those others, deserved all they would get. And he, too, asked for
      Timothy.

      As though feeling that some danger threatened her younger
      brother, Aunt Juley suddenly offered him tea: “There it is,” she
      said, “all cold and nasty, waiting for you in the back drawing
      room, but Smither shall make you some fresh.”

      Old Jolyon rose: “Thank you,” he said, looking straight at James,
      “but I’ve no time for tea, and—scandal, and the rest of it! It’s
      time I was at home. Good-bye, Julia; good-bye, Hester; good-bye,
      Winifred.”

      Without more ceremonious adieux, he marched out.

      Once again in his cab, his anger evaporated, for so it ever was
      with his wrath—when he had rapped out, it was gone. Sadness came
      over his spirit. He had stopped their mouths, maybe, but at what
      a cost! At the cost of certain knowledge that the rumour he had
      been resolved not to believe was true. June was abandoned, and
      for the wife of that fellow’s son! He felt it was true, and
      hardened himself to treat it as if it were not; but the pain he
      hid beneath this resolution began slowly, surely, to vent itself
      in a blind resentment against James and his son.

      The six women and one man left behind in the little drawing-room
      began talking as easily as might be after such an occurrence, for
      though each one of them knew for a fact that he or she never
      talked scandal, each one of them also knew that the other six
      did; all were therefore angry and at a loss. James only was
      silent, disturbed, to the bottom of his soul.

      Presently Francie said: “Do you know, I think Uncle Jolyon is
      terribly changed this last year. What do you think, Aunt Hester?”

      Aunt Hester made a little movement of recoil: “Oh, ask your Aunt
      Julia!” she said; “I know nothing about it.”

      No one else was afraid of assenting, and James muttered gloomily
      at the floor: “He’s not half the man he was.”

      “I’ve noticed it a long time,” went on Francie; “he’s aged
      tremendously.”

      Aunt Juley shook her head; her face seemed suddenly to have
      become one immense pout.

      “Poor dear Jolyon,” she said, “somebody ought to see to it for
      him!”

      There was again silence; then, as though in terror of being left
      solitarily behind, all five visitors rose simultaneously, and
      took their departure.

      Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester, and their cat were left once more alone,
      the sound of a door closing in the distance announced the
      approach of Timothy.

      That evening, when Aunt Hester had just got off to sleep in the
      back bedroom that used to be Aunt Juley’s before Aunt Juley took
      Aunt Ann’s, her door was opened, and Mrs. Small, in a pink
      night-cap, a candle in her hand, entered: “Hester!” she said.
      “Hester!”

      Aunt Hester faintly rustled the sheet.

      “Hester,” repeated Aunt Juley, to make quite sure that she had
      awakened her, “I am quite troubled about poor dear Jolyon.
      _What_,” Aunt Juley dwelt on the word, “do you think ought to be
      done?”

      Aunt Hester again rustled the sheet, her voice was heard faintly
      pleading: “Done? How should I know?”

      Aunt Juley turned away satisfied, and closing the door with extra
      gentleness so as not to disturb dear Hester, let it slip through
      her fingers and fall to with a “crack.”

      Back in her own room, she stood at the window gazing at the moon
      over the trees in the Park, through a chink in the muslin
      curtains, close drawn lest anyone should see. And there, with her
      face all round and pouting in its pink cap, and her eyes wet, she
      thought of “dear Jolyon,” so old and so lonely, and how she could
      be of some use to him; and how he would come to love her, as she
      had never been loved since—since poor Septimus went away.

      CHAPTER VIII DANCE AT ROGER’S

      Roger’s house in Prince’s Gardens was brilliantly alight. Large
      numbers of wax candles had been collected and placed in cut-glass
      chandeliers, and the parquet floor of the long, double
      drawing-room reflected these constellations. An appearance of
      real spaciousness had been secured by moving out all the
      furniture on to the upper landings, and enclosing the room with
      those strange appendages of civilization known as “rout” seats.
      In a remote corner, embowered in palms, was a cottage piano, with
      a copy of the “Kensington Coil” open on the music-stand.

      Roger had objected to a band. He didn’t see in the least what
      they wanted with a band; he wouldn’t go to the expense, and there
      was an end of it. Francie (her mother, whom Roger had long since
      reduced to chronic dyspepsia, went to bed on such occasions), had
      been obliged to content herself with supplementing the piano by a
      young man who played the cornet, and she so arranged with palms
      that anyone who did not look into the heart of things might
      imagine there were several musicians secreted there. She made up
      her mind to tell them to play loud—there was a lot of music in a
      cornet, if the man would only put his soul into it.

      In the more cultivated American tongue, she was “through” at
      last—through that tortuous labyrinth of make-shifts, which must
      be traversed before fashionable display can be combined with the
      sound economy of a Forsyte. Thin but brilliant, in her
      maize-coloured frock with much tulle about the shoulders, she
      went from place to place, fitting on her gloves, and casting her
      eye over it all.

      To the hired butler (for Roger only kept maids) she spoke about
      the wine. Did he quite understand that Mr. Forsyte wished a dozen
      bottles of the champagne from Whiteley’s to be put out? But if
      that were finished (she did not suppose it would be, most of the
      ladies would drink water, no doubt), but if it were, there was
      the champagne cup, and he must do the best he could with that.

      She hated having to say this sort of thing to a butler, it was so
      _infra dig.;_ but what could you do with father? Roger, indeed,
      after making himself consistently disagreeable about the dance,
      would come down presently, with his fresh colour and bumpy
      forehead, as though he had been its promoter; and he would smile,
      and probably take the prettiest woman in to supper; and at two
      o’clock, just as they were getting into the swing, he would go up
      secretly to the musicians and tell them to play “God Save the
      Queen,” and go away.

      Francie devoutly hoped he might soon get tired, and slip off to
      bed.

      The three or four devoted girl friends who were staying in the
      house for this dance had partaken with her, in a small, abandoned
      room upstairs, of tea and cold chicken-legs, hurriedly served;
      the men had been sent out to dine at Eustace’s Club, it being
      felt that they must be fed up.

      Punctually on the stroke of nine arrived Mrs. Small alone. She
      made elaborate apologies for the absence of Timothy, omitting all
      mention of Aunt Hester, who, at the last minute, had said she
      could not be bothered. Francie received her effusively, and
      placed her on a rout seat, where she left her, pouting and
      solitary in lavender-coloured satin—the first time she had worn
      colour since Aunt Ann’s death.

      The devoted maiden friends came now from their rooms, each by
      magic arrangement in a differently coloured frock, but all with
      the same liberal allowance of tulle on the shoulders and at the
      bosom—for they were, by some fatality, lean to a girl. They were
      all taken up to Mrs. Small. None stayed with her more than a few
      seconds, but clustering together talked and twisted their
      programmes, looking secretly at the door for the first appearance
      of a man.

      Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always
      punctual—the fashion up Ladbroke Grove way; and close behind them
      Eustace and his men, gloomy and smelling rather of smoke.

      Three or four of Francie’s lovers now appeared, one after the
      other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all
      clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man
      sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not
      seem to mind each other’s presence in the least, and wore their
      ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with
      clocks. All had handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs. They
      moved buoyantly, each armoured in professional gaiety, as though
      he had come to do great deeds. Their faces when they danced, far
      from wearing the traditional solemn look of the dancing
      Englishman, were irresponsible, charming, suave; they bounded,
      twirling their partners at great pace, without pedantic attention
      to the rhythm of the music.

      At other dancers they looked with a kind of airy scorn—they, the
      light brigade, the heroes of a hundred Kensington “hops”—from
      whom alone could the right manner and smile and step be hoped.

      After this the stream came fast; chaperones silting up along the
      wall facing the entrance, the volatile element swelling the eddy
      in the larger room.

      Men were scarce, and wallflowers wore their peculiar, pathetic
      expression, a patient, sourish smile which seemed to say: “Oh,
      no! don’t mistake me, _I_ know you are not coming up to me. I can
      hardly expect that!” And Francie would plead with one of her
      lovers, or with some callow youth: “Now, to please me, do let me
      introduce you to Miss Pink; such a nice girl, really!” and she
      would bring him up, and say: “Miss Pink—Mr. Gathercole. Can you
      spare him a dance?” Then Miss Pink, smiling her forced smile,
      colouring a little, answered: “Oh! I think so!” and screening her
      empty card, wrote on it the name of Gathercole, spelling it
      passionately in the district that he proposed, about the second
      extra.

      But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and passed, she
      relapsed into her attitude of hopeless expectation, into her
      patient, sourish smile.

      Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their daughters, and
      in their eyes could be read all the story of those daughters’
      fortunes. As for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired,
      silent, or talking spasmodically—what did it matter, so long as
      the girls were having a good time! But to see them neglected and
      passed by! Ah! they smiled, but their eyes stabbed like the eyes
      of an offended swan; they longed to pluck young Gathercole by the
      slack of his dandified breeches, and drag him to their
      daughters—the jackanapes!

      And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos and
      unequal chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness, and patience,
      were presented on the battle-field of this Kensington ball-room.

      Here and there, too, lovers—not lovers like Francie’s, a peculiar
      breed, but simply lovers—trembling, blushing, silent, sought each
      other by flying glances, sought to meet and touch in the mazes of
      the dance, and now and again dancing together, struck some
      beholder by the light in their eyes.

      Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses—Emily, Rachel,
      Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having on a former
      occasion drunk too much of Roger’s champagne), and Cicely, the
      youngest, making her debut; behind them, following in a hansom
      from the paternal mansion where they had dined, Soames and Irene.

      All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle—thus showing at
      once, by a bolder exposure of flesh, that they came from the more
      fashionable side of the Park.

      Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers, took up a
      position against the wall. Guarding himself with his pale smile,
      he stood watching. Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple
      after couple brushed by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches
      of talk; or with set lips, and eyes searching the throng; or
      again, with silent, parted lips, and eyes on each other. And the
      scent of festivity, the odour of flowers, and hair, of essences
      that women love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of the summer
      night.

      Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames seemed to
      notice nothing; but now and again his eyes, finding that which
      they sought, would fix themselves on a point in the shifting
      throng, and the smile die off his lips.

      He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with their wives; his
      sense of “form” had never permitted him to dance with Irene since
      their marriage, and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell
      whether this was a relief to him or not.

      She passed, dancing with other men, her dress, iris-coloured,
      floating away from her feet. She danced well; he was tired of
      hearing women say with an acid smile: “How beautifully your wife
      dances, Mr. Forsyte—it’s quite a pleasure to watch her!” Tired of
      answering them with his sidelong glance: “You think so?”

      A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making an
      unpleasant draught. Francie and one of her lovers stood near.
      They were talking of love.

      He heard Roger’s voice behind, giving an order about supper to a
      servant. Everything was very second-class! He wished that he had
      not come! He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had
      answered with that maddening smile of hers “Oh, no!”

      Why _had_ he come? For the last quarter of an hour he had not
      even seen her. Here was George advancing with his Quilpish face;
      it was too late to get out of his way.

      “Have you seen ‘The Buccaneer’.” said this licensed wag; “he’s on
      the warpath—hair cut and everything!”

      Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty in an
      interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony, and looked
      down into the street.

      A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round the door
      hung some of those patient watchers of the London streets who
      spring up to the call of light or music; their faces, pale and
      upturned above their black and rusty figures, had an air of
      stolid watching that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to
      hang about; why didn’t the bobby move them on?

      But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet were planted
      apart on the strip of crimson carpet stretched across the
      pavement; his face, under the helmet, wore the same stolid,
      watching look as theirs.

