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Title: The Forsyte Saga, Complete

Author: John Galsworthy

Release Date: August, 2003 [EBook #4397]
[This file was last updated on June 22, 2003]

Edition: 11

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORSYTE SAGA, COMPLETE ***




Produced by David Widger <[email protected]>
With proofing assistance from Fredrik Hausmann




FORSYTE SAGA--Complete

By John Galsworthy



Contents:
    Volume 1. The Man of Property
    Volume 2. Indian Summer of a Forsyte
              In Chancery
    Volume 3. Awakening
              To Let



[Spelling conforms to the original: "s's" instead of our "z's";
and "c's" where we would have "s's"; and "...our" as in colour
and flavour; many interesting double consonants; etc.]


FORSYTE SAGA

I. THE MAN OF PROPERTY

By John Galsworthy



VOLUME I



TO MY WIFE:

I DEDICATE THE FORSYTE SAGA IN ITS ENTIRETY,
BELIEVING IT TO BE OF ALL MY WORKS THE LEAST
UNWORTHY OF ONE WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT,
SYMPATHY AND CRITICISM COULD NEVER HAVE
BECOME EVEN SUCH A WRITER AS I AM.




PREFACE:

"The Forsyte Saga" was the title originally destined for that
part of it which is called "The Man of Property"; and to adopt it
for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged
the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us.  The word Saga might
be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that
there is little heroism in these pages.  But it is used with a
suitable irony; and, after all, this long tale, though it may
deal with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged
period, is not devoid of the essential beat of conflict.
Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness of old
days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale and legend, the
folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes, assuredly, in their
possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of
beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon.  And
if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out
from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the
Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then
the prime force, and that "family" and the sense of home and
property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent
efforts to "talk them out."

So many people have written and claimed that their families were
the originals of the Forsytes that one has been almost encouraged
to believe in the typicality of an imagined species.  Manners
change and modes evolve, and "Timothy's on the Bayswater Road"
becomes a nest of the unbelievable in all except essentials; we
shall not look upon its like again, nor perhaps on such a one as
James or Old Jolyon.  And yet the figures of Insurance Societies
and the utterances of Judges reassure us daily that our earthly
paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, Beauty
and Passion, come stealing in, filching security from beneath our
noses.  As surely as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the
essential Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against
the dissolution which hovers round the folds of ownership.

"Let the dead Past bury its dead" would be a better saying if the
Past ever died.  The persistence of the Past is one of those
tragi-comic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure
on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty.

But no Age is so new as that!  Human Nature, under its changing
pretensions and clothes, is and ever will be very much of a
Forsyte, and might, after all, be a much worse animal.

Looking back on the Victorian era, whose ripeness, decline, and
'fall-of' is in some sort pictured in "The Forsyte Saga," we see
now that we have but jumped out of a frying-pan into a fire.  It
would be difficult to substantiate a claim that the case of
England was better in 1913 than it was in 1886, when the Forsytes
assembled at Old Jolyon's to celebrate the engagement of June to
Philip Bosinney.  And in 1920, when again the clan gathered to
bless the marriage of Fleur with Michael Mont, the state of
England is as surely too molten and bankrupt as in the eighties
it was too congealed and low-percented.  If these chronicles had

been a really scientific study of transition one would have dwelt
probably on such factors as the invention of bicycle, motor-car,
and flying-machine; the arrival of a cheap Press; the decline of
country life and increase of the towns; the birth of the Cinema.
Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions;
they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those
inventions create.

But this long tale is no scientific study of a period; it is
rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that Beauty
effects in the lives of men.

The figure of Irene, never, as the reader may possibly have
observed, present, except through the senses of other characters,
is a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging on a possessive
world.

One has noticed that readers, as they wade on through the salt
waters of the Saga, are inclined more and more to pity Soames,
and to think that in doing so they are in revolt against the mood
of his creator.  Far from it!  He, too, pities Soames, the
tragedy of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable tragedy
of being unlovable, without quite a thick enough skin to be
thoroughly unconscious of the fact.  Not even Fleur loves Soames
as he feels he ought to be loved.  But in pitying Soames, readers
incline, perhaps, to animus against Irene: After all, they think,
he wasn't a bad fellow, it wasn't his fault; she ought to have
forgiven him, and so on!

