
+
+"Let her alone!" said Soames furiously. "Irene, will you swear it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh! and you?"
+
+"Still less."
+
+"So then you're guilty, are you?"
+
+"Yes, guilty." It was Irene speaking in that serene voice, with that
+unreached air which had maddened him so often; and, carried beyond
+himself, he cried:
+
+"You are a devil"
+
+"Go out! Leave this house, or I'll do you an injury."
+
+That fellow to talk of injuries! Did he know how near his throat was to
+being scragged?
+
+"A trustee," he said, "embezzling trust property! A thief, stealing his
+cousin's wife."
+
+"Call me what you like. You have chosen your part, we have chosen ours.
+Go out!"
+
+If he had brought a weapon Soames might have used it at that moment.
+
+"I'll make you pay!" he said.
+
+"I shall be very happy."
+
+At that deadly turning of the meaning of his speech by the son of him
+who had nicknamed him 'the man of property,' Soames stood glaring. It
+was ridiculous!
+
+There they were, kept from violence by some secret force. No blow
+possible, no words to meet the case. But he could not, did not know how
+to turn and go away. His eyes fastened on Irene's face--the last time he
+would ever see that fatal face--the last time, no doubt!
+
+"You," he said suddenly, "I hope you'll treat him as you treated
+me--that's all."
+
+He saw her wince, and with a sensation not quite triumph, not quite
+relief, he wrenched open the door, passed out through the hall, and got
+into his cab. He lolled against the cushion with his eyes shut. Never in
+his life had he been so near to murderous violence, never so thrown away
+the restraint which was his second nature. He had a stripped and
+naked feeling, as if all virtue had gone out of him--life meaningless,
+mind-striking work. Sunlight streamed in on him, but he felt cold. The
+scene he had passed through had gone from him already, what was before
+him would not materialise, he could catch on to nothing; and he felt
+frightened, as if he had been hanging over the edge of a precipice, as
+if with another turn of the screw sanity would have failed him. 'I'm not
+fit for it,' he thought; 'I mustn't--I'm not fit for it.' The cab sped
+on, and in mechanical procession trees, houses, people passed, but had
+no significance. 'I feel very queer,' he thought; 'I'll take a Turkish
+bath.--I've been very near to something. It won't do.' The cab whirred
+its way back over the bridge, up the Fulham Road, along the Park.
+
+"To the Hammam," said Soames.
+
+Curious that on so warm a summer day, heat should be so comforting!
+Crossing into the hot room he met George Forsyte coming out, red and
+glistening.
+
+"Hallo!" said George; "what are you training for? You've not got much
+superfluous."
+
+Buffoon! Soames passed him with his sideway smile. Lying back, rubbing
+his skin uneasily for the first signs of perspiration, he thought: 'Let
+them laugh! I won't feel anything! I can't stand violence! It's not good
+for me!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--A SUMMER NIGHT
+
+Soames left dead silence in the little study. "Thank you for that good
+lie," said Jolyon suddenly. "Come out--the air in here is not what it
+was!"
+
+In front of a long high southerly wall on which were trained peach-trees
+the two walked up and down in silence. Old Jolyon had planted some
+cupressus-trees, at intervals, between this grassy terrace and the
+dipping meadow full of buttercups and ox-eyed daisies; for twelve years
+they had flourished, till their dark spiral shapes had quite a look of
+Italy. Birds fluttered softly in the wet shrubbery; the swallows swooped
+past, with a steel-blue sheen on their swift little bodies; the grass
+felt springy beneath the feet, its green refreshed; butterflies chased
+each other. After that painful scene the quiet of Nature was wonderfully
+poignant. Under the sun-soaked wall ran a narrow strip of garden-bed
+full of mignonette and pansies, and from the bees came a low hum in
+which all other sounds were set--the mooing of a cow deprived of her
+calf, the calling of a cuckoo from an elm-tree at the bottom of the
+meadow. Who would have thought that behind them, within ten miles,
+London began--that London of the Forsytes, with its wealth, its misery;
+its dirt and noise; its jumbled stone isles of beauty, its grey sea
+of hideous brick and stucco? That London which had seen Irene's early
+tragedy, and Jolyon's own hard days; that web; that princely workhouse
+of the possessive instinct!
+
+And while they walked Jolyon pondered those words: 'I hope you'll treat
+him as you treated me.' That would depend on himself. Could he trust
+himself? Did Nature permit a Forsyte not to make a slave of what he
+adored? Could beauty be confided to him? Or should she not be just a
+visitor, coming when she would, possessed for moments which passed, to
+return only at her own choosing? 'We are a breed of spoilers!' thought
+Jolyon, 'close and greedy; the bloom of life is not safe with us. Let
+her come to me as she will, when she will, not at all if she will not.
+Let me be just her stand-by, her perching-place; never-never her cage!'
+
+She was the chink of beauty in his dream. Was he to pass through the
+curtains now and reach her? Was the rich stuff of many possessions,
+the close encircling fabric of the possessive instinct walling in that
+little black figure of himself, and Soames--was it to be rent so that
+he could pass through into his vision, find there something not of the
+senses only? 'Let me,' he thought, 'ah! let me only know how not to
+grasp and destroy!'
+
+But at dinner there were plans to be made. To-night she would go back to
+the hotel, but tomorrow he would take her up to London. He must instruct
+his solicitor--Jack Herring. Not a finger must be raised to hinder the
+process of the Law. Damages exemplary, judicial strictures, costs, what
+they liked--let it go through at the first moment, so that her neck
+might be out of chancery at last! To-morrow he would see Herring--they
+would go and see him together. And then--abroad, leaving no doubt, no
+difficulty about evidence, making the lie she had told into the truth.
+He looked round at her; and it seemed to his adoring eyes that more
+than a woman was sitting there. The spirit of universal beauty, deep,
+mysterious, which the old painters, Titian, Giorgione, Botticelli, had
+known how to capture and transfer to the faces of their women--this
+flying beauty seemed to him imprinted on her brow, her hair, her lips,
+and in her eyes.
+
+'And this is to be mine!' he thought. 'It frightens me!'
+
+After dinner they went out on to the terrace to have coffee. They sat
+there long, the evening was so lovely, watching the summer night
+come very slowly on. It was still warm and the air smelled of lime
+blossom--early this summer. Two bats were flighting with the faint
+mysterious little noise they make. He had placed the chairs in front
+of the study window, and moths flew past to visit the discreet light in
+there. There was no wind, and not a whisper in the old oak-tree twenty
+yards away! The moon rose from behind the copse, nearly full; and the
+two lights struggled, till moonlight conquered, changing the colour and
+quality of all the garden, stealing along the flagstones, reaching their
+feet, climbing up, changing their faces.
+
+"Well," said Jolyon at last, "you'll be tired, dear; we'd better start.
+The maid will show you Holly's room," and he rang the study bell. The
+maid who came handed him a telegram. Watching her take Irene away, he
+thought: 'This must have come an hour or more ago, and she didn't bring
+it out to us! That shows! Well, we'll be hung for a sheep soon!' And,
+opening the telegram, he read:
+
+"JOLYON FORSYTE, Robin Hill.--Your son passed painlessly away on June
+20th. Deep sympathy"--some name unknown to him.
+
+He dropped it, spun round, stood motionless. The moon shone in on him;
+a moth flew in his face. The first day of all that he had not thought
+almost ceaselessly of Jolly. He went blindly towards the window, struck
+against the old armchair--his father's--and sank down on to the arm of
+it. He sat there huddled' forward, staring into the night. Gone out like
+a candle flame; far from home, from love, all by himself, in the dark!
+His boy! From a little chap always so good to him--so friendly! Twenty
+years old, and cut down like grass--to have no life at all! 'I didn't
+really know him,' he thought, 'and he didn't know me; but we loved each
+other. It's only love that matters.'
+
+To die out there--lonely--wanting them--wanting home! This seemed to his
+Forsyte heart more painful, more pitiful than death itself. No shelter,
+no protection, no love at the last! And all the deeply rooted clanship
+in him, the family feeling and essential clinging to his own flesh and
+blood which had been so strong in old Jolyon was so strong in all the
+Forsytes--felt outraged, cut, and torn by his boy's lonely passing.
+Better far if he had died in battle, without time to long for them to
+come to him, to call out for them, perhaps, in his delirium!
+
+The moon had passed behind the oak-tree now, endowing it with uncanny
+life, so that it seemed watching him--the oak-tree his boy had been so
+fond of climbing, out of which he had once fallen and hurt himself, and
+hadn't cried!
+
+The door creaked. He saw Irene come in, pick up the telegram and read
+it. He heard the faint rustle of her dress. She sank on her knees close
+to him, and he forced himself to smile at her. She stretched up her arms
+and drew his head down on her shoulder. The perfume and warmth of her
+encircled him; her presence gained slowly his whole being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--JAMES IN WAITING
+
+Sweated to serenity, Soames dined at the Remove and turned his face
+toward Park Lane. His father had been unwell lately. This would have to
+be kept from him! Never till that moment had he realised how much the
+dread of bringing James' grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave had
+counted with him; how intimately it was bound up with his own shrinking
+from scandal. His affection for his father, always deep, had increased
+of late years with the knowledge that James looked on him as the real
+prop of his decline. It seemed pitiful that one who had been so careful
+all his life and done so much for the family name--so that it was almost
+a byword for solid, wealthy respectability--should at his last gasp have
+to see it in all the newspapers. This was like lending a hand to Death,
+that final enemy of Forsytes. 'I must tell mother,' he thought, 'and
+when it comes on, we must keep the papers from him somehow. He sees
+hardly anyone.' Letting himself in with his latchkey, he was beginning
+to ascend he stairs when he became conscious of commotion on the
+second-floor landing. His mother's voice was saying:
+
+"Now, James, you'll catch cold. Why can't you wait quietly?"
+
+His father's answering
+
+"Wait? I'm always waiting. Why doesn't he come in?"
+
+"You can speak to him to-morrow morning, instead of making a guy of
+yourself on the landing."
+
+"He'll go up to bed, I shouldn't wonder. I shan't sleep."
+
+"Now come back to bed, James."
+
+"Um! I might die before to-morrow morning for all you can tell."
+
+"You shan't have to wait till to-morrow morning; I'll go down and bring
+him up. Don't fuss!"
+
+"There you go--always so cock-a-hoop. He mayn't come in at all."
+
+"Well, if he doesn't come in you won't catch him by standing out here in
+your dressing-gown."
+
+Soames rounded the last bend and came in sight of his father's
+tall figure wrapped in a brown silk quilted gown, stooping over the
+balustrade above. Light fell on his silvery hair and whiskers, investing
+his head with, a sort of halo.
+
+"Here he is!" he heard him say in a voice which sounded injured, and his
+mother's comfortable answer from the bedroom door:
+
+"That's all right. Come in, and I'll brush your hair." James extended a
+thin, crooked finger, oddly like the beckoning of a skeleton, and passed
+through the doorway of his bedroom.