      Across the road, through the railings, Soames could see the
      branches of trees shining, faintly stirring in the breeze, by the
      gleam of the street lamps; beyond, again, the upper lights of the
      houses on the other side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet
      blackness of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful
      London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection of countless
      lamps; a dome woven over between its stars with the refraction of
      human needs and human fancies—immense mirror of pomp and misery
      that night after night stretches its kindly mocking over miles of
      houses and gardens, mansions and squalor, over Forsytes,
      policemen, and patient watchers in the streets.

      Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed into the
      lighted room. It was cooler out there. He saw the new arrivals,
      June and her grandfather, enter. What had made them so late? They
      stood by the doorway. They looked fagged. Fancy Uncle Jolyon
      turning out at this time of night! Why hadn’t June come to Irene,
      as she usually did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had
      seen nothing of June for a long time now.

      Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change, grow so
      pale that he thought she would drop, then flame out crimson.
      Turning to see at what she was looking, he saw his wife on
      Bosinney’s arm, coming from the conservatory at the end of the
      room. Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering some
      question he had asked, and he was gazing at her intently.

      Soames looked again at June. Her hand rested on old Jolyon’s arm;
      she seemed to be making a request. He saw a surprised look on his
      uncle’s face; they turned and passed through the door out of his
      sight.

      The music began again—a waltz—and, still as a statue in the
      recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips,
      Soames waited. Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his
      wife and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of the gardenias
      that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in
      her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not
      know. To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed
      to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes,
      soft and dark, to Bosinney’s, and drop them again.

      Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning on it,
      gazed down on the Square; the figures were still there looking up
      at the light with dull persistency, the policeman’s face, too,
      upturned, and staring, but he saw nothing of them. Below, a
      carriage drew up, two figures got in, and drove away....

      That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner at the usual
      hour. The girl was in her customary high-necked frock, old Jolyon
      had not dressed.

      At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle Roger’s, she
      wanted to go; she had been stupid enough, she said, not to think
      of asking anyone to take her. It was too late now.

      Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes. June was used to go to dances
      with Irene as a matter of course! and deliberately fixing his
      gaze on her, he asked: “Why don’t you get Irene?”

      No! June did not want to ask Irene; she would only go if—if her
      grandfather wouldn’t mind just for once for a little time!

      At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had grumblingly
      consented. He did not know what she wanted, he said, with going
      to a dance like this, a poor affair, he would wager; and she no
      more fit for it than a cat! What she wanted was sea air, and
      after his general meeting of the Globular Gold Concessions he was
      ready to take her. She didn’t want to go away? Ah! she would
      knock herself up! Stealing a mournful look at her, he went on
      with his breakfast.

      June went out early, and wandered restlessly about in the heat.
      Her little light figure that lately had moved so languidly about
      its business, was all on fire. She bought herself some flowers.
      She wanted—she meant to look her best. _He_ would be there! She
      knew well enough that he had a card. She would show him that she
      did not care. But deep down in her heart she resolved that
      evening to win him back. She came in flushed, and talked brightly
      all lunch; old Jolyon was there, and he was deceived.

      In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate fit of sobbing.
      She strangled the noise against the pillows of her bed, but when
      at last it ceased she saw in the glass a swollen face with
      reddened eyes, and violet circles round them. She stayed in the
      darkened room till dinner time.

      All through that silent meal the struggle went on within her.

      She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon told “Sankey”
      to countermand the carriage, he would not have her going out....
      She was to go to bed! She made no resistance. She went up to her
      room, and sat in the dark. At ten o’clock she rang for her maid.

      “Bring some hot water, and go down and tell Mr. Forsyte that I
      feel perfectly rested. Say that if he’s too tired I can go to the
      dance by myself.”

      The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously.
      “Go,” she said, “bring the hot water at once!”

      Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort of fierce
      care she arrayed herself, took the flowers in her hand, and went
      down, her small face carried high under its burden of hair. She
      could hear old Jolyon in his room as she passed.

      Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing. It was past ten, they
      would not get there till eleven; the girl was mad. But he dared
      not cross her—the expression of her face at dinner haunted him.

      With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till it shone like
      silver under the light; then he, too, came out on the gloomy
      staircase.

      June met him below, and, without a word, they went to the
      carriage.

      When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever, she entered
      Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised under a mask of resolution a
      very torment of nervousness and emotion. The feeling of shame at
      what might be called “running after him” was smothered by the
      dread that he might not be there, that she might not see him
      after all, and by that dogged resolve—somehow, she did not know
      how—to win him back.

      The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor, gave her a
      feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved dancing, and when
      dancing she floated, so light was she, like a strenuous, eager
      little spirit. He would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced
      with her it would all be as it was before. She looked about her
      eagerly.

      The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory,
      with that strange look of utter absorption on his face, struck
      her too suddenly. They had not seen—no one should see—her
      distress, not even her grandfather.

      She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very low:

      “I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”

      He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how
      it would be.

      To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the
      carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the
      door, he asked her: “What is it, my darling?”

      Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he was terribly
      alarmed. She must have Blank to-morrow. He would insist upon it.
      He could not have her like this.... There, there!

      June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly, she
      lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a shawl.

      He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the dark, but he
      did not cease to stroke her hand with his thin fingers.

      CHAPTER IX EVENING AT RICHMOND

      Other eyes besides the eyes of June and of Soames had seen “those
      two” (as Euphemia had already begun to call them) coming from the
      conservatory; other eyes had noticed the look on Bosinney’s face.

      There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath
      the careless calm of her ordinary moods—violent spring flashing
      white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy,
      moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate
      blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing
      dark guardian of some fiery secret.

      There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted
      by the casual spectator as “* * *Titian—remarkably fine,” breaks
      through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than
      his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There
      are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are
      things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he
      tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it
      eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is
      slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He
      feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue
      has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay
      under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should
      know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he
      should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit
      that, and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and
      another for the programme.

      The look which June had seen, which other Forsytes had seen, was
      like the sudden flashing of a candle through a hole in some
      imaginary canvas, behind which it was being moved—the sudden
      flaming-out of a vague, erratic glow, shadowy and enticing. It
      brought home to onlookers the consciousness that dangerous forces
      were at work. For a moment they noticed it with pleasure, with
      interest, then felt they must not notice it at all.

      It supplied, however, the reason of Jun’s coming so late and
      disappearing again without dancing, without even shaking hands
      with her lover. She was ill, it was said, and no wonder.

      But here they looked at each other guiltily. They had no desire
      to spread scandal, no desire to be ill-natured. Who would have?
      And to outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping them
      silent.

      Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside with old
      Jolyon.

      He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place there was
      just then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost caste, in spite of
      Nicholas, and no Forsyte going to the sea without intending to
      have an air for his money such as would render him bilious in a
      week. That fatally aristocratic tendency of the first Forsyte to
      drink Madeira had left his descendants undoubtedly accessible.

      So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there
      was nothing else to do.

      But how far—how far had “those two” gone? How far were they going
      to go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely
      come of it, for neither of them had any money. At the most a
      flirtation, ending, as all such attachments should, at the proper
      time.

      Soames’s sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the
      breezes of Mayfair—she lived in Green Street—more fashionable
      principles in regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current,
      for instance, in Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there
      being anything in it. The “little thing”—Irene was taller than
      herself, and it was real testimony to the solid worth of a
      Forsyte that she should always thus be a “little thing”—the
      little thing was bored. Why shouldn’t she amuse herself? Soames
      was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney—only that buffoon
      George would have called him the Buccaneer—she maintained that he
      was very _chic_.

      This dictum—that Bosinney was _chic_—caused quite a sensation. It
      failed to convince. That he was “good-looking in a way” they were
      prepared to admit, but that anyone could call a man with his
      pronounced cheekbones, curious eyes, and soft felt hats _chic_
      was only another instance of Winifred’s extravagant way of
      running after something new.

      It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when
      the very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with
      blossom, and flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been
      before; when roses blew in every garden; and for the swarming
      stars the nights had hardly space; when every day and all day
      long the sun, in full armour, swung his brazen shield above the
      Park, and people did strange things, lunching and dining in the
      open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs and carriages that
      streamed across the bridges of the shining river, bearing the
      upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of Bushey,
      Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any
      pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year
      to the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the
      Spanish chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily,
      along, in a cloud of their own creation, they would stare
      fashionably at the antlered heads which the great slow deer
      raised out of a forest of bracken that promised to autumn lovers
      such cover as was never seen before. And now and again, as the
      amorous perfume of chestnut flowers and of fern was drifted too
      near, one would say to the other: “My dear! What a peculiar
      scent!”

      And the lime-flowers that year were of rare prime, near
      honey-coloured. At the corners of London squares they gave out,
      as the sun went down, a perfume sweeter than the honey bees had
      taken—a perfume that stirred a yearning unnamable in the hearts
      of Forsytes and their peers, taking the cool after dinner in the
      precincts of those gardens to which they alone had keys.

      And that yearning made them linger amidst the dim shapes of
      flower-beds in the failing daylight, made them turn, and turn,
      and turn again, as though lovers were waiting for them—waiting
      for the last light to die away under the shadow of the branches.

      Some vague sympathy evoked by the scent of the limes, some
      sisterly desire to see for herself, some idea of demonstrating
      the soundness of her dictum that there was “nothing in it”; or
      merely the craving to drive down to Richmond, irresistible that
      summer, moved the mother of the little Darties (of little
      Publius, of Imogen, Maud, and Benedict) to write the following
      note to her sister-in-law:

      “_June_ 30.

      “DEAR IRENE,
          “I hear that Soames is going to Henley tomorrow for the
          night. I thought it would be great fun if we made up a little
          party and drove down to, Richmond. Will you ask Mr. Bosinney,
          and I will get young Flippard.
          “Emily (they called their mother Emily—it was so chic) will
          lend us the carriage. I will call for you and your young man
          at seven o’clock.

      “Your affectionate sister,
      “WINIFRED DARTIE.

      “Montague believes the dinner at the Crown and Sceptre to be
      quite eatable.”

      Montague was Dartie’s second and better known name—his first
      being Moses; for he was nothing if not a man of the world.

      Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so
      benevolent a scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard
      wrote:

      “DEAR MRS. DARTIE,
      “Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.

      “Yours,
      “AUGUSTUS FLIPPARD.”

      It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this
      misfortune. With the promptitude and conduct of a mother,
      Winifred fell back on her husband. She had, indeed, the decided
      but tolerant temperament that goes with a good deal of profile,
      fair hair, and greenish eyes. She was seldom or never at a loss;
      or if at a loss, was always able to convert it into a gain.

      Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the
      Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was
      by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands
      against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that
      followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie’s life.

      Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about
      Soames mingled with the faintest hopes. On the Friday night he
      got drunk, so greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning
      the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within him. Owing some
      hundreds, which by no possibility could he pay, he went into town
      and put them all on Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.

      As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched at the Iseeum:
      “That little Jew boy, Nathans, had given him the tip. He didn’t
      care a cursh. He wash in—a mucker. If it didn’t come up—well
      then, damme, the old man would have to pay!”

      A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him a new
      contempt for James.

      It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by her neck—a terrible
      squeak! But, as Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!

      He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond. He would
      “stand” it himself! He cherished an admiration for Irene, and
      wished to be on more playful terms with her.

      At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round to say: Mrs.
      Forsyte was very sorry, but one of the horses was coughing!

      Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched
      little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess to
      Montpellier Square.

      They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown and Sceptre
      at 7.45.

      Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It was better than
      going down with your back to the horses! He had no objection to
      driving down with Irene. He supposed they would pick up the
      others at Montpellier Square, and swop hansoms there?

      Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre, and that he
      would have to drive with his wife, he turned sulky, and said it
      was d—-d slow!

      At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering to bet the driver
      half-a-crown he didn’t do it in the three-quarters of an hour.

      Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on the way.

      Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s nose out of joint to hear
      his wife’s been drivin’ in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”

      Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such nonsense, Monty!”

      “Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You don’t know women, my fine
      lady!”

      On the other occasion he merely asked: “How am I looking? A bit
      puffy about the gills? That fizz old George is so fond of is a
      windy wine!”

      He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.

      Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them. They were standing in
      one of the long French windows overlooking the river.

      Windows that summer were open all day long, and all night too,
      and day and night the scents of flowers and trees came in, the
      hot scent of parching grass, and the cool scent of the heavy
      dews.

      To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear
      to be making much running, standing there close together, without
      a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature—not much go about
      _him!_

      He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself to order
      the dinner.

      A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding, but a
      Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and Sceptre. Living as
      he does, from hand to mouth, nothing is too good for him to eat;
      and he will eat it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully
      provided; there is much drink in this country “not good enough”
      for a Dartie; he will have the best. Paying for things
      vicariously, there is no reason why he should stint himself. To
      stint yourself is the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.

      The best of everything! No sounder principle on which a man can
      base his life, whose father-in-law has a very considerable
      income, and a partiality for his grandchildren.

      With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James
      the very first year after little Publius’s arrival (an error); he
      had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a
      sort of perpetual insurance.

      The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red mullet. This
      delectable fish, brought from a considerable distance in a state
      of almost perfect preservation, was first fried, then boned, then
      served in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according to
      a recipe known to a few men of the world.

      Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of the bill by
      Dartie.

      He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout the meal; his
      bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning Irene’s face and figure.
      As he was obliged to confess to himself, he got no change out of
      her—she was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under
      their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have caught her out in
      some little game with Bosinney; but not a bit of it, she kept up
      her end remarkably well. As for that architect chap, he was as
      glum as a bear with a sore head—Winifred could barely get a word
      out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly took his liquor, and
      his face kept getting whiter, and his eyes looked queer.

      It was all very amusing.

      For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked freely, with a
      certain poignancy, being no fool. He told two or three stories
      verging on the improper, a concession to the company, for his
      stories were not used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health in a
      mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred said: “Don’t be such a
      clown, Monty!”

      At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public terrace
      overlooking the river.

      “I should like to see the common people making love,” she said,
      “it’s such fun!”

      There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after the day’s
      heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and
      loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.

      It was not long before Winifred’s better sense—she was the only
      Forsyte present—secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a
      row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and
      the haze darkened slowly over the river.

      Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then
      Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the
      world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew
      that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this
      amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would
      bring her closer still. He thought: “That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t
      have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!”

      From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of
      a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:

      “A boat, a boat, unto the ferry,
      For we’ll go over and be merry;
      And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!”

      And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on
      her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the
      air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm
      odour of the limes.

      Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting
      with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on
      his face the look of a man being tortured.

      And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the
      overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the
      darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.

      A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers
      were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.

      And Dartie thought: “Women!”

      The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon
      hid behind a tree, and all was dark. He pressed himself against
      Irene.

      He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs
      he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes. He
      felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.

      It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as
      much as was good for him.

      With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his
      bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.

      Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the
      stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift
      and swarm and whisper. Then on the terrace the buzz broke out
      once more, and Dartie thought: “Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking
      devil, that Bosinney!” and again he pressed himself against
      Irene.

      The movement deserved a better success. She rose, and they all
      followed her.

      The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what
      she was made of. Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow. He
      had within him much good wine. There was the long drive home, the
      long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the
      hansom cab—with its insulation from the world devised by some
      great and good man. That hungry architect chap might drive with
      his wife—he wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his voice
      was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had
      become fixed on his thick lips.

      They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther
      end. His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal
      simplicity— he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in,
      and get in quickly after her.

      But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped,
      instead, to the horse’s head. Dartie was not at the moment
      sufficiently master of his legs to follow. She stood stroking the
      horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side
      first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the
      words “That man” reached Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab
      step, waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick worth two of
      that!

      Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than medium height),
      well squared in its white evening waistcoat, his light overcoat
      flung over his arm, a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his
      dark face that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he was
      at his best—a thorough man of the world.

      Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected that Bosinney
      would have a poorish time in that cab if he didn’t look sharp!
      Suddenly he received a push which nearly overturned him in the
      road. Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I am taking Irene
      back; do you understand?” He saw a face white with passion, and
      eyes that glared at him like a wild cat’s.

      “Eh?” he stammered. “What? Not a bit. You take my wife!”

      “Get away!” hissed Bosinney—“or I’ll throw you into the road!”

      Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that the fellow
      meant it. In the space he made Irene had slipped by, her dress
      brushed his legs. Bosinney stepped in after her.

      “Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry. The cabman flicked his
      horse. It sprang forward.

      Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing at the cab
      where his wife sat, he scrambled in.

      “Drive on!” he shouted to the driver, “and don’t you lose sight
      of that fellow in front!”

      Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations. Calming
      himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: “A pretty mess
      you’ve made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why
      on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him? He’s mad with love; any
      fool can see that!”

      He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls to the Almighty;
      nor was it until they reached Barnes that he ceased a Jeremiad,
      in the course of which he had abused her, her father, her
      brother, Irene, Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children,
      and cursed the day when he had ever married.

      Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have his say, at
      the end of which he lapsed into sulky silence. His angry eyes
      never deserted the back of that cab, which, like a lost chance,
      haunted the darkness in front of him.

      Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate pleading—that
      pleading which the man of the world’s conduct had let loose like
      a flood; he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment
      had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful, like
      the eyes of a beaten child. He could not hear Bosinney
      entreating, entreating, always entreating; could not hear her
      sudden, soft weeping, nor see that poor, hungry-looking devil,
      awed and trembling, humbly touching her hand.

      In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his instructions to
      the letter, faithfully drew up behind the cab in front. The
      Darties saw Bosinney spring out, and Irene follow, and hasten up
      the steps with bent head. She evidently had her key in her hand,
      for she disappeared at once. It was impossible to tell whether
      she had turned to speak to Bosinney.

      The latter came walking past their cab; both husband and wife had
      an admirable view of his face in the light of a street lamp. It
      was working with violent emotion.

      “Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.

      Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried on. He had
      obviously forgotten their existence.

      “There!” said Dartie, “did you see the beast’s face? What did I
      say? Fine games!” He improved the occasion.

      There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that Winifred was
      unable to defend her theory.

      She said: “I shall say nothing about it. I don’t see any use in
      making a fuss!”

      With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon James as a
      private preserve, he disapproved of his being disturbed by the
      troubles of others.

      “Quite right,” he said; “let Soames look after himself. He’s
      jolly well able to!”

      Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in Green Street,
      the rent of which was paid by James, and sought a well-earned
      rest. The hour was midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in
      the streets to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him return
      and stand against the rails of the Square garden, back from the
      glow of the street lamp; to see him stand there in the shadow of
      trees, watching the house where in the dark was hidden she whom
      he would have given the world to see for a single minute—she who
      was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the meaning of the
      light and the darkness, the very beating of his own heart.

      CHAPTER X DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE

      It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that he is a
      Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of being one. He had not
      known it till after the decisive step which had made him an
      outcast; since then the knowledge had been with him continually.
      He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all his dealings
      with his second wife, who was emphatically not a Forsyte.

      He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure the eye for
      what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on to it, the sense of the
      folly of wasting that for which he had given so big a price—in
      other words, the “sense of property” he could never have retained
      her (perhaps never would have desired to retain her) with him
      through all the financial troubles, slights, and misconstructions
      of those fifteen years; never have induced her to marry him on
      the death of his first wife; never have lived it all through, and
      come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.

      He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like miniature
      Chinese idols in the cages of their own hearts, are ever smiling
      at themselves a doubting smile. Not that this smile, so intimate
      and eternal, interfered with his actions, which, like his chin
      and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of softness and
      determination.

      He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work, that
      painting of water-colours to which he devoted so much energy,
      always with an eye on himself, as though he could not take so
      unpractical a pursuit quite seriously, and always with a certain
      queer uneasiness that he did not make more money at it.

      It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant to be a
      Forsyte, that made him receive the following letter from old
      Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy and disgust:

      “SHELDRAKE HOUSE,
      “BROADSTAIRS,
      “_July_ 1.

      “MY DEAR JO,”
          (The Dad’s handwriting had altered very little in the thirty
          odd years that he remembered it.)
          “We have been here now a fortnight, and have had good weather
          on the whole. The air is bracing, but my liver is out of
          order, and I shall be glad enough to get back to town. I
          cannot say much for June, her health and spirits are very
          indifferent, and I don’t see what is to come of it. She says
          nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this
          engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement,
          and—goodness knows what. I have grave doubts whether she
          ought to be allowed to return to London in the present state
          of affairs, but she is so self-willed that she might take it
          into her head to come up at any moment. The fact is someone
          ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what he means. I’m
          afraid of this myself, for I should certainly rap him over
          the knuckles, but I thought that you, knowing him at the
          Club, might put in a word, and get to ascertain what the
          fellow is about. You will of course in no way commit June. I
          shall be glad to hear from you in the course of a few days
          whether you have succeeded in gaining any information. The
          situation is very distressing to me, I worry about it at
          night. With my love to Jolly and Holly.

      “I am,
      “Your affect. father,
      “JOLYON FORSYTE.”

      Young Jolyon pondered this letter so long and seriously that his
      wife noticed his preoccupation, and asked him what was the
      matter. He replied: “Nothing.”

      It was a fixed principle with him never to allude to June. She
      might take alarm, he did not know what she might think; he
      hastened, therefore, to banish from his manner all traces of
      absorption, but in this he was about as successful as his father
      would have been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon’s
      transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young Mrs.
      Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the house, went about
      with tightened lips, stealing at him unfathomable looks.

      He started for the Club in the afternoon with the letter in his
      pocket, and without having made up his mind.

      To sound a man as to “his intentions” was peculiarly unpleasant
      to him; nor did his own anomalous position diminish this
      unpleasantness. It was so like his family, so like all the people
      they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called their
      rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark; so like them to
      carry their business principles into their private relations.

      And how that phrase in the letter—“You will, of course, in no way
      commit June”—gave the whole thing away.

      Yet the letter, with the personal grievance, the concern for
      June, the “rap over the knuckles,” was all so natural. No wonder
      his father wanted to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder he was
      angry.

      It was difficult to refuse! But why give the thing to him to do?
      That was surely quite unbecoming; but so long as a Forsyte got
      what he was after, he was not too particular about the means,
      provided appearances were saved.

      How should he set about it, or how refuse? Both seemed
      impossible. So, young Jolyon!

      He arrived at the Club at three o’clock, and the first person he
      saw was Bosinney himself, seated in a corner, staring out of the
      window.

      Young Jolyon sat down not far off, and began nervously to
      reconsider his position. He looked covertly at Bosinney sitting
      there unconscious. He did not know him very well, and studied him
      attentively for perhaps the first time; an unusual looking man,
      unlike in dress, face, and manner to most of the other members of
      the Club—young Jolyon himself, however different he had become in
      mood and temper, had always retained the neat reticence of
      Forsyte appearance. He alone among Forsytes was ignorant of
      Bosinney’s nickname. The man was unusual, not eccentric, but
      unusual; he looked worn, too, haggard, hollow in the cheeks
      beneath those broad, high cheekbones, though without any
      appearance of ill-health, for he was strongly built, with curly
      hair that seemed to show all the vitality of a fine constitution.

      Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon. He knew
      what suffering was like, and this man looked as if he were
      suffering.

      He got up and touched his arm.

      Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment on
      seeing who it was.

      Young Jolyon sat down.

      “I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said. “How are you
      getting on with my cousin’s house?”

      “It’ll be finished in about a week.”

      “I congratulate you!”

      “Thanks—I don’t know that it’s much of a subject for
      congratulation.”

      “No?” queried young Jolyon; “I should have thought you’d be glad
      to get a long job like that off your hands; but I suppose you
      feel it much as I do when I part with a picture—a sort of child?”

      He looked kindly at Bosinney.

      “Yes,” said the latter more cordially, “it goes out from you and
      there’s an end of it. I didn’t know you painted.”

      “Only water-colours; I can’t say I believe in my work.”

      “Don’t believe in it? There—how can you do it? Work’s no use
      unless you believe in it!”

      “Good,” said young Jolyon; “it’s exactly what I’ve always said.
      By-the-bye, have you noticed that whenever one says ‘Good,’ one
      always adds ‘it’s exactly what I’ve always said’. But if you ask
      me how I do it, I answer, because I’m a Forsyte.”

      “A Forsyte! I never thought of you as one!”

      “A Forsyte,” replied young Jolyon, “is not an uncommon animal.
      There are hundreds among the members of this Club. Hundreds out
      there in the streets; you meet them wherever you go!”

      “And how do you tell them, may I ask?” said Bosinney.

      “By their sense of property. A Forsyte takes a practical—one
      might say a commonsense—view of things, and a practical view of
      things is based fundamentally on a sense of property. A Forsyte,
      you will notice, never gives himself away.”

      “Joking?”

      Young Jolyon’s eye twinkled.

      “Not much. As a Forsyte myself, I have no business to talk. But
      I’m a kind of thoroughbred mongrel; now, there’s no mistaking
      you: You’re as different from me as I am from my Uncle James, who
      is the perfect specimen of a Forsyte. His sense of property is
      extreme, while you have practically none. Without me in between,
      you would seem like a different species. I’m the missing link. We
      are, of course, all of us the slaves of property, and I admit
      that it’s a question of degree, but what I call a ‘Forsyte’ is a
      man who is decidedly more than less a slave of property. He knows
      a good thing, he knows a safe thing, and his grip on property—it
      doesn’t matter whether it be wives, houses, money, or
      reputation—is his hall-mark.”

      “Ah!” murmured Bosinney. “You should patent the word.”

      “I should like,” said young Jolyon, “to lecture on it:

      “Properties and quality of a Forsyte: This little animal,
      disturbed by the ridicule of his own sort, is unaffected in his
      motions by the laughter of strange creatures (you or I).
      Hereditarily disposed to myopia, he recognises only the persons
      of his own species, amongst which he passes an existence of
      competitive tranquillity.”

      “You talk of them,” said Bosinney, “as if they were half
      England.”

      “They are,” repeated young Jolyon, “half England, and the better
      half, too, the safe half, the three per cent. half, the half that
      counts. It’s their wealth and security that makes everything
      possible; makes your art possible, makes literature, science,
      even religion, possible. Without Forsytes, who believe in none of
      these things, and habitats but turn them all to use, where should
      we be? My dear sir, the Forsytes are the middlemen, the
      commercials, the pillars of society, the cornerstones of
      convention; everything that is admirable!”

      “I don’t know whether I catch your drift,” said Bosinney, “but I
      fancy there are plenty of Forsytes, as you call them, in my
      profession.”

      “Certainly,” replied young Jolyon. “The great majority of
      architects, painters, or writers have no principles, like any
      other Forsytes. Art, literature, religion, survive by virtue of
      the few cranks who really believe in such things, and the many
      Forsytes who make a commercial use of them. At a low estimate,
      three-fourths of our Royal Academicians are Forsytes,
      seven-eighths of our novelists, a large proportion of the press.
      Of science I can’t speak; they are magnificently represented in
      religion; in the House of Commons perhaps more numerous than
      anywhere; the aristocracy speaks for itself. But I’m not
      laughing. It is dangerous to go against the majority and what a
      majority!” He fixed his eyes on Bosinney: “It’s dangerous to let
      anything carry you away—a house, a picture, a—woman!”

      They looked at each other.—And, as though he had done that which
      no Forsyte did—given himself away, young Jolyon drew into his
      shell. Bosinney broke the silence.

      “Why do you take your own people as the type?” said he.

      “My people,” replied young Jolyon, “are not very extreme, and
      they have their own private peculiarities, like every other
      family, but they possess in a remarkable degree those two
      qualities which are the real tests of a Forsyte—the power of
      never being able to give yourself up to anything soul and body,
      and the ‘sense of property’.”

      Bosinney smiled: “How about the big one, for instance?”

      “Do you mean Swithin?” asked young Jolyon. “Ah! in Swithin
      there’s something primeval still. The town and middle-class life
      haven’t digested him yet. All the old centuries of farm work and
      brute force have settled in him, and there they’ve stuck, for all
      he’s so distinguished.”

      Bosinney seemed to ponder. “Well, you’ve hit your cousin Soames
      off to the life,” he said suddenly. “_He’ll_ never blow his
      brains out.”

      Young Jolyon shot at him a penetrating glance.

      “No,” he said; “he won’t. That’s why he’s to be reckoned with.
      Look out for their grip! It’s easy to laugh, but don’t mistake
      me. It doesn’t do to despise a Forsyte; it doesn’t do to
      disregard them!”

      “Yet you’ve done it yourself!”

      Young Jolyon acknowledged the hit by losing his smile.

      “You forget,” he said with a queer pride, “I can hold on, too—I’m
      a Forsyte myself. We’re all in the path of great forces. The man
      who leaves the shelter of the wall—well—you know what I mean. I
      don’t,” he ended very low, as though uttering a threat,
      “recommend every man to-go-my-way. It depends.”

      The colour rushed into Bosinney’s face, but soon receded, leaving
      it sallow-brown as before. He gave a short laugh, that left his
      lips fixed in a queer, fierce smile; his eyes mocked young
      Jolyon.

      “Thanks,” he said. “It’s deuced kind of you. But you’re not the
      only chaps that can hold on.” He rose.

      Young Jolyon looked after him as he walked away, and, resting his
      head on his hand, sighed.

      In the drowsy, almost empty room the only sounds were the rustle
      of newspapers, the scraping of matches being struck. He stayed a
      long time without moving, living over again those days when he,
      too, had sat long hours watching the clock, waiting for the
      minutes to pass—long hours full of the torments of uncertainty,
      and of a fierce, sweet aching; and the slow, delicious agony of
      that season came back to him with its old poignancy. The sight of
      Bosinney, with his haggard face, and his restless eyes always
      wandering to the clock, had roused in him a pity, with which was
      mingled strange, irresistible envy.

      He knew the signs so well. Whither was he going—to what sort of
      fate? What kind of woman was it who was drawing him to her by
      that magnetic force which no consideration of honour, no
      principle, no interest could withstand; from which the only
      escape was flight.

      Flight! But why should Bosinney fly? A man fled when he was in
      danger of destroying hearth and home, when there were children,
      when he felt himself trampling down ideals, breaking something.
      But here, so he had heard, it was all broken to his hand.

      He himself had not fled, nor would he fly if it were all to come
      over again. Yet he had gone further than Bosinney, had broken up
      his own unhappy home, not someone else’s: And the old saying came
      back to him: “A man’s fate lies in his own heart.”

      In his own heart! The proof of the pudding was in the
      eating—Bosinney had still to eat his pudding.

      His thoughts passed to the woman, the woman whom he did not know,
      but the outline of whose story he had heard.

      An unhappy marriage! No ill-treatment—only that indefinable
      malaise, that terrible blight which killed all sweetness under
      Heaven; and so from day to day, from night to night, from week to
      week, from year to year, till death should end it.

      But young Jolyon, the bitterness of whose own feelings time had
      assuaged, saw Soames’s side of the question too. Whence should a
      man like his cousin, saturated with all the prejudices and
      beliefs of his class, draw the insight or inspiration necessary
      to break up this life? It was a question of imagination, of
      projecting himself into the future beyond the unpleasant gossip,
      sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations, beyond the
      passing pangs that the lack of the sight of her would cause,
      beyond the grave disapproval of the worthy. But few men, and
      especially few men of Soames’s class, had imagination enough for
      that. A deal of mortals in this world, and not enough imagination
      to go round! And sweet Heaven, what a difference between theory
      and practice; many a man, perhaps even Soames, held chivalrous
      views on such matters, who when the shoe pinched found a
      distinguishing factor that made of himself an exception.

      Then, too, he distrusted his judgment. He had been through the
      experience himself, had tasted to the dregs the bitterness of an
      unhappy marriage, and how could he take the wide and
      dispassionate view of those who had never been within sound of
      the battle? His evidence was too first-hand—like the evidence on
      military matters of a soldier who has been through much active
      service, against that of civilians who have not suffered the
      disadvantage of seeing things too close. Most people would
      consider such a marriage as that of Soames and Irene quite fairly
      successful; he had money, she had beauty; it was a case for
      compromise. There was no reason why they should not jog along,
      even if they hated each other. It would not matter if they went
      their own ways a little so long as the decencies were
      observed—the sanctity of the marriage tie, of the common home,
      respected. Half the marriages of the upper classes were conducted
      on these lines: Do not offend the susceptibilities of Society; do
      not offend the susceptibilities of the Church. To avoid offending
      these is worth the sacrifice of any private feelings. The
      advantages of the stable home are visible, tangible, so many
      pieces of property; there is no risk in the _statu quo_. To break
      up a home is at the best a dangerous experiment, and selfish into
      the bargain.

      This was the case for the defence, and young Jolyon sighed.

      “The core of it all,” he thought, “is property, but there are
      many people who would not like it put that way. To them it is
      ‘the sanctity of the marriage tie’; but the sanctity of the
      marriage tie is dependent on the sanctity of the family, and the
      sanctity of the family is dependent on the sanctity of property.
      And yet I imagine all these people are followers of One who never
      owned anything. It is curious!”

      And again young Jolyon sighed.

      “Am I going on my way home to ask any poor devils I meet to share
      my dinner, which will then be too little for myself, or, at all
      events, for my wife, who is necessary to my health and happiness?
      It may be that after all Soames does well to exercise his rights
      and support by his practice the sacred principle of property
      which benefits us all, with the exception of those who suffer by
      the process.”

      And so he left his chair, threaded his way through the maze of
      seats, took his hat, and languidly up the hot streets crowded
      with carriages, reeking with dusty odours, wended his way home.

      Before reaching Wistaria Avenue he removed old Jolyon’s letter
      from his pocket, and tearing it carefully into tiny pieces,
      scattered them in the dust of the road.

      He let himself in with his key, and called his wife’s name. But
      she had gone out, taking Jolly and Holly, and the house was
      empty; alone in the garden the dog Balthasar lay in the shade
      snapping at flies.

      Young Jolyon took his seat there, too, under the pear-tree that
      bore no fruit.

      CHAPTER XI BOSINNEY ON PAROLE

      The day after the evening at Richmond Soames returned from Henley
      by a morning train. Not constitutionally interested in amphibious
      sports, his visit had been one of business rather than pleasure,
      a client of some importance having asked him down.

      He went straight to the City, but finding things slack, he left
      at three o’clock, glad of this chance to get home quietly. Irene
      did not expect him. Not that he had any desire to spy on her
      actions, but there was no harm in thus unexpectedly surveying the
      scene.