And, taking sides, they lose perception of the simple truth,
which underlies the whole story, that where sex attraction is
utterly and definitely lacking in one partner to a union, no
amount of pity, or reason, or duty, or what not, can overcome a
repulsion implicit in Nature.  Whether it ought to, or no, is
beside the point; because in fact it never does.  And where Irene
seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de Boulogne, or the Goupenor
Gallery, she is but wisely realistic--knowing that the least
concession is the inch which precedes the impossible, the
repulsive ell.

A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the Saga is the
complaint that Irene and Jolyon those rebels against property--
claim spiritual property in their son Jon.  But it would be
hypercriticism, as the tale is told.  No father and mother could
have let the boy marry Fleur without knowledge of the facts; and
the facts determine Jon, not the persuasion of his parents.
Moreover, Jolyon's persuasion is not on his own account, but on
Irene's, and Irene's persuasion becomes a reiterated: "Don't
think of me, think of yourself!" That Jon, knowing the facts, can
realise his mother's feelings, will hardly with justice be held
proof that she is, after all, a Forsyte.

But though the impingement of Beauty and the claims of Freedom on
a possessive world are the main prepossessions of the Forsyte
Saga, it cannot be absolved from the charge of embalming the
upper-middle class.  As the old Egyptians placed around their
mummies the necessaries of a future existence, so I have
endeavoured to lay beside the, figures of Aunts Ann and Juley and
Hester, of Timothy and Swithin, of Old Jolyon and James, and of
their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little life here-
after, a little balm in the hurried Gilead of a dissolving
"Progress."

If the upper-middle class, with other classes, is destined to
"move on" into amorphism, here, pickled in these pages, it lies
under glass for strollers in the wide and ill-arranged museum of
Letters.  Here it rests, preserved in its own juice: The Sense
of Property.

1922.




THE MAN OF PROPERTY

by JOHN GALSWORTHY




"........  You will answer
The slaves are ours ....."
-Merchant of Venice.




TO EDWARD GARNETT





PART I


CHAPTER I

'AT HOME' AT OLD JOLYON'S


Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the
Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight--an upper
middle-class family in full plumage.  But whosoever of these
favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis
(a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the
Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only delightful in
itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem.  In plainer
words, he has gleaned from a gathering of this family--no branch
of which had a liking for the other, between no three members of
whom existed anything worthy of the name of sympathy--evidence of
that mysterious concrete tenacity which renders a family so
formidable a unit of society, so clear a reproduction of society
in miniature.  He has been admitted to a vision of the dim roads
of social progress, has understood something of patriarchal life,
of the swarmings of savage hordes, of the rise and fall of
nations.  He is like one who, having watched a tree grow from its
planting--a paragon of tenacity, insulation, and success, amidst
the deaths of a hundred other plants less fibrous, sappy, and
persistent--one day will see it flourishing with bland, full
foliage, in an almost repugnant prosperity, at the summit of its
efflorescence.

On June 15, eighteen eighty-six, about four of the afternoon, the
observer who chanced to be present at the house of old Jolyon
Forsyte in Stanhope Gate, might have seen the highest
efflorescence of the Forsytes.

This was the occasion of an 'at home' to celebrate the engagement
of Miss June Forsyte, old Jolyon's granddaughter, to Mr. Philip
Bosinney.  In the bravery of light gloves, buff waistcoats,
feathers and frocks, the family were present, even Aunt Ann, who
now but seldom left the comer of her brother Timothy's green
drawing-room, where, under the aegis of a plume of dyed pampas
grass in a light blue vase, she sat all day reading and knitting,
surrounded by the effigies of three generations of Forsytes.
Even Aunt Ann was there; her inflexible back, and the dignity of
her calm old face personifying the rigid possessiveness of the
family idea.

When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were
present; when a Forsyte died--but no Forsyte had as yet died;
they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they
took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of
highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their
property.