+
+'What is it?' thought Soames. 'What has he got hold of now?'
+
+His father was sitting before the dressing-table sideways to the mirror,
+while Emily slowly passed two silver-backed brushes through and through
+his hair. She would do this several times a day, for it had on him
+something of the effect produced on a cat by scratching between its
+ears.
+
+"There you are!" he said. "I've been waiting."
+
+Soames stroked his shoulder, and, taking up a silver button-hook,
+examined the mark on it.
+
+"Well," he said, "you're looking better."
+
+James shook his head.
+
+"I want to say something. Your mother hasn't heard." He announced
+Emily's ignorance of what he hadn't told her, as if it were a grievance.
+
+"Your father's been in a great state all the evening. I'm sure I don't
+know what about."
+
+The faint 'whisk-whisk' of the brushes continued the soothing of her
+voice.
+
+"No! you know nothing," said James. "Soames can tell me." And, fixing
+his grey eyes, in which there was a look of strain, uncomfortable to
+watch, on his son, he muttered:
+
+"I'm getting on, Soames. At my age I can't tell. I might die any time.
+There'll be a lot of money. There's Rachel and Cicely got no children;
+and Val's out there--that chap his father will get hold of all he can.
+And somebody'll pick up Imogen, I shouldn't wonder."
+
+Soames listened vaguely--he had heard all this before. Whish-whish! went
+the brushes.
+
+"If that's all!" said Emily.
+
+"All!" cried James; "it's nothing. I'm coming to that." And again his
+eyes strained pitifully at Soames.
+
+"It's you, my boy," he said suddenly; "you ought to get a divorce."
+
+That word, from those of all lips, was almost too much for Soames'
+composure. His eyes reconcentrated themselves quickly on the buttonhook,
+and as if in apology James hurried on:
+
+"I don't know what's become of her--they say she's abroad. Your Uncle
+Swithin used to admire her--he was a funny fellow." (So he always
+alluded to his dead twin-'The Stout and the Lean of it,' they had been
+called.) "She wouldn't be alone, I should say." And with that summing-up
+of the effect of beauty on human nature, he was silent, watching his
+son with eyes doubting as a bird's. Soames, too, was silent. Whish-whish
+went the brushes.
+
+"Come, James! Soames knows best. It's his 'business."
+
+"Ah!" said James, and the word came from deep down; "but there's all
+my money, and there's his--who's it to go to? And when he dies the name
+goes out."
+
+Soames replaced the button-hook on the lace and pink silk of the
+dressing-table coverlet.
+
+"The name?" said Emily, "there are all the other Forsytes."
+
+"As if that helped me," muttered James. "I shall be in my grave, and
+there'll be nobody, unless he marries again."
+
+"You're quite right," said Soames quietly; "I'm getting a divorce."
+
+James' eyes almost started from his head.
+
+"What?" he cried. "There! nobody tells me anything."
+
+"Well," said Emily, "who would have imagined you wanted it? My dear boy,
+that is a surprise, after all these years."
+
+"It'll be a scandal," muttered James, as if to himself; "but I can't
+help that. Don't brush so hard. When'll it come on?"
+
+"Before the Long Vacation; it's not defended."
+
+James' lips moved in secret calculation. "I shan't live to see my
+grandson," he muttered.
+
+Emily ceased brushing. "Of course you will, James. Soames will be as
+quick as he can."
+
+There was a long silence, till James reached out his arm.
+
+"Here! let's have the eau-de-Cologne," and, putting it to his nose, he
+moved his forehead in the direction of his son. Soames bent over and
+kissed that brow just where the hair began. A relaxing quiver passed
+over James' face, as though the wheels of anxiety within were running
+down.
+
+"I'll get to bed," he said; "I shan't want to see the papers when that
+comes. They're a morbid lot; I can't pay attention to them, I'm too
+old."
+
+Queerly affected, Soames went to the door; he heard his father say:
+
+"Here, I'm tired. I'll say a prayer in bed."
+
+And his mother answering
+
+"That's right, James; it'll be ever so much more comfy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--OUT OF THE WEB
+
+On Forsyte 'Change the announcement of Jolly's death, among a batch of
+troopers, caused mixed sensation. Strange to read that Jolyon Forsyte
+(fifth of the name in direct descent) had died of disease in the service
+of his country, and not be able to feel it personally. It revived the
+old grudge against his father for having estranged himself. For such
+was still the prestige of old Jolyon that the other Forsytes could never
+quite feel, as might have been expected, that it was they who had cut
+off his descendants for irregularity. The news increased, of course, the
+interest and anxiety about Val; but then Val's name was Dartie, and even
+if he were killed in battle or got the Victoria Cross, it would not be
+at all the same as if his name were Forsyte. Not even casualty or
+glory to the Haymans would be really satisfactory. Family pride felt
+defrauded.
+
+How the rumour arose, then, that 'something very dreadful, my dear,'
+was pending, no one, least of all Soames, could tell, secret as he kept
+everything. Possibly some eye had seen 'Forsyte v. Forsyte and Forsyte,'
+in the cause list; and had added it to 'Irene in Paris with a fair
+beard.' Possibly some wall at Park Lane had ears. The fact remained that
+it was known--whispered among the old, discussed among the young--that
+family pride must soon receive a blow.
+
+Soames, paying one, of his Sunday visits to Timothy's--paying it with
+the feeling that after the suit came on he would be paying no more--felt
+knowledge in the air as he came in. Nobody, of course, dared speak of
+it before him, but each of the four other Forsytes present held their
+breath, aware that nothing could prevent Aunt Juley from making them all
+uncomfortable. She looked so piteously at Soames, she checked herself on
+the point of speech so often, that Aunt Hester excused herself and
+said she must go and bathe Timothy's eye--he had a sty coming. Soames,
+impassive, slightly supercilious, did not stay long. He went out with a
+curse stifled behind his pale, just smiling lips.
+
+Fortunately for the peace of his mind, cruelly tortured by the
+coming scandal, he was kept busy day and night with plans for his
+retirement--for he had come to that grim conclusion. To go on seeing
+all those people who had known him as a 'long-headed chap,' an astute
+adviser--after that--no! The fastidiousness and pride which was so
+strangely, so inextricably blended in him with possessive obtuseness,
+revolted against the thought. He would retire, live privately, go on
+buying pictures, make a great name as a collector--after all, his heart
+was more in that than it had ever been in Law. In pursuance of this
+now fixed resolve, he had to get ready to amalgamate his business
+with another firm without letting people know, for that would excite
+curiosity and make humiliation cast its shadow before. He had pitched on
+the firm of Cuthcott, Holliday and Kingson, two of whom were dead. The
+full name after the amalgamation would therefore be Cuthcott, Holliday,
+Kingson, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. But after debate as to which
+of the dead still had any influence with the living, it was decided to
+reduce the title to Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte, of whom Kingson would
+be the active and Soames the sleeping partner. For leaving his name,
+prestige, and clients behind him, Soames would receive considerable
+value.
+
+One night, as befitted a man who had arrived at so important a stage
+of his career, he made a calculation of what he was worth, and after
+writing off liberally for depreciation by the war, found his value to
+be some hundred and thirty thousand pounds. At his father's death, which
+could not, alas, be delayed much longer, he must come into at least
+another fifty thousand, and his yearly expenditure at present just
+reached two. Standing among his pictures, he saw before him a future
+full of bargains earned by the trained faculty of knowing better than
+other people. Selling what was about to decline, keeping what was still
+going up, and exercising judicious insight into future taste, he would
+make a unique collection, which at his death would pass to the nation
+under the title 'Forsyte Bequest.'
+
+If the divorce went through, he had determined on his line with Madame
+Lamotte. She had, he knew, but one real ambition--to live on her
+'renter' in Paris near her grandchildren. He would buy the goodwill
+of the Restaurant Bretagne at a fancy price. Madame would live like a
+Queen-Mother in Paris on the interest, invested as she would know how.
+(Incidentally Soames meant to put a capable manager in her place, and
+make the restaurant pay good interest on his money. There were great
+possibilities in Soho.) On Annette he would promise to settle fifteen
+thousand pounds (whether designedly or not), precisely the sum old
+Jolyon had settled on 'that woman.'
+
+A letter from Jolyon's solicitor to his own had disclosed the fact that
+'those two' were in Italy. And an opportunity had been duly given for
+noting that they had first stayed at an hotel in London. The matter was
+clear as daylight, and would be disposed of in half an hour or so; but
+during that half-hour he, Soames, would go down to hell; and after that
+half-hour all bearers of the Forsyte name would feel the bloom was off
+the rose. He had no illusions like Shakespeare that roses by any other
+name would smell as sweet. The name was a possession, a concrete,
+unstained piece of property, the value of which would be reduced some
+twenty per cent. at least. Unless it were Roger, who had once refused to
+stand for Parliament, and--oh, irony!--Jolyon, hung on the line,
+there had never been a distinguished Forsyte. But that very lack of
+distinction was the name's greatest asset. It was a private name,
+intensely individual, and his own property; it had never been exploited
+for good or evil by intrusive report. He and each member of his family
+owned it wholly, sanely, secretly, without any more interference from
+the public than had been necessitated by their births, their marriages,
+their deaths. And during these weeks of waiting and preparing to drop
+the Law, he conceived for that Law a bitter distaste, so deeply did he
+resent its coming violation of his name, forced on him by the need he
+felt to perpetuate that name in a lawful manner. The monstrous injustice
+of the whole thing excited in him a perpetual suppressed fury. He had
+asked no better than to live in spotless domesticity, and now he must go
+into the witness box, after all these futile, barren years, and proclaim
+his failure to keep his wife--incur the pity, the amusement, the
+contempt of his kind. It was all upside down. She and that fellow ought
+to be the sufferers, and they--were in Italy! In these weeks the Law he
+had served so faithfully, looked on so reverently as the guardian of all
+property, seemed to him quite pitiful. What could be more insane than
+to tell a man that he owned his wife, and punish him when someone
+unlawfully took her away from him? Did the Law not know that a man's
+name was to him the apple of his eye, that it was far harder to be
+regarded as cuckold than as seducer? He actually envied Jolyon the
+reputation of succeeding where he, Soames, had failed. The question of
+damages worried him, too. He wanted to make that fellow suffer, but he
+remembered his cousin's words, "I shall be very happy," with the uneasy
+feeling that to claim damages would make not Jolyon but himself suffer;
+he felt uncannily that Jolyon would rather like to pay them--the chap
+was so loose. Besides, to claim damages was not the thing to do. The
+claim, indeed, had been made almost mechanically; and as the hour
+drew near Soames saw in it just another dodge of this insensitive and
+topsy-turvy Law to make him ridiculous; so that people might sneer
+and say: "Oh, yes, he got quite a good price for her!" And he gave
+instructions that his Counsel should state that the money would be given
+to a Home for Fallen Women. He was a long time hitting off exactly the
+right charity; but, having pitched on it, he used to wake up in
+the night and think: 'It won't do, too lurid; it'll draw attention.