      After changing to Park clothes he went into the drawing-room. She
      was sitting idly in the corner of the sofa, her favourite seat;
      and there were circles under her eyes, as though she had not
      slept.

      He asked: “How is it you’re in? Are you expecting somebody?”

      “Yes—that is, not particularly.”

      “Who?”

      “Mr. Bosinney said he might come.”

      “Bosinney. He ought to be at work.”

      To this she made no answer.

      “Well,” said Soames, “I want you to come out to the Stores with
      me, and after that we’ll go to the Park.”

      “I don’t want to go out; I have a headache.”

      Soames replied: “If ever I want you to do anything, you’ve always
      got a headache. It’ll do you good to come and sit under the
      trees.”

      She did not answer.

      Soames was silent for some minutes; at last he said: “I don’t
      know what your idea of a wife’s duty is. I never have known!”

      He had not expected her to reply, but she did.

      “I have tried to do what you want; it’s not my fault that I
      haven’t been able to put my heart into it.”

      “Whose fault is it, then?” He watched her askance.

      “Before we were married you promised to let me go if our marriage
      was not a success. Is it a success?”

      Soames frowned.

      “Success,” he stammered—“it would be a success if you behaved
      yourself properly!”

      “I have tried,” said Irene. “Will you let me go?”

      Soames turned away. Secretly alarmed, he took refuge in bluster.

      “Let you go? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Let you
      go? How can I let you go? We’re married, aren’t we? Then, what
      are you talking about? For God’s sake, don’t let’s have any of
      this sort of nonsense! Get your hat on, and come and sit in the
      Park.”

      “Then, you won’t let me go?”

      He felt her eyes resting on him with a strange, touching look.

      “Let you go!” he said; “and what on earth would you do with
      yourself if I did? You’ve got no money!”

      “I could manage somehow.”

      He took a swift turn up and down the room; then came and stood
      before her.

      “Understand,” he said, “once and for all, I won’t have you say
      this sort of thing. Go and get your hat on!”

      She did not move.

      “I suppose,” said Soames, “you don’t want to miss Bosinney if he
      comes!”

      Irene got up slowly and left the room. She came down with her hat
      on.

      They went out.

      In the Park, the motley hour of mid-afternoon, when foreigners
      and other pathetic folk drive, thinking themselves to be in
      fashion, had passed; the right, the proper, hour had come, was
      nearly gone, before Soames and Irene seated themselves under the
      Achilles statue.

      It was some time since he had enjoyed her company in the Park.
      That was one of the past delights of the first two seasons of his
      married life, when to feel himself the possessor of this gracious
      creature before all London had been his greatest, though secret,
      pride. How many afternoons had he not sat beside her, extremely
      neat, with light grey gloves and faint, supercilious smile,
      nodding to acquaintances, and now and again removing his hat.

      His light grey gloves were still on his hands, and on his lips
      his smile sardonic, but where the feeling in his heart?

      The seats were emptying fast, but still he kept her there, silent
      and pale, as though to work out a secret punishment. Once or
      twice he made some comment, and she bent her head, or answered
      “Yes” with a tired smile.

      Along the rails a man was walking so fast that people stared
      after him when he passed.

      “Look at that ass!” said Soames; “he must be mad to walk like
      that in this heat!”

      He turned; Irene had made a rapid movement.

      “Hallo!” he said: “it’s our friend the Buccaneer!”

      And he sat still, with his sneering smile, conscious that Irene
      was sitting still, and smiling too.

      “Will she bow to him?” he thought.

      But she made no sign.

      Bosinney reached the end of the rails, and came walking back
      amongst the chairs, quartering his ground like a pointer. When he
      saw them he stopped dead, and raised his hat.

      The smile never left Soames’s face; he also took off his hat.

      Bosinney came up, looking exhausted, like a man after hard
      physical exercise; the sweat stood in drops on his brow, and
      Soames’ smile seemed to say: “You’ve had a trying time, my
      friend.... What are _you_ doing in the Park?” he asked. “We
      thought you despised such frivolity!”

      Bosinney did not seem to hear; he made his answer to Irene: “I’ve
      been round to your place; I hoped I should find you in.”

      Somebody tapped Soames on the back, and spoke to him; and in the
      exchange of those platitudes over his shoulder, he missed her
      answer, and took a resolution.

      “We’re just going in,” he said to Bosinney; “you’d better come
      back to dinner with us.” Into that invitation he put a strange
      bravado, a stranger pathos: “You, can’t deceive me,” his look and
      voice seemed saying, “but see—I trust you—I’m not afraid of you!”

      They started back to Montpellier Square together, Irene between
      them. In the crowded streets Soames went on in front. He did not
      listen to their conversation; the strange resolution of
      trustfulness he had taken seemed to animate even his secret
      conduct. Like a gambler, he said to himself: “It’s a card I dare
      not throw away—I must play it for what it’s worth. I have not too
      many chances.”

      He dressed slowly, heard her leave her room and go downstairs,
      and, for full five minutes after, dawdled about in his
      dressing-room. Then he went down, purposely shutting the door
      loudly to show that he was coming. He found them standing by the
      hearth, perhaps talking, perhaps not; he could not say.

      He played his part out in the farce, the long evening through—his
      manner to his guest more friendly than it had ever been before;
      and when at last Bosinney went, he said: “You must come again
      soon; Irene likes to have you to talk about the house!” Again his
      voice had the strange bravado and the stranger pathos; but his
      hand was cold as ice.

      Loyal to his resolution, he turned away from their parting,
      turned away from his wife as she stood under the hanging lamp to
      say good-night—away from the sight of her golden head shining so
      under the light, of her smiling mournful lips; away from the
      sight of Bosinney’s eyes looking at her, so like a dog’s looking
      at its master.

      And he went to bed with the certainty that Bosinney was in love
      with his wife.

      The summer night was hot, so hot and still that through every
      opened window came in but hotter air. For long hours he lay
      listening to her breathing.

      She could sleep, but he must lie awake. And, lying awake, he
      hardened himself to play the part of the serene and trusting
      husband.

      In the small hours he slipped out of bed, and passing into his
      dressing-room, leaned by the open window.

      He could hardly breathe.

      A night four years ago came back to him—the night but one before
      his marriage; as hot and stifling as this.

      He remembered how he had lain in a long cane chair in the window
      of his sitting-room off Victoria Street. Down below in a side
      street a man had banged at a door, a woman had cried out; he
      remembered, as though it were now, the sound of the scuffle, the
      slam of the door, the dead silence that followed. And then the
      early water-cart, cleansing the reek of the streets, had
      approached through the strange-seeming, useless lamp-light; he
      seemed to hear again its rumble, nearer and nearer, till it
      passed and slowly died away.

      He leaned far out of the dressing-room window over the little
      court below, and saw the first light spread. The outlines of dark
      walls and roofs were blurred for a moment, then came out sharper
      than before.

      He remembered how that other night he had watched the lamps
      paling all the length of Victoria Street; how he had hurried on
      his clothes and gone down into the street, down past houses and
      squares, to the street where she was staying, and there had stood
      and looked at the front of the little house, as still and grey as
      the face of a dead man.

      And suddenly it shot through his mind; like a sick man’s fancy:
      What’s _he_ doing?—that fellow who haunts me, who was here this
      evening, who’s in love with my wife—prowling out there, perhaps,
      looking for her as I know he was looking for her this afternoon;
      watching my house now, for all I can tell!

      He stole across the landing to the front of the house, stealthily
      drew aside a blind, and raised a window.

      The grey light clung about the trees of the square, as though
      Night, like a great downy moth, had brushed them with her wings.
      The lamps were still alight, all pale, but not a soul stirred—no
      living thing in sight.

      Yet suddenly, very faint, far off in the deathly stillness, he
      heard a cry writhing, like the voice of some wandering soul
      barred out of heaven, and crying for its happiness. There it was
      again—again! Soames shut the window, shuddering.

      Then he thought: “Ah! it’s only the peacocks, across the water.”

      CHAPTER XII JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS

      Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling that
      odour of oilcloth and herrings which permeates all respectable
      seaside lodging-houses. On a chair—a shiny leather chair,
      displaying its horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand
      corner—stood a black despatch case. This he was filling with
      papers, with the _Times_, and a bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had
      meetings that day of the “Globular Gold Concessions” and the “New
      Colliery Company, Limited,” to which he was going up, for he
      never missed a Board; to “miss a Board” would be one more piece
      of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous Forsyte
      spirit could not bear.

      His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked as if at
      any moment they might blaze up with anger. So gleams the eye of a
      schoolboy, baited by a ring of his companions; but he controls
      himself, deterred by the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon
      controlled himself, keeping down, with his masterful restraint
      now slowly wearing out, the irritation fostered in him by the
      conditions of his life.

      He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by
      rambling generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of
      answering a plain question. “I’ve seen Bosinney,” he said; “he is
      not a criminal. The more I see of people the more I am convinced
      that they are never good or bad—merely comic, or pathetic. You
      probably don’t agree with me!”

      Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express
      oneself; he had not yet reached that point of old age when even
      Forsytes, bereft of those illusions and principles which they
      have cherished carefully for practical purposes but never
      believed in, bereft of all corporeal enjoyment, stricken to the
      very heart by having nothing left to hope for—break through the
      barriers of reserve and say things they would never have believed
      themselves capable of saying.

      Perhaps he did not believe in “goodness” and “badness” any more
      than his son; but as he would have said: He didn’t know—couldn’t
      tell; there might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary
      expression of disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?

      Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though
      (like a true Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too
      adventurous or too foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of
      them. And when the wonderful view (mentioned in
      Baedeker—“fatiguing but repaying”.—was disclosed to him after the
      effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence of some
      great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the
      petty precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was
      as near to religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever
      gone.

      But it was many years since he had been to the mountains. He had
      taken June there two seasons running, after his wife died, and
      had realized bitterly that his walking days were over.

      To that old mountain—given confidence in a supreme order of
      things he had long been a stranger.

      He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled
      him. It troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had
      always been so careful, should be father and grandfather to such
      as seemed born to disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo—who
      could say anything against the boy, an amiable chap?—but his
      position was deplorable, and this business of Jun’s nearly as
      bad. It seemed like a fatality, and a fatality was one of those
      things no man of his character could either understand or put up
      with.

      In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would
      come of it. Since the ball at Roger’s he had seen too clearly how
      the land lay—he could put two and two together quicker than most
      men—and, with the example of his own son before his eyes, knew
      better than any Forsyte of them all that the pale flame singes
      men’s wings whether they will or no.

      In the days before Jun’s engagement, when she and Mrs. Soames
      were always together, he had seen enough of Irene to feel the
      spell she cast over men. She was not a flirt, not even a
      coquette—words dear to the heart of his generation, which loved
      to define things by a good, broad, inadequate word—but she was
      dangerous. He could not say why. Tell him of a quality innate in
      some women—a seductive power beyond their own control! He would
      but answer: “Humbug!” She was dangerous, and there was an end of
      it. He wanted to close his eyes to that affair. If it was, it
      was; _he_ did not want to hear any more about it—he only wanted
      to save Jun’s position and her peace of mind. He still hoped she
      might once more become a comfort to himself.

      And so he had written. He got little enough out of the answer. As
      to what young Jolyon had made of the interview, there was
      practically only the queer sentence: “I gather that he’s in the
      stream.” The stream! What stream? What was this new-fangled way
      of talking?

      He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under the flap of
      the bag; he knew well enough what was meant.