About the Forsytes mingling that day with the crowd of other
guests, there was a more than ordinarily groomed look, an alert,
inquisitive assurance, a brilliant respectability, as though they
were attired in defiance of something.  The habitual sniff on the
face of Soames Forsyte had spread through their ranks; they were
on their guard.

The subconscious offensiveness of their attitude has constituted
old Jolyon's 'home' the psychological moment of the family
history, made it the prelude of their drama.

The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually, but
as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added
perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an
exaggeration of family importance, and--the sniff.  Danger--so
indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any
society, group, or individual--was what the Forsytes scented; the
premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour.  For the
first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of
being in contact, with some strange and unsafe thing.

Over against the piano a man of bulk and stature was wearing two
waistcoats on his wide chest, two waistcoats and a ruby pin,
instead of the single satin waistcoat and diamond pin of more
usual occasions, and his shaven, square, old face, the colour of
pale leather, with pale eyes, had its most dignified look, above
his satin stock.  This was Swithin Forsyte.  Close to the window,
where he could get more than his fair share of fresh air, the
other twin, James--the fat and the lean of it, old Jolyon called
these brothers--like the bulky Swithin, over six feet in height,
but very lean, as though destined from his birth to strike a
balance and maintain an average, brooded over the scene with his
permanent stoop; his grey eyes had an air of fixed absorption in
some secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid, shifting
scrutiny of surrounding facts; his cheeks, thinned by two
parallel folds, and a long, clean-shaven upper lip, were framed
within Dundreary whiskers.  In his hands he turned and turned a
piece of china.  Not far off, listening to a lady in brown, his
only son Soames, pale and well-shaved, dark-haired, rather bald,
had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that
aforesaid appearance of 'sniff,' as though despising an egg which
he knew he could not digest.  Behind him his cousin, the tall
George, son of the fifth Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish look on
his fleshy face, pondering one of his sardonic jests.  Something
inherent to the occasion had affected them all.

Seated in a row close to one another were three  ladies--Aunts
Ann, Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short for Julia),
who not in first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry
Septimus Small, a man of poor constitution.  She had survived him
for many years.  With her elder and younger sister she lived now
in the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother, on the
Bayswater Road.  Each of these ladies held fans in their hands,
and each with some touch of colour, some emphatic feather or
brooch, testified to the solemnity of the opportunity.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a
host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon himself.  Eighty
years of age, with his fine, white hair, his dome-like forehead,
his little, dark grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which
drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a
patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his
temples, seemed master of perennial youth.  He held himself
extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady  eyes had lost none of
their clear shining.  Thus  he gave an impression of superiority
to the  doubts and dislikes of smaller men.  Having had  his own
way for innumerable years, he had  earned a prescriptive right to
it.  It would never have occurred to old Jolyon that it was
necessary to wear a look of doubt or of defiance.

Between him and the four other brothers who were present, James,
Swithin, Nicholas, and Roger, there was much difference, much
similarity.  In turn, each of these four brothers was very
different from the other, yet they, too, were alike.

Through the varying features and expression of those five faces
could be marked a certain steadfastness of chin, underlying
surface distinctions, marking a racial stamp, too prehistoric to
trace, too remote and permanent to discuss--the very hall-mark
and guarantee of the family fortunes.

Among the younger generation, in the tall, bull-like George, in
pallid strenuous Archibald, in young Nicholas with his sweet and
tentative obstinacy, in the grave and foppishly determined
Eustace, there was this same stamp--less meaningful perhaps, but
unmistakable--a sign of something ineradicable in the family
soul. At one time or another during the afternoon, all these
faces, so dissimilar and so alike, had worn an expression of
distrust, the object of which was undoubtedly the man whose
acquaintance they were thus assembled to make.  Philip Bosinney
was known to be a young man without fortune, but Forsyte girls
had become engaged to such before, and had actually married them.
It was not altogether for this reason, therefore, that the minds
of the Forsytes misgave them.  They could not have explained the
origin of a misgiving obscured by the mist of family gossip.  A
story was undoubtedly told that he had paid his duty call to
Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester, in a soft grey hat--a soft grey
hat, not even a new one--a dusty thing with a shapeless crown.
"So, extraordinary, my dear--so odd," Aunt Hester, passing
through the little, dark hall (she was rather short-sighted), had
tried to 'shoo' it off a chair, taking it for a strange,
disreputable cat--Tommy had such disgraceful friends!  She was
disturbed when it did not move.