+Something quieter--better taste.' He did not care for dogs, or he would
+have named them; and it was in desperation at last--for his knowledge of
+charities was limited--that he decided on the blind. That could not be
+inappropriate, and it would make the Jury assess the damages high.
+
+A good many suits were dropping out of the list, which happened to be
+exceptionally thin that summer, so that his case would be reached before
+August. As the day grew nearer, Winifred was his only comfort. She
+showed the fellow-feeling of one who had been through the mill, and was
+the 'femme-sole' in whom he confided, well knowing that she would not
+let Dartie into her confidence. That ruffian would be only too rejoiced!
+At the end of July, on the afternoon before the case, he went in to
+see her. They had not yet been able to leave town, because Dartie had
+already spent their summer holiday, and Winifred dared not go to her
+father for more money while he was waiting not to be told anything about
+this affair of Soames.
+
+Soames found her with a letter in her hand.
+
+"That from Val," he asked gloomily. "What does he say?"
+
+"He says he's married," said Winifred.
+
+"Whom to, for Goodness' sake?"
+
+Winifred looked up at him.
+
+"To Holly Forsyte, Jolyon's daughter."
+
+"What?"
+
+"He got leave and did it. I didn't even know he knew her. Awkward, isn't
+it?"
+
+Soames uttered a short laugh at that characteristic minimisation.
+
+"Awkward! Well, I don't suppose they'll hear about this till they come
+back. They'd better stay out there. That fellow will give her money."
+
+"But I want Val back," said Winifred almost piteously; "I miss him, he
+helps me to get on."
+
+"I know," murmured Soames. "How's Dartie behaving now?"
+
+"It might be worse; but it's always money. Would you like me to come
+down to the Court to-morrow, Soames?"
+
+Soames stretched out his hand for hers. The gesture so betrayed the
+loneliness in him that she pressed it between her two.
+
+"Never mind, old boy. You'll feel ever so much better when it's all
+over."
+
+"I don't know what I've done," said Soames huskily; "I never have. It's
+all upside down. I was fond of her; I've always been."
+
+Winifred saw a drop of blood ooze out of his lip, and the sight stirred
+her profoundly.
+
+"Of course," she said, "it's been too bad of her all along! But what
+shall I do about this marriage of Val's, Soames? I don't know how
+to write to him, with this coming on. You've seen that child. Is she
+pretty?"
+
+"Yes, she's pretty," said Soames. "Dark--lady-like enough."
+
+'That doesn't sound so bad,' thought Winifred. 'Jolyon had style.'
+
+"It is a coil," she said. "What will father say?
+
+"Mustn't be told," said Soames. "The war'll soon be over now, you'd
+better let Val take to farming out there."
+
+It was tantamount to saying that his nephew was lost.
+
+"I haven't told Monty," Winifred murmured desolately.
+
+The case was reached before noon next day, and was over in little
+more than half an hour. Soames--pale, spruce, sad-eyed in the
+witness-box--had suffered so much beforehand that he took it all like
+one dead. The moment the decree nisi was pronounced he left the Courts
+of Justice.
+
+Four hours until he became public property! 'Solicitor's divorce suit!'
+A surly, dogged anger replaced that dead feeling within him. 'Damn
+them all!' he thought; 'I won't run away. I'll act as if nothing had
+happened.' And in the sweltering heat of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill
+he walked all the way to his City Club, lunched, and went back to his
+office. He worked there stolidly throughout the afternoon.
+
+On his way out he saw that his clerks knew, and answered their
+involuntary glances with a look so sardonic that they were immediately
+withdrawn. In front of St. Paul's, he stopped to buy the most
+gentlemanly of the evening papers. Yes! there he was! 'Well-known
+solicitor's divorce. Cousin co-respondent. Damages given to the
+blind'--so, they had got that in! At every other face, he thought: 'I
+wonder if you know!' And suddenly he felt queer, as if something were
+racing round in his head.
+
+What was this? He was letting it get hold of him! He mustn't! He would
+be ill. He mustn't think! He would get down to the river and row about,
+and fish. 'I'm not going to be laid up,' he thought.
+
+It flashed across him that he had something of importance to do before
+he went out of town. Madame Lamotte! He must explain the Law. Another
+six months before he was really free! Only he did not want to see
+Annette! And he passed his hand over the top of his head--it was very
+hot.
+
+He branched off through Covent Garden. On this sultry day of late July
+the garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and Soho seemed
+more than ever the disenchanted home of rapscallionism. Alone, the
+Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily painted, with its blue tubs and the
+dwarf trees therein, retained an aloof and Frenchified self-respect. It
+was the slack hour, and pale trim waitresses were preparing the little
+tables for dinner. Soames went through into the private part. To his
+discomfiture Annette answered his knock. She, too, looked pale and
+dragged down by the heat.
+
+"You are quite a stranger," she said languidly.
+
+Soames smiled.
+
+"I haven't wished to be; I've been busy."
+
+"Where's your mother, Annette? I've got some news for her."
+
+"Mother is not in."
+
+It seemed to Soames that she looked at him in a queer way. What did she
+know? How much had her mother told her? The worry of trying to make that
+out gave him an alarming feeling in the head. He gripped the edge of
+the table, and dizzily saw Annette come forward, her eyes clear with
+surprise. He shut his own and said:
+
+"It's all right. I've had a touch of the sun, I think." The sun! What
+he had was a touch of 'darkness! Annette's voice, French and composed,
+said:
+
+"Sit down, it will pass, then." Her hand pressed his shoulder, and
+Soames sank into a chair. When the dark feeling dispersed, and he opened
+his eyes, she was looking down at him. What an inscrutable and odd
+expression for a girl of twenty!
+
+"Do you feel better?"
+
+"It's nothing," said Soames. Instinct told him that to be feeble
+before her was not helping him--age was enough handicap without that.
+Will-power was his fortune with Annette, he had lost ground these latter
+months from indecision--he could not afford to lose any more. He got up,
+and said:
+
+"I'll write to your mother. I'm going down to my river house for a long
+holiday. I want you both to come there presently and stay. It's just at
+its best. You will, won't you?"
+
+"It will be veree nice." A pretty little roll of that 'r' but no
+enthusiasm. And rather sadly he added:
+
+"You're feeling the heat; too, aren't you, Annette? It'll do you good to
+be on the river. Good-night." Annette swayed forward. There was a sort
+of compunction in the movement.
+
+"Are you fit to go? Shall I give you some coffee?"
+
+"No," said Soames firmly. "Give me your hand."
+
+She held out her hand, and Soames raised it to his lips. When he looked
+up, her face wore again that strange expression. 'I can't tell,' he
+thought, as he went out; 'but I mustn't think--I mustn't worry:
+
+But worry he did, walking toward Pall Mall. English, not of her
+religion, middle-aged, scarred as it were by domestic tragedy, what had
+he to give her? Only wealth, social position, leisure, admiration! It
+was much, but was it enough for a beautiful girl of twenty? He felt so
+ignorant about Annette. He had, too, a curious fear of the French nature
+of her mother and herself. They knew so well what they wanted. They were
+almost Forsytes. They would never grasp a shadow and miss a substance.
+
+The tremendous effort it was to write a simple note to Madame Lamotte
+when he reached his Club warned him still further that he was at the end
+of his tether.
+
+
+"MY DEAR MADAME (he said),
+
+"You will see by the enclosed newspaper cutting that I obtained my
+decree of divorce to-day. By the English Law I shall not, however, be
+free to marry again till the decree is confirmed six months hence. In
+the meanwhile I have the honor to ask to be considered a formal suitor
+for the hand of your daughter. I shall write again in a few days and beg
+you both to come and stay at my river house.
+
+"I am, dear Madame,
+
+"Sincerely yours,
+
+"SOAMES FORSYTE."
+
+
+Having sealed and posted this letter, he went into the dining-room.
+Three mouthfuls of soup convinced him that he could not eat; and,
+causing a cab to be summoned, he drove to Paddington Station and took
+the first train to Reading. He reached his house just as the sun went
+down, and wandered out on to the lawn. The air was drenched with the
+scent of pinks and picotees in his flower-borders. A stealing coolness
+came off the river.
+
+Rest-peace! Let a poor fellow rest! Let not worry and shame and anger
+chase like evil night-birds in his head! Like those doves perched
+half-sleeping on their dovecot, like the furry creatures in the woods on
+the far side, and the simple folk in their cottages, like the trees
+and the river itself, whitening fast in twilight, like the darkening
+cornflower-blue sky where stars were coming up--let him cease from
+himself, and rest!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--PASSING OF AN AGE
+
+The marriage of Soames with Annette took place in Paris on the last day
+of January, 1901, with such privacy that not even Emily was told until
+it was accomplished.
+
+The day after the wedding he brought her to one of those quiet hotels
+in London where greater expense can be incurred for less result than
+anywhere else under heaven. Her beauty in the best Parisian frocks was
+giving him more satisfaction than if he had collected a perfect bit of
+china, or a jewel of a picture; he looked forward to the moment when he
+would exhibit her in Park Lane, in Green Street, and at Timothy's.
+
+If some one had asked him in those days, "In confidence--are you in love
+with this girl?" he would have replied: "In love? What is love? If you
+mean do I feel to her as I did towards Irene in those old days when I
+first met her and she would not have me; when I sighed and starved after
+her and couldn't rest a minute until she yielded--no! If you mean do I
+admire her youth and prettiness, do my senses ache a little when I see
+her moving about--yes! Do I think she will keep me straight, make me a
+creditable wife and a good mother for my children?--again, yes!"
+
+"What more do I need? and what more do three-quarters of the women who
+are married get from the men who marry them?" And if the enquirer had
+pursued his query, "And do you think it was fair to have tempted this
+girl to give herself to you for life unless you have really touched her
+heart?" he would have answered: "The French see these things differently
+from us. They look at marriage from the point of view of establishments
+and children; and, from my own experience, I am not at all sure that
+theirs is not the sensible view. I shall not expect this time more than
+I can get, or she can give. Years hence I shouldn't be surprised if I
+have trouble with her; but I shall be getting old, I shall have children
+by then. I shall shut my eyes. I have had my great passion; hers is
+perhaps to come--I don't suppose it will be for me. I offer her a great
+deal, and I don't expect much in return, except children, or at least a
+son. But one thing I am sure of--she has very good sense!"
+
+And if, insatiate, the enquirer had gone on, "You do not look, then, for
+spiritual union in this marriage?" Soames would have lifted his sideway
+smile, and rejoined: "That's as it may be. If I get satisfaction for my
+senses, perpetuation of myself; good taste and good humour in the house;
+it is all I can expect at my age. I am not likely to be going out of my
+way towards any far-fetched sentimentalism." Whereon, the enquirer must
+in good taste have ceased enquiry.