      June came out of the dining-room, and helped him on with his
      summer coat. From her costume, and the expression of her little
      resolute face, he saw at once what was coming.

      “I’m going with you,” she said.

      “Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City. I can’t have you
      racketting about!”

      “I must see old Mrs. Smeech.”

      “Oh, your precious ‘lame ducks’!” grumbled out old Jolyon. He did
      not believe her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There was no
      doing anything with that pertinacity of hers.

      At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had been ordered
      for himself—a characteristic action, for he had no petty
      selfishnesses.

      “Now, don’t you go tiring yourself, my darling,” he said, and
      took a cab on into the city.

      June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs.
      Smeech, her “lame duck,” lived—an aged person, connected with the
      charring interest; but after half an hour spent in hearing her
      habitually lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary
      comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great house was closed
      and dark.

      She had decided to learn something at all costs. It was better to
      face the worst, and have it over. And this was her plan: To go
      first to Phil’s aunt, Mrs. Baynes, and, failing information
      there, to Irene herself. She had no clear notion of what she
      would gain by these visits.

      At three o’clock she was in Lowndes Square. With a woman’s
      instinct when trouble is to be faced, she had put on her best
      frock, and went to the battle with a glance as courageous as old
      Jolyon’s itself. Her tremors had passed into eagerness.

      Mrs. Baynes, Bosinney’s aunt (Louisa was her name), was in her
      kitchen when June was announced, organizing the cook, for she was
      an excellent housewife, and, as Baynes always said, there was “a
      lot in a good dinner.” He did his best work after dinner. It was
      Baynes who built that remarkably fine row of tall crimson houses
      in Kensington which compete with so many others for the title of
      “the ugliest in London.”

      On hearing Jun’s name, she went hurriedly to her bedroom, and,
      taking two large bracelets from a red morocco case in a locked
      drawer, put them on her white wrists—for she possessed in a
      remarkable degree that “sense of property,” which, as we know, is
      the touchstone of Forsyteism, and the foundation of good
      morality.

      Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with a tendency to
      embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror of her whitewood
      wardrobe, in a gown made under her own organization, of one of
      those half-tints, reminiscent of the distempered walls of
      corridors in large hotels. She raised her hands to her hair,
      which she wore _à la_ Princesse de Galles, and touched it here
      and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and her eyes were
      full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking in the
      face one of life’s sordid facts, and making the best of it. In
      youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were
      mottled now by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness
      came into her eyes as she dabbed a powder-puff across her
      forehead. Putting the puff down, she stood quite still before the
      glass, arranging a smile over her high, important nose, her chin,
      (never large, and now growing smaller with the increase of her
      neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly, not to lose
      the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both hands, and
      went downstairs.

      She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers
      had reached her that things were not all right between her nephew
      and his fiancée. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She
      had asked Phil to dinner many times; his invariable answer had
      been “Too busy.”

      Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of
      this excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte;
      in young Jolyon’s sense of the word, she certainly had that
      privilege, and merits description as such.

      She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said
      was beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness
      only to be found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more
      legal callings. Her name was upon the committees of numberless
      charities connected with the Church-dances, theatricals, or
      bazaars—and she never lent her name unless sure beforehand that
      everything had been thoroughly organized.

      She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a
      commercial basis; the proper function of the Church, of charity,
      indeed, of everything, was to strengthen the fabric of “Society.”
      Individual action, therefore, she considered immoral.
      Organization was the only thing, for by organization alone could
      you feel sure that you were getting a return for your money.
      Organization—and again, organization! And there is no doubt that
      she was what old Jolyon called her—“a ‘dab’ at that”—he went
      further, he called her “a humbug.”

      The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized so
      admirably that by the time the takings were handed over, they
      were indeed skim milk divested of all cream of human kindness.
      But as she often justly remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated.
      She was, in fact, a little academic.

      This great and good woman, so highly thought of in ecclesiastical
      circles, was one of the principal priestesses in the temple of
      Forsyteism, keeping alive day and night a sacred flame to the God
      of Property, whose altar is inscribed with those inspiring words:
      “Nothing for nothing, and really remarkably little for sixpence.”

      When she entered a room it was felt that something substantial
      had come in, which was probably the reason of her popularity as a
      patroness. People liked something substantial when they had paid
      money for it; and they would look at her—surrounded by her staff
      in charity ballrooms, with her high nose and her broad, square
      figure, attired in an uniform covered with sequins—as though she
      were a general.

      The only thing against her was that she had not a double name.
      She was a power in upper middle-class society, with its hundred
      sets and circles, all intersecting on the common battlefield of
      charity functions, and on that battlefield brushing skirts so
      pleasantly with the skirts of Society with the capital “S.” She
      was a power in society with the smaller “s,” that larger, more
      significant, and more powerful body, where the commercially
      Christian institutions, maxims, and “principle,” which Mrs.
      Baynes embodied, were real life-blood, circulating freely, real
      business currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that
      flowed in the veins of smaller Society with the larger “S.”
      People who knew her felt her to be sound—a sound woman, who never
      gave herself away, nor anything else, if she could possibly help
      it.

      She had been on the worst sort of terms with Bosinney’s father,
      who had not infrequently made her the object of an unpardonable
      ridicule. She alluded to him now that he was gone as her “poor,
      dear, irreverend brother.”

      She greeted June with the careful effusion of which she was a
      mistress, a little afraid of her as far as a woman of her
      eminence in the commercial and Christian world could be
      afraid—for so slight a girl June had a great dignity, the
      fearlessness of her eyes gave her that. And Mrs. Baynes, too,
      shrewdly recognized that behind the uncompromising frankness of
      Jun’s manner there was much of the Forsyte. If the girl had been
      merely frank and courageous, Mrs. Baynes would have thought her
      “cranky,” and despised her; if she had been merely a Forsyte,
      like Francie—let us say—she would have patronized her from sheer
      weight of metal; but June, small though she was—Mrs. Baynes
      habitually admired quantity—gave her an uneasy feeling; and she
      placed her in a chair opposite the light.

      There was another reason for her respect which Mrs. Baynes, too
      good a churchwoman to be worldly, would have been the last to
      admit—she often heard her husband describe old Jolyon as
      extremely well off, and was biassed towards his granddaughter for
      the soundest of all reasons. To-day she felt the emotion with
      which we read a novel describing a hero and an inheritance,
      nervously anxious lest, by some frightful lapse of the novelist,
      the young man should be left without it at the end.

      Her manner was warm; she had never seen so clearly before how
      distinguished and desirable a girl this was. She asked after old
      Jolyon’s health. A wonderful man for his age; so upright, and
      young looking, and how old was he? Eighty-one! She would never
      have thought it! They were at the sea! Very nice for them; she
      supposed June heard from Phil every day? Her light grey eyes
      became more prominent as she asked this question; but the girl
      met the glance without flinching.

      “No,” she said, “he never writes!”

      Mrs. Baynes’s eyes dropped; they had no intention of doing so,
      but they did. They recovered immediately.

      “Of course not. That’s Phil all over—he was always like that!”

      “Was he?” said June.

      The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes’s bright smile a
      moment’s hesitation; she disguised it by a quick movement, and
      spreading her skirts afresh, said: “Why, my dear—he’s quite the
      most harum-scarum person; one never pays the slightest attention
      to what _he_ does!”

      The conviction came suddenly to June that she was wasting her
      time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would
      never get anything out of this woman.

      “Do you see him?” she asked, her face crimsoning.

      The perspiration broke out on Mrs. Baynes’ forehead beneath the
      powder.

      “Oh, yes! I don’t remember when he was here last—indeed, we
      haven’t seen much of him lately. He’s so busy with your cousin’s
      house; I’m told it’ll be finished directly. We must organize a
      little dinner to celebrate the event; do come and stay the night
      with us!”

      “Thank you,” said June. Again she thought: “I’m only wasting my
      time. This woman will tell me nothing.”

      She got up to go. A change came over Mrs. Baynes. She rose too;
      her lips twitched, she fidgeted her hands. Something was
      evidently very wrong, and she did not dare to ask this girl, who
      stood there, a slim, straight little figure, with her decided
      face, her set jaw, and resentful eyes. She was not accustomed to
      be afraid of asking questions—all organization was based on the
      asking of questions!

      But the issue was so grave that her nerve, normally strong, was
      fairly shaken; only that morning her husband had said: “Old Mr.
      Forsyte must be worth well over a hundred thousand pounds!”

      And this girl stood there, holding out her hand—holding out her
      hand!

      The chance might be slipping away—she couldn’t tell—the chance of
      keeping her in the family, and yet she dared not speak.

      Her eyes followed June to the door.

      It closed.

      Then with an exclamation Mrs. Baynes ran forward, wobbling her
      bulky frame from side to side, and opened it again.

      Too late! She heard the front door click, and stood still, an
      expression of real anger and mortification on her face.

      June went along the Square with her bird-like quickness. She
      detested that woman now whom in happier days she had been
      accustomed to think so kind. Was she always to be put off thus,
      and forced to undergo this torturing suspense?

      She would go to Phil himself, and ask him what he meant. She had
      the right to know. She hurried on down Sloane Street till she
      came to Bosinney’s number. Passing the swing-door at the bottom,
      she ran up the stairs, her heart thumping painfully.

      At the top of the third flight she paused for breath, and holding
      on to the bannisters, stood listening. No sound came from above.

      With a very white face she mounted the last flight. She saw the
      door, with his name on the plate. And the resolution that had
      brought her so far evaporated.

      The full meaning of her conduct came to her. She felt hot all
      over; the palms of her hands were moist beneath the thin silk
      covering of her gloves.

      She drew back to the stairs, but did not descend. Leaning against
      the rail she tried to get rid of a feeling of being choked; and
      she gazed at the door with a sort of dreadful courage. No! she
      refused to go down. Did it matter what people thought of her?
      They would never know! No one would help her if she did not help
      herself! She would go through with it.

      Forcing herself, therefore, to leave the support of the wall, she
      rang the bell. The door did not open, and all her shame and fear
      suddenly abandoned her; she rang again and again, as though in
      spite of its emptiness she could drag some response out of that
      closed room, some recompense for the shame and fear that visit
      had cost her. It did not open; she left off ringing, and, sitting
      down at the top of the stairs, buried her face in her hands.

      Presently she stole down, out into the air. She felt as though
      she had passed through a bad illness, and had no desire now but
      to get home as quickly as she could. The people she met seemed to
      know where she had been, what she had been doing; and
      suddenly—over on the opposite side, going towards his rooms from
      the direction of Montpellier Square—she saw Bosinney himself.

      She made a movement to cross into the traffic. Their eyes met,
      and he raised his hat. An omnibus passed, obscuring her view;
      then, from the edge of the pavement, through a gap in the
      traffic, she saw him walking on.

      And June stood motionless, looking after him.

      CHAPTER XIII PERFECTION OF THE HOUSE

      “One mockturtle, clear; one oxtail; two glasses of port.”

      In the upper room at French’s, where a Forsyte could still get
      heavy English food, James and his son were sitting down to lunch.

      Of all eating-places James liked best to come here; there was
      something unpretentious, well-flavoured, and filling about it,
      and though he had been to a certain extent corrupted by the
      necessity for being fashionable, and the trend of habits keeping
      pace with an income that _would_ increase, he still hankered in
      quiet City moments after the tasty fleshpots of his earlier days.
      Here you were served by hairy English waiters in aprons; there
      was sawdust on the floor, and three round gilt looking-glasses
      hung just above the line of sight. They had only recently done
      away with the cubicles, too, in which you could have your chop,
      prime chump, with a floury-potato, without seeing your
      neighbours, like a gentleman.

      He tucked the top corner of his napkin behind the third button of
      his waistcoat, a practice he had been obliged to abandon years
      ago in the West End. He felt that he should relish his soup—the
      entire morning had been given to winding up the estate of an old
      friend.

      After filling his mouth with household bread, stale, he at once
      began: “How are you going down to Robin Hill? You going to take
      Irene? You’d better take her. I should think there’ll be a lot
      that’ll want seeing to.”

      Without looking up, Soames answered: “She won’t go.”

      “Won’t go? What’s the meaning of that? She’s going to live in the
      house, isn’t she?”

      Soames made no reply.

      “I don’t know what’s coming to women nowadays,” mumbled James; “I
      never used to have any trouble with them. She’s had too much
      liberty. She’s spoiled....”

      Soames lifted his eyes: “I won’t have anything said against her,”
      he said unexpectedly.

      The silence was only broken now by the supping of James’s soup.

      The waiter brought the two glasses of port, but Soames stopped
      him.

      “That’s not the way to serve port,” he said; “take them away, and
      bring the bottle.”

      Rousing himself from his reverie over the soup, James took one of
      his rapid shifting surveys of surrounding facts.

      “Your mother’s in bed,” he said; “you can have the carriage to
      take you down. I should think Irene’d like the drive. This young
      Bosinney’ll be there, I suppose, to show you over.”

      Soames nodded.

      “I should like to go and see for myself what sort of a job he’s
      made finishing off,” pursued James. “I’ll just drive round and
      pick you both up.”

      “I am going down by train,” replied Soames. “If you like to drive
      round and see, Irene might go with you, I can’t tell.”

      He signed to the waiter to bring the bill, which James paid.

      They parted at St. Paul’s, Soames branching off to the station,
      James taking his omnibus westwards.

      He had secured the corner seat next the conductor, where his long
      legs made it difficult for anyone to get in, and at all who
      passed him he looked resentfully, as if they had no business to
      be using up his air.

      He intended to take an opportunity this afternoon of speaking to
      Irene. A word in time saved nine; and now that she was going to
      live in the country there was a chance for her to turn over a new
      leaf! He could see that Soames wouldn’t stand very much more of
      her goings on!

      It did not occur to him to define what he meant by her “goings
      on”. the expression was wide, vague, and suited to a Forsyte. And
      James had more than his common share of courage after lunch.

      On reaching home, he ordered out the barouche, with special
      instructions that the groom was to go too. He wished to be kind
      to her, and to give her every chance.

      When the door of No.62 was opened he could distinctly hear her
      singing, and said so at once, to prevent any chance of being
      denied entrance.

      Yes, Mrs. Soames was in, but the maid did not know if she was
      seeing people.

      James, moving with the rapidity that ever astonished the
      observers of his long figure and absorbed expression, went
      forthwith into the drawing-room without permitting this to be
      ascertained. He found Irene seated at the piano with her hands
      arrested on the keys, evidently listening to the voices in the
      hall. She greeted him without smiling.

      “Your mother-in-law’s in bed,” he began, hoping at once to enlist
      her sympathy. “I’ve got the carriage here. Now, be a good girl,
      and put on your hat and come with me for a drive. It’ll do you
      good!”

      Irene looked at him as though about to refuse, but, seeming to
      change her mind, went upstairs, and came down again with her hat
      on.

      “Where are you going to take me?” she asked.

      “We’ll just go down to Robin Hill,” said James, spluttering out
      his words very quick; “the horses want exercise, and I should
      like to see what they’ve been doing down there.”

      Irene hung back, but again changed her mind, and went out to the
      carriage, James brooding over her closely, to make quite sure.

      It was not before he had got her more than half way that he
      began: “Soames is very fond of you—he won’t have anything said
      against you; why don’t you show him more affection?”

      Irene flushed, and said in a low voice: “I can’t show what I
      haven’t got.”

      James looked at her sharply; he felt that now he had her in his
      own carriage, with his own horses and servants, he was really in
      command of the situation. She could not put him off; nor would
      she make a scene in public.

      “I can’t think what you’re about,” he said. “He’s a very good
      husband!”

      Irene’s answer was so low as to be almost inaudible among the
      sounds of traffic. He caught the words: “You are not married to
      him!”

      “What’s that got to do with it? He’s given you everything you
      want. He’s always ready to take you anywhere, and now he’s built
      you this house in the country. It’s not as if you had anything of
      your own.”

      “No.”

      Again James looked at her; he could not make out the expression
      on her face. She looked almost as if she were going to cry, and
      yet....

      “I’m sure,” he muttered hastily, “we’ve all tried to be kind to
      you.”

      Irene’s lips quivered; to his dismay James saw a tear steal down
      her cheek. He felt a choke rise in his own throat.

      “We’re all fond of you,” he said, “if you’d only”—he was going to
      say, “behave yourself,” but changed it to—“if you’d only be more
      of a wife to him.”

      Irene did not answer, and James, too, ceased speaking. There was
      something in her silence which disconcerted him; it was not the
      silence of obstinacy, rather that of acquiescence in all that he
      could find to say. And yet he felt as if he had not had the last
      word. He could not understand this.

      He was unable, however, to long keep silence.

      “I suppose that young Bosinney,” he said, “will be getting
      married to June now?”

      Irene’s face changed. “I don’t know,” she said; “you should ask
      _her_.”

      “Does she write to you?”

      “No.”

      “No.”

      “How’s that?” said James. “I thought you and she were such great
      friends.”

      Irene turned on him. “Again,” she said, “you should ask _her!_”

      “Well,” flustered James, frightened by her look, “it’s very odd
      that I can’t get a plain answer to a plain question, but there it
      is.”

      He sat ruminating over his rebuff, and burst out at last:

      “Well, I’ve warned you. You won’t look ahead. Soames he doesn’t
      say much, but I can see he won’t stand a great deal more of this
      sort of thing. You’ll have nobody but yourself to blame, and,
      what’s more, you’ll get no sympathy from anybody.”

      Irene bent her head with a little smiling bow. “I am very much
      obliged to you.”

      James did not know what on earth to answer.

      The bright hot morning had changed slowly to a grey, oppressive
      afternoon; a heavy bank of clouds, with the yellow tinge of
      coming thunder, had risen in the south, and was creeping up.

      The branches of the trees dropped motionless across the road
      without the smallest stir of foliage. A faint odour of glue from
      the heated horses clung in the thick air; the coachman and groom,
      rigid and unbending, exchanged stealthy murmurs on the box,
      without ever turning their heads.

      To James’ great relief they reached the house at last; the
      silence and impenetrability of this woman by his side, whom he
      had always thought so soft and mild, alarmed him.

      The carriage put them down at the door, and they entered.

      The hall was cool, and so still that it was like passing into a
      tomb; a shudder ran down James’s spine. He quickly lifted the
      heavy leather curtains between the columns into the inner court.

      He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.

      The decoration was really in excellent taste. The dull ruby tiles
      that extended from the foot of the walls to the verge of a
      circular clump of tall iris plants, surrounding in turn a sunken
      basin of white marble filled with water, were obviously of the
      best quality. He admired extremely the purple leather curtains
      drawn along one entire side, framing a huge white-tiled stove.
      The central partitions of the skylight had been slid back, and
      the warm air from outside penetrated into the very heart of the
      house.

      He stood, his hands behind him, his head bent back on his high,
      narrow shoulders, spying the tracery on the columns and the
      pattern of the frieze which ran round the ivory-coloured walls
      under the gallery. Evidently, no pains had been spared. It was
      quite the house of a gentleman. He went up to the curtains, and,
      having discovered how they were worked, drew them asunder and
      disclosed the picture-gallery, ending in a great window taking up
      the whole end of the room. It had a black oak floor, and its
      walls, again, were of ivory white. He went on throwing open
      doors, and peeping in. Everything was in apple-pie order, ready
      for immediate occupation.

      He turned round at last to speak to Irene, and saw her standing
      over in the garden entrance, with her husband and Bosinney.

      Though not remarkable for sensibility, James felt at once that
      something was wrong. He went up to them, and, vaguely alarmed,
      ignorant of the nature of the trouble, made an attempt to smooth
      things over.

      “How are you, Mr. Bosinney?” he said, holding out his hand.
      “You’ve been spending money pretty freely down here, I should
      say!”

      Soames turned his back, and walked away.

      James looked from Bosinney’s frowning face to Irene, and, in his
      agitation, spoke his thoughts aloud: “Well, I can’t tell what’s
      the matter. Nobody tells me anything!” And, making off after his
      son, he heard Bosinney’s short laugh, and his “Well, thank God!
      You look so....” Most unfortunately he lost the rest.

      What had happened? He glanced back. Irene was very close to the
      architect, and her face not like the face he knew of her. He
      hastened up to his son.

      Soames was pacing the picture-gallery.

      “What’s the matter?” said James. “What’s all this?”

      Soames looked at him with his supercilious calm unbroken, but
      James knew well enough that he was violently angry.

      “Our friend,” he said, “has exceeded his instructions again,
      that’s all. So much the worse for him this time.”

      He turned round and walked back towards the door. James followed
      hurriedly, edging himself in front. He saw Irene take her finger
      from before her lips, heard her say something in her ordinary
      voice, and began to speak before he reached them.

      “There’s a storm coming on. We’d better get home. We can’t take
      you, I suppose, Mr. Bosinney? No, I suppose not. Then, good-bye!”
      He held out his hand. Bosinney did not take it, but, turning with
      a laugh, said:

      “Good-bye, Mr. Forsyte. Don’t get caught in the storm!” and
      walked away.

      “Well,” began James, “I don’t know....”

      But the sight of Irene’s face stopped him. Taking hold of his
      daughter-in-law by the elbow, he escorted her towards the
      carriage. He felt certain, quite certain, they had been making
      some appointment or other....

      Nothing in this world is more sure to upset a Forsyte than the
      discovery that something on which he has stipulated to spend a
      certain sum has cost more. And this is reasonable, for upon the
      accuracy of his estimates the whole policy of his life is
      ordered. If he cannot rely on definite values of property, his
      compass is amiss; he is adrift upon bitter waters without a helm.

      After writing to Bosinney in the terms that have already been
      chronicled, Soames had dismissed the cost of the house from his
      mind. He believed that he had made the matter of the final cost
      so very plain that the possibility of its being again exceeded
      had really never entered his head. On hearing from Bosinney that
      his limit of twelve thousand pounds would be exceeded by
      something like four hundred, he had grown white with anger. His
      original estimate of the cost of the house completed had been ten
      thousand pounds, and he had often blamed himself severely for
      allowing himself to be led into repeated excesses. Over this last
      expenditure, however, Bosinney had put himself completely in the
      wrong. How on earth a fellow could make such an ass of himself
      Soames could not conceive; but he had done so, and all the
      rancour and hidden jealousy that had been burning against him for
      so long was now focussed in rage at this crowning piece of
      extravagance. The attitude of the confident and friendly husband
      was gone. To preserve property—his wife—he had assumed it, to
      preserve property of another kind he lost it now.

      “Ah!” he had said to Bosinney when he could speak, “and I suppose
      you’re perfectly contented with yourself. But I may as well tell
      you that you’ve altogether mistaken your man!”

      What he meant by those words he did not quite know at the time,
      but after dinner he looked up the correspondence between himself
      and Bosinney to make quite sure. There could be no two opinions
      about it—the fellow had made himself liable for that extra four
      hundred, or, at all events, for three hundred and fifty of it,
      and he would have to make it good.