+
+The Queen was dead, and the air of the greatest city upon earth grey
+with unshed tears. Fur-coated and top-hatted, with Annette beside him
+in dark furs, Soames crossed Park Lane on the morning of the funeral
+procession, to the rails in Hyde Park. Little moved though he ever was
+by public matters, this event, supremely symbolical, this summing-up of
+a long rich period, impressed his fancy. In '37, when she came to the
+throne, 'Superior Dosset' was still building houses to make London
+hideous; and James, a stripling of twenty-six, just laying the
+foundations of his practice in the Law. Coaches still ran; men wore
+stocks, shaved their upper lips, ate oysters out of barrels; 'tigers'
+swung behind cabriolets; women said, 'La!' and owned no property; there
+were manners in the land, and pigsties for the poor; unhappy devils
+were hanged for little crimes, and Dickens had but just begun to write.
+Well-nigh two generations had slipped by--of steamboats, railways,
+telegraphs, bicycles, electric light, telephones, and now these
+motorcars--of such accumulated wealth, that eight per cent. had become
+three, and Forsytes were numbered by the thousand! Morals had changed,
+manners had changed, men had become monkeys twice-removed, God had
+become Mammon--Mammon so respectable as to deceive himself: Sixty-four
+years that favoured property, and had made the upper middle class;
+buttressed, chiselled, polished it, till it was almost indistinguishable
+in manners, morals, speech, appearance, habit, and soul from the
+nobility. An epoch which had gilded individual liberty so that if a man
+had money, he was free in law and fact, and if he had not money he was
+free in law and not in fact. An era which had canonised hypocrisy, so
+that to seem to be respectable was to be. A great Age, whose transmuting
+influence nothing had escaped save the nature of man and the nature of
+the Universe.
+
+And to witness the passing of this Age, London--its pet and fancy--was
+pouring forth her citizens through every gate into Hyde Park, hub of
+Victorianism, happy hunting-ground of Forsytes. Under the grey heavens,
+whose drizzle just kept off, the dark concourse gathered to see the
+show. The 'good old' Queen, full of years and virtue, had emerged
+from her seclusion for the last time to make a London holiday. From
+Houndsditch, Acton, Ealing, Hampstead, Islington, and Bethnal Green;
+from Hackney, Hornsey, Leytonstone, Battersea, and Fulham; and from
+those green pastures where Forsytes flourish--Mayfair and Kensington,
+St. James' and Belgravia, Bayswater and Chelsea and the Regent's Park,
+the people swarmed down on to the roads where death would presently pass
+with dusky pomp and pageantry. Never again would a Queen reign so long,
+or people have a chance to see so much history buried for their money.
+A pity the war dragged on, and that the Wreath of Victory could not
+be laid upon her coffin! All else would be there to follow and
+commemorate--soldiers, sailors, foreign princes, half-masted bunting,
+tolling bells, and above all the surging, great, dark-coated crowd, with
+perhaps a simple sadness here and there deep in hearts beneath black
+clothes put on by regulation. After all, more than a Queen was going to
+her rest, a woman who had braved sorrow, lived well and wisely according
+to her lights.
+
+Out in the crowd against the railings, with his arm hooked in Annette's,
+Soames waited. Yes! the Age was passing! What with this Trade Unionism,
+and Labour fellows in the House of Commons, with continental fiction,
+and something in the general feel of everything, not to be expressed
+in words, things were very different; he recalled the crowd on Mafeking
+night, and George Forsyte saying: "They're all socialists, they want our
+goods." Like James, Soames didn't know, he couldn't tell--with Edward on
+the throne! Things would never be as safe again as under good old Viccy!
+Convulsively he pressed his young wife's arm. There, at any rate, was
+something substantially his own, domestically certain again at last;
+something which made property worth while--a real thing once more.
+Pressed close against her and trying to ward others off, Soames was
+content. The crowd swayed round them, ate sandwiches and dropped crumbs;
+boys who had climbed the plane-trees chattered above like monkeys, threw
+twigs and orange-peel. It was past time; they should be coming soon!
+And, suddenly, a little behind them to the left, he saw a tallish man
+with a soft hat and short grizzling beard, and a tallish woman in a
+little round fur cap and veil. Jolyon and Irene talking, smiling at each
+other, close together like Annette and himself! They had not seen him;
+and stealthily, with a very queer feeling in his heart, Soames watched
+those two. They looked happy! What had they come here for--inherently
+illicit creatures, rebels from the Victorian ideal? What business had
+they in this crowd? Each of them twice exiled by morality--making a
+boast, as it were, of love and laxity! He watched them fascinated;
+admitting grudgingly even with his arm thrust through Annette's
+that--that she--Irene--No! he would not admit it; and he turned his eyes
+away. He would not see them, and let the old bitterness, the old longing
+rise up within him! And then Annette turned to him and said: "Those two
+people, Soames; they know you, I am sure. Who are they?"
+
+Soames nosed sideways.
+
+"What people?"
+
+"There, you see them; just turning away. They know you."
+
+"No," Soames answered; "a mistake, my dear."
+
+"A lovely face! And how she walk! Elle est tres distinguee!"
+
+Soames looked then. Into his life, out of his life she had walked like
+that swaying and erect, remote, unseizable; ever eluding the contact of
+his soul! He turned abruptly from that receding vision of the past.
+
+"You'd better attend," he said, "they're coming now!"
+
+But while he stood, grasping her arm, seemingly intent on the head
+of the procession, he was quivering with the sense of always missing
+something, with instinctive regret that he had not got them both.
+
+Slow came the music and the march, till, in silence, the long line wound
+in through the Park gate. He heard Annette whisper, "How sad it is and
+beautiful!" felt the clutch of her hand as she stood up on tiptoe; and
+the crowd's emotion gripped him. There it was--the bier of the Queen,
+coffin of the Age slow passing! And as it went by there came a murmuring
+groan from all the long line of those who watched, a sound such as
+Soames had never heard, so unconscious, primitive, deep and wild, that
+neither he nor any knew whether they had joined in uttering it. Strange
+sound, indeed! Tribute of an Age to its own death.... Ah! Ah!... The
+hold on life had slipped. That which had seemed eternal was gone! The
+Queen--God bless her!
+
+It moved on with the bier, that travelling groan, as a fire moves on
+over grass in a thin line; it kept step, and marched alongside down the
+dense crowds mile after mile. It was a human sound, and yet inhuman,
+pushed out by animal subconsciousness, by intimate knowledge of
+universal death and change. None of us--none of us can hold on for ever!
+
+It left silence for a little--a very little time, till tongues began,
+eager to retrieve interest in the show. Soames lingered just long
+enough to gratify Annette, then took her out of the Park to lunch at his
+father's in Park Lane....
+
+James had spent the morning gazing out of his bedroom window. The last
+show he would see, last of so many! So she was gone! Well, she was
+getting an old woman. Swithin and he had seen her crowned--slim slip of
+a girl, not so old as Imogen! She had got very stout of late. Jolyon and
+he had seen her married to that German chap, her husband--he had turned
+out all right before he died, and left her with that son of his. And he
+remembered the many evenings he and his brothers and their cronies had
+wagged their heads over their wine and walnuts and that fellow in his
+salad days. And now he had come to the throne. They said he had steadied
+down--he didn't know--couldn't tell! He'd make the money fly still, he
+shouldn't wonder. What a lot of people out there! It didn't seem so very
+long since he and Swithin stood in the crowd outside Westminster
+Abbey when she was crowned, and Swithin had taken him to Cremorne
+afterwards--racketty chap, Swithin; no, it didn't seem much longer ago
+than Jubilee Year, when he had joined with Roger in renting a balcony in
+Piccadilly.
+
+Jolyon, Swithin, Roger all gone, and he would be ninety in August! And
+there was Soames married again to a French girl. The French were a queer
+lot, but they made good mothers, he had heard. Things changed! They said
+this German Emperor was here for the funeral, his telegram to old Kruger
+had been in shocking taste. He should not be surprised if that chap made
+trouble some day. Change! H'm! Well, they must look after themselves
+when he was gone: he didn't know where he'd be! And now Emily had asked
+Dartie to lunch, with Winifred and Imogen, to meet Soames' wife--she
+was always doing something. And there was Irene living with that fellow
+Jolyon, they said. He'd marry her now, he supposed.
+
+'My brother Jolyon,' he thought, 'what would he have said to it all?'
+And somehow the utter impossibility of knowing what his elder brother,
+once so looked up to, would have said, so worried James that he got up
+from his chair by the window, and began slowly, feebly to pace the room.
+
+'She was a pretty thing, too,' he thought; 'I was fond of her. Perhaps
+Soames didn't suit her--I don't know--I can't tell. We never had any
+trouble with our wives.' Women had changed everything had changed! And
+now the Queen was dead--well, there it was! A movement in the crowd
+brought him to a standstill at the window, his nose touching the pane
+and whitening from the chill of it. They had got her as far as Hyde Park
+Corner--they were passing now! Why didn't Emily come up here where
+she could see, instead of fussing about lunch. He missed her at that
+moment--missed her! Through the bare branches of the plane-trees
+he could just see the procession, could see the hats coming off the
+people's heads--a lot of them would catch colds, he shouldn't wonder! A
+voice behind him said:
+
+"You've got a capital view here, James!"
+
+"There you are!" muttered James; "why didn't you come before? You might
+have missed it!"
+
+And he was silent, staring with all his might.
+
+"What's the noise?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"There's no noise," returned Emily; "what are you thinking of?--they
+wouldn't cheer."
+
+"I can hear it."
+
+"Nonsense, James!"
+
+No sound came through those double panes; what James heard was the
+groaning in his own heart at sight of his Age passing.
+
+"Don't you ever tell me where I'm buried," he said suddenly. "I shan't
+want to know." And he turned from the window. There she went, the old
+Queen; she'd had a lot of anxiety--she'd be glad to be out of it, he
+should think!
+
+Emily took up the hair-brushes.
+
+"There'll be just time to brush your head," she said, "before they come.
+You must look your best, James."
+
+"Ah!" muttered James; "they say she's pretty."
+
+The meeting with his new daughter-in-law took place in the dining-room.
+James was seated by the fire when she was brought in. He placed, his
+hands on the arms of the chair and slowly raised himself. Stooping and
+immaculate in his frock-coat, thin as a line in Euclid, he received
+Annette's hand in his; and the anxious eyes of his furrowed face, which
+had lost its colour now, doubted above her. A little warmth came into
+them and into his cheeks, refracted from her bloom.
+
+"How are you?" he said. "You've been to see the Queen, I suppose? Did
+you have a good crossing?"
+
+In this way he greeted her from whom he hoped for a grandson of his
+name.
+
+Gazing at him, so old, thin, white, and spotless, Annette murmured
+something in French which James did not understand.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, "you want your lunch, I expect. Soames, ring the
+bell; we won't wait for that chap Dartie." But just then they arrived.
+Dartie had refused to go out of his way to see 'the old girl.' With an
+early cocktail beside him, he had taken a 'squint' from the smoking-room
+of the Iseeum, so that Winifred and Imogen had been obliged to come back
+from the Park to fetch him thence. His brown eyes rested on Annette with
+a stare of almost startled satisfaction. The second beauty that fellow
+Soames had picked up! What women could see in him! Well, she would play
+him the same trick as the other, no doubt; but in the meantime he was a
+lucky devil! And he brushed up his moustache, having in nine months
+of Green Street domesticity regained almost all his flesh and his
+assurance. Despite the comfortable efforts of Emily, Winifred's
+composure, Imogen's enquiring friendliness, Dartie's showing-off, and
+James' solicitude about her food, it was not, Soames felt, a successful
+lunch for his bride. He took her away very soon.
+
+"That Monsieur Dartie," said Annette in the cab, "je n'aime pas ce
+type-la!"
+
+"No, by George!" said Soames.
+
+"Your sister is veree amiable, and the girl is pretty. Your father is
+veree old. I think your mother has trouble with him; I should not like
+to be her."
+
+Soames nodded at the shrewdness, the clear hard judgment in his young
+wife; but it disquieted him a little. The thought may have just flashed
+through him, too: 'When I'm eighty she'll be fifty-five, having trouble
+with me!'
+
+"There's just one other house of my relations I must take you to," he
+said; "you'll find it funny, but we must get it over; and then we'll
+dine and go to the theatre."
+
+In this way he prepared her for Timothy's. But Timothy's was different.
+They were delighted to see dear Soames after this long long time; and so
+this was Annette!
+
+"You are so pretty, my dear; almost too young and pretty for dear
+Soames, aren't you? But he's very attentive and careful--such a good
+hush...." Aunt Juley checked herself, and placed her lips just under
+each of Annette's eyes--she afterwards described them to Francie, who
+dropped in, as: "Cornflower-blue, so pretty, I quite wanted to kiss
+them. I must say dear Soames is a perfect connoisseur. In her French
+way, and not so very French either, I think she's as pretty--though not
+so distinguished, not so alluring--as Irene. Because she was alluring,
+wasn't she? with that white skin and those dark eyes, and that hair,
+couleur de--what was it? I always forget."
+
+"Feuille morte," Francie prompted.
+
+"Of course, dead leaves--so strange. I remember when I was a girl,
+before we came to London, we had a foxhound puppy--to 'walk' it was
+called then; it had a tan top to its head and a white chest, and
+beautiful dark brown eyes, and it was a lady."
+
+"Yes, auntie," said Francie, "but I don't see the connection."
+
+"Oh!" replied Aunt Juley, rather flustered, "it was so alluring, and
+her eyes and hair, you know...." She was silent, as if surprised in some
+indelicacy. "Feuille morte," she added suddenly; "Hester--do remember
+that!"....
+
+Considerable debate took place between the two sisters whether Timothy
+should or should not be summoned to see Annette.
+
+"Oh, don't bother!" said Soames.
+
+"But it's no trouble, only of course Annette's being French might upset
+him a little. He was so scared about Fashoda. I think perhaps we had
+better not run the risk, Hester. It's nice to have her all to ourselves,
+isn't it? And how are you, Soames? Have you quite got over your...."
+
+Hester interposed hurriedly:
+
+"What do you think of London, Annette?"
+
+Soames, disquieted, awaited the reply. It came, sensible, composed: "Oh!
+I know London. I have visited before."
+
+He had never ventured to speak to her on the subject of the restaurant.
+The French had different notions about gentility, and to shrink from
+connection with it might seem to her ridiculous; he had waited to be
+married before mentioning it; and now he wished he hadn't.
+
+"And what part do you know best?" said Aunt Juley.
+
+"Soho," said Annette simply.
+
+Soames snapped his jaw.
+
+"Soho?" repeated Aunt Juley; "Soho?"
+
+'That'll go round the family,' thought Soames.
+
+"It's very French, and interesting," he said.
+
+"Yes," murmured Aunt Juley, "your Uncle Roger had some houses there
+once; he was always having to turn the tenants out, I remember."
+
+Soames changed the subject to Mapledurham.
+
+"Of course," said Aunt Juley, "you will be going down there soon to
+settle in. We are all so looking forward to the time when Annette has a
+dear little...."
+
+"Juley!" cried Aunt Hester desperately, "ring tea!"
+
+Soames dared not wait for tea, and took Annette away.
+
+"I shouldn't mention Soho if I were you," he said in the cab. "It's
+rather a shady part of London; and you're altogether above that
+restaurant business now; I mean," he added, "I want you to know nice
+people, and the English are fearful snobs."
+
+Annette's clear eyes opened; a little smile came on her lips.
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+'H'm!' thought Soames, 'that's meant for me!' and he looked at her hard.
+'She's got good business instincts,' he thought. 'I must make her grasp
+it once for all!'
+
+"Look here, Annette! it's very simple, only it wants understanding. Our
+professional and leisured classes still think themselves a cut above our
+business classes, except of course the very rich. It may be stupid, but
+there it is, you see. It isn't advisable in England to let people know
+that you ran a restaurant or kept a shop or were in any kind of trade.
+It may have been extremely creditable, but it puts a sort of label on
+you; you don't have such a good time, or meet such nice people--that's
+all."
+
+"I see," said Annette; "it is the same in France."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Soames, at once relieved and taken aback. "Of course,
+class is everything, really."
+
+"Yes," said Annette; "comme vous etes sage."
+
+'That's all right,' thought Soames, watching her lips, 'only she's
+pretty cynical.' His knowledge of French was not yet such as to make
+him grieve that she had not said 'tu.' He slipped his arm round her, and
+murmured with an effort:
+
+"Et vous etes ma belle femme."
+
+Annette went off into a little fit of laughter.
+
+"Oh, non!" she said. "Oh, non! ne parlez pas Francais, Soames. What is
+that old lady, your aunt, looking forward to?"
+
+Soames bit his lip. "God knows!" he said; "she's always saying
+something;" but he knew better than God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--SUSPENDED ANIMATION
+
+The war dragged on. Nicholas had been heard to say that it would cost
+three hundred millions if it cost a penny before they'd done with it!
+The income-tax was seriously threatened. Still, there would be South
+Africa for their money, once for all. And though the possessive instinct
+felt badly shaken at three o'clock in the morning, it recovered by
+breakfast-time with the recollection that one gets nothing in this
+world without paying for it. So, on the whole, people went about their
+business much as if there were no war, no concentration camps, no
+slippery de Wet, no feeling on the Continent, no anything unpleasant.
+Indeed, the attitude of the nation was typified by Timothy's map, whose
+animation was suspended--for Timothy no longer moved the flags, and
+they could not move themselves, not even backwards and forwards as they
+should have done.
+
+Suspended animation went further; it invaded Forsyte 'Change, and
+produced a general uncertainty as to what was going to happen next. The
+announcement in the marriage column of The Times, 'Jolyon Forsyte to
+Irene, only daughter of the late Professor Heron,' had occasioned doubt
+whether Irene had been justly described. And yet, on the whole, relief
+was felt that she had not been entered as 'Irene, late the wife,' or
+'the divorced wife,' 'of Soames Forsyte.' Altogether, there had been a
+kind of sublimity from the first about the way the family had taken
+that 'affair.' As James had phrased it, 'There it was!' No use to fuss!
+Nothing to be had out of admitting that it had been a 'nasty jar'--in
+the phraseology of the day.
+
+But what would happen now that both Soames and Jolyon were married
+again? That was very intriguing. George was known to have laid Eustace
+six to four on a little Jolyon before a little Soames. George was so
+droll! It was rumoured, too, that he and Dartie had a bet as to whether
+James would attain the age of ninety, though which of them had backed
+James no one knew.
+
+Early in May, Winifred came round to say that Val had been wounded
+in the leg by a spent bullet, and was to be discharged. His wife was
+nursing him. He would have a little limp--nothing to speak of. He wanted
+his grandfather to buy him a farm out there where he could breed horses.
+Her father was giving Holly eight hundred a year, so they could be quite
+comfortable, because his grandfather would give Val five, he had said;
+but as to the farm, he didn't know--couldn't tell: he didn't want Val to
+go throwing away his money.
+
+"But you know," said Winifred, "he must do something."
+
+Aunt Hester thought that perhaps his dear grandfather was wise, because
+if he didn't buy a farm it couldn't turn out badly.
+
+"But Val loves horses," said Winifred. "It'd be such an occupation for
+him."
+
+Aunt Juley thought that horses were very uncertain, had not Montague
+found them so?
+
+"Val's different," said Winifred; "he takes after me."
+
+Aunt Juley was sure that dear Val was very clever. "I always remember,"
+she added, "how he gave his bad penny to a beggar. His dear grandfather
+was so pleased. He thought it showed such presence of mind. I remember
+his saying that he ought to go into the Navy."
+
+Aunt Hester chimed in: Did not Winifred think that it was much better
+for the young people to be secure and not run any risk at their age?
+
+"Well," said Winifred, "if they were in London, perhaps; in London it's
+amusing to do nothing. But out there, of course, he'll simply get bored
+to death."
+
+Aunt Hester thought that it would be nice for him to work, if he were
+quite sure not to lose by it. It was not as if they had no money.
+Timothy, of course, had done so well by retiring. Aunt Juley wanted to
+know what Montague had said.
+
+Winifred did not tell her, for Montague had merely remarked: "Wait till
+the old man dies."
+
+At this moment Francie was announced. Her eyes were brimming with a
+smile.
+
+"Well," she said, "what do you think of it?"
+
+"Of what, dear?"
+
+"In The Times this morning."
+
+"We haven't seen it, we always read it after dinner; Timothy has it till
+then."
+
+Francie rolled her eyes.
+
+"Do you think you ought to tell us?" said Aunt Juley. "What was it?"
+
+"Irene's had a son at Robin Hill."
+
+Aunt Juley drew in her breath. "But," she said, "they were only married
+in March!"
+
+"Yes, Auntie; isn't it interesting?"
+
+"Well," said Winifred, "I'm glad. I was sorry for Jolyon losing his boy.
+It might have been Val."
+
+Aunt Juley seemed to go into a sort of dream. "I wonder," she murmured,
+"what dear Soames will think? He has so wanted to have a son himself. A
+little bird has always told me that."
+
+"Well," said Winifred, "he's going to--bar accidents."
+
+Gladness trickled out of Aunt Juley's eyes.
+
+"How delightful!" she said. "When?"
+
+"November."
+
+Such a lucky month! But she did wish it could be sooner. It was a long
+time for James to wait, at his age!
+
+To wait! They dreaded it for James, but they were used to it themselves.
+Indeed, it was their great distraction. To wait! For The Times to read;
+for one or other of their nieces or nephews to come in and cheer them
+up; for news of Nicholas' health; for that decision of Christopher's
+about going on the stage; for information concerning the mine of Mrs.