      He was looking at his wife’s face when he came to this
      conclusion. Seated in her usual seat on the sofa, she was
      altering the lace on a collar. She had not once spoken to him all
      the evening.

      He went up to the mantelpiece, and contemplating his face in the
      mirror said: “Your friend the Buccaneer has made a fool of
      himself; he will have to pay for it!”

      She looked at him scornfully, and answered: “I don’t know what
      you are talking about!”

      “You soon will. A mere trifle, quite beneath your contempt—four
      hundred pounds.”

      “Do you mean that you are going to make him pay that towards this
      hateful, house?”

      “I do.”

      “And you know he’s got nothing?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then you are meaner than I thought you.”

      Soames turned from the mirror, and unconsciously taking a china
      cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands around it as though
      praying. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her eyes darkening with
      anger, and taking no notice of the taunt, he asked quietly:

      “Are you carrying on a flirtation with Bosinney?”

      “No, I am not!”

      Her eyes met his, and he looked away. He neither believed nor
      disbelieved her, but he knew that he had made a mistake in
      asking; he never had known, never would know, what she was
      thinking. The sight of her inscrutable face, the thought of all
      the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there like that
      soft and passive, but unreadable, unknown, enraged him beyond
      measure.

      “I believe you are made of stone,” he said, clenching his fingers
      so hard that he broke the fragile cup. The pieces fell into the
      grate. And Irene smiled.

      “You seem to forget,” she said, “that cup is not!”

      Soames gripped her arm. “A good beating,” he said, “is the only
      thing that would bring you to your senses,” but turning on his
      heel, he left the room.

      CHAPTER XIV SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS

      Soames went up-stairs that night with the feeling that he had
      gone too far. He was prepared to offer excuses for his words.

      He turned out the gas still burning in the passage outside their
      room. Pausing, with his hand on the knob of the door, he tried to
      shape his apology, for he had no intention of letting her see
      that he was nervous.

      But the door did not open, nor when he pulled it and turned the
      handle firmly. She must have locked it for some reason, and
      forgotten.

      Entering his dressing-room, where the gas was also lighted and
      burning low, he went quickly to the other door. That too was
      locked. Then he noticed that the camp bed which he occasionally
      used was prepared, and his sleeping-suit laid out upon it. He put
      his hand up to his forehead, and brought it away wet. It dawned
      on him that he was barred out.

      He went back to the door, and rattling the handle stealthily,
      called: “Unlock the door, do you hear? Unlock the door!”

      There was a faint rustling, but no answer.

      “Do you hear? Let me in at once—I insist on being let in!”

      He could catch the sound of her breathing close to the door, like
      the breathing of a creature threatened by danger.

      There was something terrifying in this inexorable silence, in the
      impossibility of getting at her. He went back to the other door,
      and putting his whole weight against it, tried to burst it open.
      The door was a new one—he had had them renewed himself, in
      readiness for their coming in after the honeymoon. In a rage he
      lifted his foot to kick in the panel; the thought of the servants
      restrained him, and he felt suddenly that he was beaten.

      Flinging himself down in the dressing-room, he took up a book.

      But instead of the print he seemed to see his wife—with her
      yellow hair flowing over her bare shoulders, and her great dark
      eyes—standing like an animal at bay. And the whole meaning of her
      act of revolt came to him. She meant it to be for good.

      He could not sit still, and went to the door again. He could
      still hear her, and he called: “Irene! Irene!”

      He did not mean to make his voice pathetic.

      In ominous answer, the faint sounds ceased. He stood with
      clenched hands, thinking.

      Presently he stole round on tiptoe, and running suddenly at the
      other door, made a supreme effort to break it open. It creaked,
      but did not yield. He sat down on the stairs and buried his face
      in his hands.

      For a long time he sat there in the dark, the moon through the
      skylight above laying a pale smear which lengthened slowly
      towards him down the stairway. He tried to be philosophical.

      Since she had locked her doors she had no further claim as a
      wife, and he would console himself with other women.

      It was but a spectral journey he made among such delights—he had
      no appetite for these exploits. He had never had much, and he had
      lost the habit. He felt that he could never recover it. His
      hunger could only be appeased by his wife, inexorable and
      frightened, behind these shut doors. No other woman could help
      him.

      This conviction came to him with terrible force out there in the
      dark.

      His philosophy left him; and surly anger took its place. Her
      conduct was immoral, inexcusable, worthy of any punishment within
      his power. He desired no one but her, and she refused him!

      She must really hate him, then! He had never believed it yet. He
      did not believe it now. It seemed to him incredible. He felt as
      though he had lost for ever his power of judgment. If she, so
      soft and yielding as he had always judged her, could take this
      decided step—what could not happen?

      Then he asked himself again if she were carrying on an intrigue
      with Bosinney. He did not believe that she was; he could not
      afford to believe such a reason for her conduct—the thought was
      not to be faced.

      It would be unbearable to contemplate the necessity of making his
      marital relations public property. Short of the most convincing
      proofs he must still refuse to believe, for he did not wish to
      punish himself. And all the time at heart—he _did_ believe.

      The moonlight cast a greyish tinge over his figure, hunched
      against the staircase wall.

      Bosinney was in love with her! He hated the fellow, and would not
      spare him now. He could and would refuse to pay a penny piece
      over twelve thousand and fifty pounds—the extreme limit fixed in
      the correspondence; or rather he would pay, he would pay and sue
      him for damages. He would go to Jobling and Boulter and put the
      matter in their hands. He would ruin the impecunious beggar! And
      suddenly—though what connection between the thoughts?—he
      reflected that Irene had no money either. They were both beggars.
      This gave him a strange satisfaction.

      The silence was broken by a faint creaking through the wall. She
      was going to bed at last. Ah! Joy and pleasant dreams! If she
      threw the door open wide he would not go in now!

      But his lips, that were twisted in a bitter smile, twitched; he
      covered his eyes with his hands....

      It was late the following afternoon when Soames stood in the
      dining-room window gazing gloomily into the Square.

      The sunlight still showered on the plane-trees, and in the breeze
      their gay broad leaves shone and swung in rhyme to a barrel organ
      at the corner. It was playing a waltz, an old waltz that was out
      of fashion, with a fateful rhythm in the notes; and it went on
      and on, though nothing indeed but leaves danced to the tune.

      The woman did not look too gay, for she was tired; and from the
      tall houses no one threw her down coppers. She moved the organ
      on, and three doors off began again.

      It was the waltz they had played at Roger’s when Irene had danced
      with Bosinney; and the perfume of the gardenias she had worn came
      back to Soames, drifted by the malicious music, as it had been
      drifted to him then, when she passed, her hair glistening, her
      eyes so soft, drawing Bosinney on and on down an endless
      ballroom.

      The organ woman plied her handle slowly; she had been grinding
      her tune all day—grinding it in Sloane Street hard by, grinding
      it perhaps to Bosinney himself.

      Soames turned, took a cigarette from the carven box, and walked
      back to the window. The tune had mesmerized him, and there came
      into his view Irene, her sunshade furled, hastening homewards
      down the Square, in a soft, rose-coloured blouse with drooping
      sleeves, that he did not know. She stopped before the organ, took
      out her purse, and gave the woman money.

      Soames shrank back and stood where he could see into the hall.

      She came in with her latch-key, put down her sunshade, and stood
      looking at herself in the glass. Her cheeks were flushed as if
      the sun had burned them; her lips were parted in a smile. She
      stretched her arms out as though to embrace herself, with a laugh
      that for all the world was like a sob.

      Soames stepped forward.

      “Very-pretty!” he said.

      But as though shot she spun round, and would have passed him up
      the stairs. He barred the way.

      “Why such a hurry?” he said, and his eyes fastened on a curl of
      hair fallen loose across her ear....

      He hardly recognised her. She seemed on fire, so deep and rich
      the colour of her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, and of the unusual
      blouse she wore.

      She put up her hand and smoothed back the curl. She was breathing
      fast and deep, as though she had been running, and with every
      breath perfume seemed to come from her hair, and from her body,
      like perfume from an opening flower.

      “I don’t like that blouse,” he said slowly, “it’s a soft,
      shapeless thing!”

      He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed his hand
      aside.

      “Don’t touch me!” she cried.

      He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away.

      “And where may you have been?” he asked.

      “In heaven—out of this house!” With those words she fled
      upstairs.

      Outside—in thanksgiving—at the very door, the organ-grinder was
      playing the waltz.

      And Soames stood motionless. What prevented him from following
      her?

      Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down
      from that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for
      yet another glimpse of Irene’s vanished figure, cooling his
      flushed face, dreaming of the moment when she flung herself on
      his breast—the scent of her still in the air around, and the
      sound of her laugh that was like a sob?

      PART III

      CHAPTER I MRS. MACANDER’S EVIDENCE

      Many people, no doubt, including the editor of the “Ultra
      Vivisectionist,” then in the bloom of its first youth, would say
      that Soames was less than a man not to have removed the locks
      from his wife’s doors, and, after beating her soundly, resumed
      wedded happiness.

      Brutality is not so deplorably diluted by humaneness as it used
      to be, yet a sentimental segment of the population may still be
      relieved to learn that he did none of these things. For active
      brutality is not popular with Forsytes; they are too circumspect,
      and, on the whole, too softhearted. And in Soames there was some
      common pride, not sufficient to make him do a really generous
      action, but enough to prevent his indulging in an extremely mean
      one, except, perhaps, in very hot blood. Above all this a true
      Forsyte refused to feel himself ridiculous. Short of actually
      beating his wife, he perceived nothing to be done; he therefore
      accepted the situation without another word.

      Throughout the summer and autumn he continued to go to the
      office, to sort his pictures, and ask his friends to dinner.

      He did not leave town; Irene refused to go away. The house at
      Robin Hill, finished though it was, remained empty and ownerless.
      Soames had brought a suit against the Buccaneer, in which he
      claimed from him the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds.

      A firm of solicitors, Messrs. Freak and Able, had put in a
      defence on Bosinney’s behalf. Admitting the facts, they raised a
      point on the correspondence which, divested of legal phraseology,
      amounted to this: To speak of “a _free_ hand in the terms of this
      correspondence” is an Irish bull.

      By a chance, fortuitous but not improbable in the close borough
      of legal circles, a good deal of information came to Soames’s ear
      anent this line of policy, the working partner in his firm,
      Bustard, happening to sit next at dinner at Walmisley’s, the
      Taxing Master, to young Chankery, of the Common Law Bar.

      The necessity for talking what is known as “shop,” which comes on
      all lawyers with the removal of the ladies, caused Chankery, a
      young and promising advocate, to propound an impersonal conundrum
      to his neighbour, whose name he did not know, for, seated as he
      permanently was in the background, Bustard had practically no
      name.

      He had, said Chankery, a case coming on with a “very nice point.”
      He then explained, preserving every professional discretion, the
      riddle in Soames’s case. Everyone, he said, to whom he had
      spoken, thought it a nice point. The issue was small
      unfortunately, “though d——d serious for his client he
      believed”—Walmisley’s champagne was bad but plentiful. A Judge
      would make short work of it, he was afraid. He intended to make a
      big effort—the point was a nice one. What did his neighbour say?

      Bustard, a model of secrecy, said nothing. He related the
      incident to Soames however with some malice, for this quiet man
      was capable of human feeling, ending with his own opinion that
      the point _was_ “a very nice one.”

      In accordance with his resolve, our Forsyte had put his interests
      into the hands of Jobling and Boulter. From the moment of doing
      so he regretted that he had not acted for himself. On receiving a
      copy of Bosinney’s defence he went over to their offices.

      Boulter, who had the matter in hand, Jobling having died some