+MacAnder's nephew; for the doctor to come about Hester's inclination
+to wake up early in the morning; for books from the library which were
+always out; for Timothy to have a cold; for a nice quiet warm day, not
+too hot, when they could take a turn in Kensington Gardens. To wait, one
+on each side of the hearth in the drawing-room, for the clock
+between them to strike; their thin, veined, knuckled hands plying
+knitting-needles and crochet-hooks, their hair ordered to stop--like
+Canute's waves--from any further advance in colour. To wait in their
+black silks or satins for the Court to say that Hester might wear her
+dark green, and Juley her darker maroon. To wait, slowly turning over
+and over, in their old minds the little joys and sorrows, events and
+expectancies, of their little family world, as cows chew patient cuds
+in a familiar field. And this new event was so well worth waiting
+for. Soames had always been their pet, with his tendency to give them
+pictures, and his almost weekly visits which they missed so much, and
+his need for their sympathy evoked by the wreck of his first marriage.
+This new event--the birth of an heir to Soames--was so important for
+him, and for his dear father, too, that James might not have to die
+without some certainty about things. James did so dislike uncertainty;
+and with Montague, of course, he could not feel really satisfied to
+leave no grand-children but the young Darties. After all, one's own name
+did count! And as James' ninetieth birthday neared they wondered what
+precautions he was taking. He would be the first of the Forsytes to
+reach that age, and set, as it were, a new standard in holding on to
+life. That was so important, they felt, at their ages eighty-seven and
+eighty-five; though they did not want to think of themselves when they
+had Timothy, who was not yet eighty-two, to think of. There was, of
+course, a better world. 'In my Father's house are many mansions' was
+one of Aunt Juley's favourite sayings--it always comforted her, with its
+suggestion of house property, which had made the fortune of dear Roger.
+The Bible was, indeed, a great resource, and on very fine Sundays
+there was church in the morning; and sometimes Juley would steal into
+Timothy's study when she was sure he was out, and just put an open New
+Testament casually among the books on his little table--he was a great
+reader, of course, having been a publisher. But she had noticed that
+Timothy was always cross at dinner afterwards. And Smither had told
+her more than once that she had picked books off the floor in doing the
+room. Still, with all that, they did feel that heaven could not be quite
+so cosy as the rooms in which they and Timothy had been waiting so long.
+Aunt Hester, especially, could not bear the thought of the exertion.
+Any change, or rather the thought of a change--for there never was
+any--always upset her very much. Aunt Juley, who had more spirit,
+sometimes thought it would be quite exciting; she had so enjoyed that
+visit to Brighton the year dear Susan died. But then Brighton one knew
+was nice, and it was so difficult to tell what heaven would be like, so
+on the whole she was more than content to wait.
+
+On the morning of James' birthday, August the 5th, they felt
+extraordinary animation, and little notes passed between them by the
+hand of Smither while they were having breakfast in their beds. Smither
+must go round and take their love and little presents and find out
+how Mr. James was, and whether he had passed a good night with all
+the excitement. And on the way back would Smither call in at Green
+Street--it was a little out of her way, but she could take the bus up
+Bond Street afterwards; it would be a nice little change for her--and
+ask dear Mrs. Dartie to be sure and look in before she went out of town.
+
+All this Smither did--an undeniable servant trained many years ago under
+Aunt Ann to a perfection not now procurable. Mr. James, so Mrs. James
+said, had passed an excellent night, he sent his love; Mrs. James had
+said he was very funny and had complained that he didn't know what all
+the fuss was about. Oh! and Mrs. Dartie sent her love, and she would
+come to tea.
+
+Aunts Juley and Hester, rather hurt that their presents had not received
+special mention--they forgot every year that James could not bear to
+receive presents, 'throwing away their money on him,' as he always
+called it--were 'delighted'; it showed that James was in good spirits,
+and that was so important for him. And they began to wait for Winifred.
+She came at four, bringing Imogen, and Maud, just back from school, and
+'getting such a pretty girl, too,' so that it was extremely difficult
+to ask for news about Annette. Aunt Juley, however, summoned courage to
+enquire whether Winifred had heard anything, and if Soames was anxious.
+
+"Uncle Soames is always anxious, Auntie," interrupted Imogen; "he can't
+be happy now he's got it."
+
+The words struck familiarly on Aunt Juley's ears. Ah! yes; that funny
+drawing of George's, which had not been shown them! But what did Imogen
+mean? That her uncle always wanted more than he could have? It was not
+at all nice to think like that.
+
+Imogen's voice rose clear and clipped:
+
+"Imagine! Annette's only two years older than me; it must be awful for
+her, married to Uncle Soames."
+
+Aunt Juley lifted her hands in horror.
+
+"My dear," she said, "you don't know what you're talking about. Your
+Uncle Soames is a match for anybody. He's a very clever man, and
+good-looking and wealthy, and most considerate and careful, and not at
+all old, considering everything."
+
+Imogen, turning her luscious glance from one to the other of the 'old
+dears,' only smiled.
+
+"I hope," said Aunt Juley quite severely, "that you will marry as good a
+man."
+
+"I shan't marry a good man, Auntie," murmured Imogen; "they're dull."
+
+"If you go on like this," replied Aunt Juley, still very much upset,
+"you won't marry anybody. We'd better not pursue the subject;" and
+turning to Winifred, she said: "How is Montague?"
+
+That evening, while they were waiting for dinner, she murmured:
+
+"I've told Smither to get up half a bottle of the sweet champagne,
+Hester. I think we ought to drink dear James' health, and--and the
+health of Soames' wife; only, let's keep that quite secret. I'll Just
+say like this, 'And you know, Hester!' and then we'll drink. It might
+upset Timothy."
+
+"It's more likely to upset us," said Aunt Nester. "But we must, I
+suppose; for such an occasion."
+
+"Yes," said Aunt Juley rapturously, "it is an occasion! Only fancy if
+he has a dear little boy, to carry the family on! I do feel it so
+important, now that Irene has had a son. Winifred says George is calling
+Jolyon 'The Three-Decker,' because of his three families, you know!
+George is droll. And fancy! Irene is living after all in the house
+Soames had built for them both. It does seem hard on dear Soames; and
+he's always been so regular."
+
+That night in bed, excited and a little flushed still by her glass of
+wine and the secrecy of the second toast, she lay with her prayer-book
+opened flat, and her eyes fixed on a ceiling yellowed by the light from
+her reading-lamp. Young things! It was so nice for them all! And she
+would be so happy if she could see dear Soames happy. But, of course, he
+must be now, in spite of what Imogen had said. He would have all that he
+wanted: property, and wife, and children! And he would live to a green
+old age, like his dear father, and forget all about Irene and that
+dreadful case. If only she herself could be here to buy his children
+their first rocking-horse! Smither should choose it for her at the
+stores, nice and dappled. Ah! how Roger used to rock her until she fell
+off! Oh dear! that was a long time ago! It was! 'In my Father's house
+are many mansions--'A little scrattling noise caught her ear--'but no
+mice!' she thought mechanically. The noise increased. There! it was a
+mouse! How naughty of Smither to say there wasn't! It would be eating
+through the wainscot before they knew where they were, and they would
+have to have the builders in. They were such destructive things! And
+she lay, with her eyes just moving, following in her mind that little
+scrattling sound, and waiting for sleep to release her from it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--BIRTH OF A FORSYTE
+
+Soames walked out of the garden door, crossed the lawn, stood on the
+path above the river, turned round and walked back to the garden door,
+without having realised that he had moved. The sound of wheels crunching
+the drive convinced him that time had passed, and the doctor gone. What,
+exactly, had he said?
+
+"This is the position, Mr. Forsyte. I can make pretty certain of her
+life if I operate, but the baby will be born dead. If I don't operate,
+the baby will most probably be born alive, but it's a great risk for
+the mother--a great risk. In either case I don't think she can ever have
+another child. In her state she obviously can't decide for herself, and
+we can't wait for her mother. It's for you to make the decision, while
+I'm getting what's necessary. I shall be back within the hour."
+
+The decision! What a decision! No time to get a specialist down! No time
+for anything!
+
+The sound of wheels died away, but Soames still stood intent; then,
+suddenly covering his ears, he walked back to the river. To come before
+its time like this, with no chance to foresee anything, not even to get
+her mother here! It was for her mother to make that decision, and
+she couldn't arrive from Paris till to-night! If only he could have
+understood the doctor's jargon, the medical niceties, so as to be sure
+he was weighing the chances properly; but they were Greek to him--like
+a legal problem to a layman. And yet he must decide! He brought his hand
+away from his brow wet, though the air was chilly. These sounds which
+came from her room! To go back there would only make it more difficult.
+He must be calm, clear. On the one hand life, nearly certain, of his
+young wife, death quite certain, of his child; and--no more children
+afterwards! On the other, death perhaps of his wife, nearly certain life
+for the child; and--no more children afterwards! Which to choose?....
+It had rained this last fortnight--the river was very full, and in
+the water, collected round the little house-boat moored by his
+landing-stage, were many leaves from the woods above, brought off by a
+frost. Leaves fell, lives drifted down--Death! To decide about death!
+And no one to give him a hand. Life lost was lost for good. Let nothing
+go that you could keep; for, if it went, you couldn't get it back. It
+left you bare, like those trees when they lost their leaves; barer and
+barer until you, too, withered and came down. And, by a queer somersault
+of thought, he seemed to see not Annette lying up there behind that
+window-pane on which the sun was shining, but Irene lying in their
+bedroom in Montpellier Square, as it might conceivably have been her
+fate to lie, sixteen years ago. Would he have hesitated then? Not a
+moment! Operate, operate! Make certain of her life! No decision--a mere
+instinctive cry for help, in spite of his knowledge, even then, that she
+did not love him! But this! Ah! there was nothing overmastering in his
+feeling for Annette! Many times these last months, especially since she
+had been growing frightened, he had wondered. She had a will of her
+own, was selfish in her French way. And yet--so pretty! What would she
+wish--to take the risk. 'I know she wants the child,' he thought. 'If
+it's born dead, and no more chance afterwards--it'll upset her terribly.
+No more chance! All for nothing! Married life with her for years and
+years without a child. Nothing to steady her! She's too young. Nothing
+to look forward to, for her--for me! For me!' He struck his hands
+against his chest! Why couldn't he think without bringing himself
+in--get out of himself and see what he ought to do? The thought hurt
+him, then lost edge, as if it had come in contact with a breastplate.
+Out of oneself! Impossible! Out into soundless, scentless, touchless,
+sightless space! The very idea was ghastly, futile! And touching there
+the bedrock of reality, the bottom of his Forsyte spirit, Soames rested
+for a moment. When one ceased, all ceased; it might go on, but there'd
+be nothing in it!
+
+He looked at his watch. In half an hour the doctor would be back. He
+must decide! If against the operation and she died, how face her mother
+and the doctor afterwards? How face his own conscience? It was his child
+that she was having. If for the operation--then he condemned them both
+to childlessness. And for what else had he married her but to have a
+lawful heir? And his father--at death's door, waiting for the news!
+'It's cruel!' he thought; 'I ought never to have such a thing to settle!
+It's cruel!' He turned towards the house. Some deep, simple way of
+deciding! He took out a coin, and put it back. If he spun it, he knew he
+would not abide by what came up! He went into the dining-room, furthest
+away from that room whence the sounds issued. The doctor had said there
+was a chance. In here that chance seemed greater; the river did not
+flow, nor the leaves fall. A fire was burning. Soames unlocked the
+tantalus. He hardly ever touched spirits, but now--he poured himself
+out some whisky and drank it neat, craving a faster flow of blood. 'That
+fellow Jolyon,' he thought; 'he had children already. He has the woman I
+really loved; and now a son by her! And I--I'm asked to destroy my only
+child! Annette can't die; it's not possible. She's strong!'
+
+He was still standing sullenly at the sideboard when he heard the
+doctor's carriage, and went out to him. He had to wait for him to come
+downstairs.
+
+"Well, doctor?"
+
+"The situation's the same. Have you decided?"
+
+"Yes," said Soames; "don't operate!"
+
+"Not? You understand--the risk's great?"
+
+In Soames' set face nothing moved but the lips.
+
+"You said there was a chance?"
+
+"A chance, yes; not much of one."
+
+"You say the baby must be born dead if you do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you still think that in any case she can't have another?"
+
+"One can't be absolutely sure, but it's most unlikely."
+
+"She's strong," said Soames; "we'll take the risk."
+
+The doctor looked at him very gravely. "It's on your shoulders," he
+said; "with my own wife, I couldn't."
+
+Soames' chin jerked up as if someone had hit him.
+
+"Am I of any use up there?" he asked.
+
+"No; keep away."
+
+"I shall be in my picture-gallery, then; you know where."
+
+The doctor nodded, and went upstairs.
+
+Soames continued to stand, listening. 'By this time to-morrow,'
+he thought, 'I may have her death on my hands.' No! it was
+unfair--monstrous, to put it that way! Sullenness dropped on him again,
+and he went up to the gallery. He stood at the window. The wind was in
+the north; it was cold, clear; very blue sky, heavy ragged white clouds
+chasing across; the river blue, too, through the screen of goldening
+trees; the woods all rich with colour, glowing, burnished-an early
+autumn. If it were his own life, would he be taking that risk? 'But
+she'd take the risk of losing me,' he thought, 'sooner than lose her
+child! She doesn't really love me!' What could one expect--a girl and
+French? The one thing really vital to them both, vital to their marriage
+and their futures, was a child! 'I've been through a lot for this,' he
+thought, 'I'll hold on--hold on. There's a chance of keeping both--a
+chance!' One kept till things were taken--one naturally kept! He began
+walking round the gallery. He had made one purchase lately which he knew
+was a fortune in itself, and he halted before it--a girl with dull gold
+hair which looked like filaments of metal gazing at a little golden
+monster she was holding in her hand. Even at this tortured moment
+he could just feel the extraordinary nature of the bargain he had
+made--admire the quality of the table, the floor, the chair, the girl's
+figure, the absorbed expression on her face, the dull gold filaments of
+her hair, the bright gold of the little monster. Collecting pictures;
+growing richer, richer! What use, if...! He turned his back abruptly on
+the picture, and went to the window. Some of his doves had flown up from
+their perches round the dovecot, and were stretching their wings in the
+wind. In the clear sharp sunlight their whiteness almost flashed. They
+flew far, making a flung-up hieroglyphic against the sky. Annette fed
+the doves; it was pretty to see her. They took it out of her hand; they
+knew she was matter-of-fact. A choking sensation came into his throat.
+She would not--could nod die! She was too--too sensible; and she was
+strong, really strong, like her mother, in spite of her fair prettiness.
+
+It was already growing dark when at last he opened the door, and stood
+listening. Not a sound! A milky twilight crept about the stairway and
+the landings below. He had turned back when a sound caught his ear.
+Peering down, he saw a black shape moving, and his heart stood still.
+What was it? Death? The shape of Death coming from her door? No! only a
+maid without cap or apron. She came to the foot of his flight of stairs
+and said breathlessly:
+
+"The doctor wants to see you, sir."
+
+He ran down. She stood flat against the wall to let him pass, and said:
+
+"Oh, Sir! it's over."
+
+"Over?" said Soames, with a sort of menace; "what d'you mean?"
+
+"It's born, sir."
+
+He dashed up the four steps in front of him, and came suddenly on the
+doctor in the dim passage. The man was wiping his brow.
+
+"Well?" he said; "quick!"
+
+"Both living; it's all right, I think."
+
+Soames stood quite still, covering his eyes.
+
+"I congratulate you," he heard the doctor say; "it was touch and go."
+
+Soames let fall the hand which was covering his face.
+
+"Thanks," he said; "thanks very much. What is it?"
+
+"Daughter--luckily; a son would have killed her--the head."
+
+A daughter!
+
+"The utmost care of both," he hearts the doctor say, "and we shall do.
+When does the mother come?"
+
+"To-night, between nine and ten, I hope."
+
+"I'll stay till then. Do you want to see them?"
+
+"Not now," said Soames; "before you go. I'll have dinner sent up to
+you." And he went downstairs.
+
+Relief unspeakable, and yet--a daughter! It seemed to him unfair.
+To have taken that risk--to have been through this agony--and what
+agony!--for a daughter! He stood before the blazing fire of wood logs in
+the hall, touching it with his toe and trying to readjust himself. 'My
+father!' he thought. A bitter disappointment, no disguising it! One
+never got all one wanted in this life! And there was no other--at least,
+if there was, it was no use!
+
+While he was standing there, a telegram was brought him.
+
+"Come up at once, your father sinking fast.--MOTHER."
+
+He read it with a choking sensation. One would have thought he couldn't
+feel anything after these last hours, but he felt this. Half-past seven,
+a train from Reading at nine, and madame's train, if she had caught it,
+came in at eight-forty--he would meet that, and go on. He ordered the
+carriage, ate some dinner mechanically, and went upstairs. The doctor
+came out to him.
+
+"They're sleeping."
+
+"I won't go in," said Soames with relief. "My father's dying; I have
+to--go up. Is it all right?"
+
+The doctor's face expressed a kind of doubting admiration. 'If they were
+all as unemotional' he might have been saying.
+
+"Yes, I think you may go with an easy mind. You'll be down soon?"
+
+"To-morrow," said Soames. "Here's the address."
+
+The doctor seemed to hover on the verge of sympathy.
+
+"Good-night!" said Soames abruptly, and turned away. He put on his fur
+coat. Death! It was a chilly business. He smoked a cigarette in the
+carriage--one of his rare cigarettes. The night was windy and flew on
+black wings; the carriage lights had to search out the way. His father!
+That old, old man! A comfortless night--to die!
+
+The London train came in just as he reached the station, and Madame
+Lamotte, substantial, dark-clothed, very yellow in the lamplight, came
+towards the exit with a dressing-bag.
+
+"This all you have?" asked Soames.
+
+"But yes; I had not the time. How is my little one?"
+
+"Doing well--both. A girl!"
+
+"A girl! What joy! I had a frightful crossing!"
+
+Her black bulk, solid, unreduced by the frightful crossing, climbed into
+the brougham.
+
+"And you, mon cher?"
+
+"My father's dying," said Soames between his teeth. "I'm going up. Give
+my love to Annette."
+
+"Tiens!" murmured Madame Lamotte; "quel malheur!"
+
+Soames took his hat off, and moved towards his train. 'The French!' he
+thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--JAMES IS TOLD
+
+A simple cold, caught in the room with double windows, where the air and
+the people who saw him were filtered, as it were, the room he had not
+left since the middle of September--and James was in deep waters. A
+little cold, passing his little strength and flying quickly to his
+lungs. "He mustn't catch cold," the doctor had declared, and he had gone
+and caught it. When he first felt it in his throat he had said to his
+nurse--for he had one now--"There, I knew how it would be, airing the
+room like that!" For a whole day he was highly nervous about himself and
+went in advance of all precautions and remedies; drawing every breath
+with extreme care and having his temperature taken every hour. Emily was
+not alarmed.
+
+But next morning when she went in the nurse whispered: "He won't have
+his temperature taken."
+
+Emily crossed to the side of the bed where he was lying, and said
+softly, "How do you feel, James?" holding the thermometer to his lips.
+James looked up at her.
+
+"What's the good of that?" he murmured huskily; "I don't want to know."
+
+Then she was alarmed. He breathed with difficulty, he looked terribly
+frail, white, with faint red discolorations. She had 'had trouble' with
+him, Goodness knew; but he was James, had been James for nearly fifty
+years; she couldn't remember or imagine life without James--James,
+behind all his fussiness, his pessimism, his crusty shell, deeply
+affectionate, really kind and generous to them all!
+
+All that day and the next he hardly uttered a word, but there was in
+his eyes a noticing of everything done for him, a look on his face which
+told her he was fighting; and she did not lose hope. His very stillness,
+the way he conserved every little scrap of energy, showed the tenacity
+with which he was fighting. It touched her deeply; and though her face
+was composed and comfortable in the sick-room, tears ran down her cheeks
+when she was out of it.
+
+About tea-time on the third day--she had just changed her dress,
+keeping her appearance so as not to alarm him, because he noticed
+everything--she saw a difference. 'It's no use; I'm tired,' was
+written plainly across that white face, and when she went up to him, he
+muttered: "Send for Soames."
+
+"Yes, James," she said comfortably; "all right--at once." And she kissed
+his forehead. A tear dropped there, and as she wiped it off she saw that
+his eyes looked grateful. Much upset, and without hope now, she sent
+Soames the telegram.
+
+When he entered out of the black windy night, the big house was still as
+a grave. Warmson's broad face looked almost narrow; he took the fur coat
+with a sort of added care, saying:
+
+"Will you have a glass of wine, sir?"
+
+Soames shook his head, and his eyebrows made enquiry.
+
+Warmson's lips twitched. "He's asking for you, sir;" and suddenly he
+blew his nose. "It's a long time, sir," he said, "that I've been with
+Mr. Forsyte--a long time."
+
+Soames left him folding the coat, and began to mount the stairs. This
+house, where he had been born and sheltered, had never seemed to him so
+warm, and rich, and cosy, as during this last pilgrimage to his father's
+room. It was not his taste; but in its own substantial, lincrusta way
+it was the acme of comfort and security. And the night was so dark and
+windy; the grave so cold and lonely!
+
+He paused outside the door. No sound came from within. He turned the
+handle softly and was in the room before he was perceived. The light was
+shaded. His mother and Winifred were sitting on the far side of the bed;
+the nurse was moving away from the near side where was an empty chair.
+'For me!' thought Soames. As he moved from the door his mother and
+sister rose, but he signed with his hand and they sat down again. He
+went up to the chair and stood looking at his father. James' breathing
+was as if strangled; his eyes were closed. And in Soames, looking on
+his father so worn and white and wasted, listening to his strangled
+breathing, there rose a passionate vehemence of anger against Nature,
+cruel, inexorable Nature, kneeling on the chest of that wisp of a body,
+slowly pressing out the breath, pressing out the life of the being who
+was dearest to him in the world. His father, of all men, had lived a
+careful life, moderate, abstemious, and this was his reward--to have
+life slowly, painfully squeezed out of him! And, without knowing that he
+spoke, he said: "It's cruel!"
+
+He saw his mother cover her eyes and Winifred bow her face towards the
+bed. Women! They put up with things so much better than men. He took a
+step nearer to his father. For three days James had not been shaved,
+and his lips and chin were covered with hair, hardly more snowy than his
+forehead. It softened his face, gave it a queer look already not of this
+world. His eyes opened. Soames went quite close and bent over. The lips
+moved.
+
+"Here I am, Father:"
+
+"Um--what--what news? They never tell...." the voice died, and a flood
+of emotion made Soames' face work so that he could not speak. Tell
+him?--yes. But what? He made a great effort, got his lips together, and
+said:
+
+"Good news, dear, good--Annette, a son."
+
+"Ah!" It was the queerest sound, ugly, relieved, pitiful,
+triumphant--like the noise a baby makes getting what it wants. The
+eyes closed, and that strangled sound of breathing began again. Soames
+recoiled to the chair and stonily sat down. The lie he had told, based,
+as it were, on some deep, temperamental instinct that after death James
+would not know the truth, had taken away all power of feeling for the
+moment. His arm brushed against something. It was his father's naked
+foot. In the struggle to breathe he had pushed it out from under the
+clothes. Soames took it in his hand, a cold foot, light and thin, white,
+very cold. What use to put it back, to wrap up that which must be colder
+soon! He warmed it mechanically with his hand, listening to his father's
+laboured breathing; while the power of feeling rose again within him.
+A little sob, quickly smothered, came from Winifred, but his mother sat
+unmoving with her eyes fixed on James. Soames signed to the nurse.
+
+"Where's the doctor?" he whispered.
+
+"He's been sent for."
+
+"Can't you do anything to ease his breathing?"
+
+"Only an injection; and he can't stand it. The doctor said, while he was
+fighting...."
+
+"He's not fighting," whispered Soames, "he's being slowly smothered.
+It's awful."
+
+James stirred uneasily, as if he knew what they were saying. Soames rose
+and bent over him. James feebly moved his two hands, and Soames took
+them.
+
+"He wants to be pulled up," whispered the nurse.
+
+Soames pulled. He thought he pulled gently, but a look almost of anger
+passed over James' face. The nurse plumped the pillows. Soames laid the
+hands down, and bending over kissed his father's forehead. As he was
+raising himself again, James' eyes bent on him a look which seemed to
+come from the very depths of what was left within. 'I'm done, my boy,'
+it seemed to say, 'take care of them, take care of yourself; take
+care--I leave it all to you.'
+
+"Yes, Yes," Soames whispered, "yes, yes."
+
+Behind him the nurse did he knew, not what, for his father made a tiny
+movement of repulsion as if resenting that interference; and almost
+at once his breathing eased away, became quiet; he lay very still. The
+strained expression on his face passed, a curious white tranquillity
+took its place. His eyelids quivered, rested; the whole face rested; at
+ease. Only by the faint puffing of his lips could they tell that he was
+breathing. Soames sank back on his chair, and fell to cherishing the
+foot again. He heard the nurse quietly crying over there by the fire;
+curious that she, a stranger, should be the only one of them who cried!
+He heard the quiet lick and flutter of the fire flames. One more old
+Forsyte going to his long rest--wonderful, they were!--wonderful how he
+had held on! His mother and Winifred were leaning forward, hanging
+on the sight of James' lips. But Soames bent sideways over the feet,
+warming them both; they gave him comfort, colder and colder though they
+grew. Suddenly he started up; a sound, a dreadful sound such as he had
+never heard, was coming from his father's lips, as if an outraged heart
+had broken with a long moan. What a strong heart, to have uttered that
+farewell! It ceased. Soames looked into the face. No motion; no breath!
+Dead! He kissed the brow, turned round and went out of the room. He
+ran upstairs to the bedroom, his old bedroom, still kept for him; flung
+himself face down on the bed, and broke into sobs which he stilled with
+the pillow....
+
+A little later he went downstairs and passed into the room. James lay
+alone, wonderfully calm, free from shadow and anxiety, with the gravity
+on his ravaged face which underlies great age, the worn fine gravity of
+old coins.
+
+Soames looked steadily at that face, at the fire, at all the room with
+windows thrown open to the London night.
+
+"Good-bye!" he whispered, and went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV--HIS
+
+He had much to see to, that night and all next day. A telegram at
+breakfast reassured him about Annette, and he only caught the last train
+back to Reading, with Emily's kiss on his forehead and in his ears her
+words:
+
+"I don't know what I should have done without you, my dear boy."
+
+He reached his house at midnight. The weather had changed, was mild
+again, as though, having finished its work and sent a Forsyte to
+his last account, it could relax. A second telegram, received at
+dinner-time, had confirmed the good news of Annette, and, instead of
+going in, Soames passed down through the garden in the moonlight to his
+houseboat. He could sleep there quite well. Bitterly tired, he lay down
+on the sofa in his fur coat and fell asleep. He woke soon after dawn and
+went on deck. He stood against the rail, looking west where the river
+swept round in a wide curve under the woods. In Soames, appreciation of
+natural beauty was curiously like that of his farmer ancestors, a sense
+of grievance if it wasn't there, sharpened, no doubt, and civilised, by
+his researches among landscape painting. But dawn has power to fertilise
+the most matter-of-fact vision, and he was stirred. It was another world
+from the river he knew, under that remote cool light; a world into which
+man had not entered, an unreal world, like some strange shore sighted
+by discovery. Its colour was not the colour of convention, was hardly
+colour at all; its shapes were brooding yet distinct; its silence
+stunning; it had no scent. Why it should move him he could not tell,
+unless it were that he felt so alone in it, bare of all relationship and
+all possessions. Into such a world his father might be voyaging, for all
+resemblance it had to the world he had left. And Soames took refuge from
+it in wondering what painter could have done it justice. The white-grey
+water was like--like the belly of a fish! Was it possible that this
+world on which he looked was all private property, except the water--and
+even that was tapped! No tree, no shrub, not a blade of grass, not a
+bird or beast, not even a fish that was not owned. And once on a time
+all this was jungle and marsh and water, and weird creatures roamed and
+sported without human cognizance to give them names; rotting luxuriance
+had rioted where those tall, carefully planted woods came down to the
+water, and marsh-misted reeds on that far side had covered all the
+pasture. Well! they had got it under, kennelled it all up, labelled it,
+and stowed it in lawyers' offices. And a good thing too! But once in
+a way, as now, the ghost of the past came out to haunt and brood
+and whisper to any human who chanced to be awake: 'Out of my unowned
+loneliness you all came, into it some day you will all return.'
+
+And Soames, who felt the chill and the eeriness of that world-new to
+him and so very old: the world, unowned, visiting the scene of its
+past--went down and made himself tea on a spirit-lamp. When he had drunk
+it, he took out writing materials and wrote two paragraphs:
+
+"On the 20th instant at his residence in Park Lane, James Forsyte,
+in his ninety-first year. Funeral at noon on the 24th at Highgate. No
+flowers by request."
+
+"On the 20th instant at The Shelter; Mapledurham, Annette, wife of
+Soames Forsyte, of a daughter." And underneath on the blottingpaper he
+traced the word "son."
+
+It was eight o'clock in an ordinary autumn world when he went across to
+the house. Bushes across the river stood round and bright-coloured out
+of a milky haze; the wood-smoke went up blue and straight; and his doves
+cooed, preening their feathers in the sunlight.
+
+He stole up to his dressing-room, bathed, shaved, put on fresh linen and
+dark clothes.
+
+Madame Lamotte was beginning her breakfast when he went down.
+
+She looked at his clothes, said, "Don't tell me!" and pressed his hand.
+"Annette is prettee well. But the doctor say she can never have no more
+children. You knew that?" Soames nodded. "It's a pity. Mais la petite
+est adorable. Du cafe?"
+
+Soames got away from her as soon as he could. She offended him--solid,
+matter-of-fact, quick, clear--French. He could not bear her vowels,
+her 'r's'; he resented the way she had looked at him, as if it were
+his fault that Annette could never bear him a son! His fault! He even
+resented her cheap adoration of the daughter he had not yet seen.
+
+Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!
+
+One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first moment. On
+the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from it--fastidious
+possessor that he was. He was afraid of what Annette was thinking of
+him, author of her agonies, afraid of the look of the baby, afraid of
+showing his disappointment with the present and--the future.
+
+He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he could
+screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the door of their
+room.
+
+Madame Lamotte opened it.
+
+"Ah! At last you come! Elle vous attend!" She passed him, and Soames
+went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his eyes furtive.
+
+Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there. The baby was hidden
+away somewhere; he could not see it. He went up to the bed, and with
+sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.
+
+"Here you are then, Soames," she said. "I am not so bad now. But I
+suffered terribly, terribly. I am glad I cannot have any more. Oh! how I
+suffered!"
+
+Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
+sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through him:
+'An English girl wouldn't have said that!' At this moment he knew with
+certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit and in truth, nor
+she to him. He had collected her--that was all! And Jolyon's words came
+rushing into his mind: "I should imagine you will be glad to have your
+neck out of chancery." Well, he had got it out! Had he got it in again?
+
+"We must feed you up," he said, "you'll soon be strong."
+
+"Don't you want to see baby, Soames? She is asleep."
+
+"Of course," said Soames, "very much."
+
+He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood staring.
+For the first moment what he saw was much what he had expected to see--a
+baby. But as he stared and the baby breathed and made little sleeping
+movements with its tiny features, it seemed to assume an individual
+shape, grew to be like a picture, a thing he would know again; not
+repulsive, strangely bud-like and touching. It had dark hair. He touched
+it with his finger, he wanted to see its eyes. They opened, they were
+dark--whether blue or brown he could not tell. The eyes winked, stared,
+they had a sort of sleepy depth in them. And suddenly his heart felt
+queer, warm, as if elated.
+
+"Ma petite fleur!" Annette said softly.
+
+"Fleur," repeated Soames: "Fleur! we'll call her that."
+
+The sense of triumph and renewed possession swelled within him.
+
+By God! this--this thing was his! By God! this--this thing was his!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Forsyte Saga, Volume II., by John Galsworthy
+
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