Like an artist for ever seeking to discover the significant trifle
which embodies the whole character of a scene, or place, or
person, so those unconscious artists--the Forsytes had fastened by
intuition on this hat; it was their significant trifle, the detail
in which was embedded the meaning of the whole matter; for each
had asked himself: "Come, now, should I have paid that visit in
that hat?" and each had answered "No!" and some, with more
imagination than others, had added: "It would never have come into
my head!"

George, on hearing the story, grinned.  The hat had obviously
been worn as a practical joke!  He himself was a connoisseur of
such. "Very haughty!" he said, "the wild Buccaneer."

And this mot, the 'Buccaneer,' was bandied from mouth to mouth,
till it became the favourite mode of alluding to Bosinney.

Her aunts reproached June afterwards about the hat.

"We don't think you ought to let him, dear!" they had said.

June had answered in her imperious brisk way, like the little
embodiment of will she was:  "Oh! what does it matter?  Phil
never knows what he's got on!"

No one had credited an answer so outrageous.  A man not to know
what he had on?  No, no!  What indeed was this young man, who, in
becoming engaged to June, old Jolyon's acknowledged heiress, had
done so well for himself?  He was an architect, not in itself a
sufficient reason for wearing such a hat.  None of the Forsytes
happened to be architects, but one of them knew two architects
who would never have worn such a hat upon a call of ceremony in
the London season.

Dangerous--ah, dangerous!  June, of course, had not seen this,
but, though not yet nineteen, she was notorious.  Had she not
said to Mrs. Soames--who was always so beautifully dressed--that
feathers were vulgar?  Mrs. Soames had actually given up wearing
feathers, so dreadfully downright was dear June!

These misgivings, this disapproval, and perfectly genuine
distrust, did not prevent the Forsytes from gathering to old
Jolyon's invitation.  An 'At Home' at Stanhope Gate was a great
rarity; none had been held for twelve years, not indeed, since
old Mrs. Jolyon had died.

Never had there been so full an assembly, for, mysteriously
united in spite of all their differences, they had taken arms
against a common peril.  Like cattle when a dog comes into the
field, they stood head to head and shoulder to shoulder, prepared
to run upon and trample the invader to death.  They had come,
too, no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of presents they
would ultimately be expected to give; for though the question of
wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way: 'What are you
givin'?  Nicholas is givin' spoons!'--so very much depended on the
bridegroom.  If he were sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking,
it was more necessary to give him nice things; he would expect
them.  In the end each gave exactly what was right and proper, by
a species of family adjustment arrived at as prices are arrived
at on the Stock Exchange--the exact niceties being regulated at
Timothy's commodious, red-brick residence in Bayswater,
overlooking the Park, where dwelt Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester.

The uneasiness of the Forsyte family has been justified by the
simple mention of the hat.  How impossible and wrong would it
have been for any family, with the regard for appearances which
should ever characterize the great upper middle-class, to feel
otherwise than uneasy!

The author of the uneasiness stood talking to June by the further
door; his curly hair had a rumpled appearance, as though he found
what was going on around him unusual.  He had an air, too, of
having a joke all to himself.  George, speaking aside to his
brother, Eustace, said:

"Looks as if he might make a bolt of it--the dashing Buccaneer!"

This 'very singular-looking man,' as Mrs. Small afterwards called
him, was of medium height and strong build, with a pale, brown
face, a dust-coloured moustache, very prominent cheek-bones, and
hollow checks.  His forehead sloped back towards the crown of his
head, and bulged out in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads seen
in the Lion-house at the Zoo.  He had sherry-coloured eyes,
disconcertingly inattentive at times.  Old Jolyon's coachman,
after driving June and Bosinney to the theatre, had remarked to
the butler:

"I dunno what to make of 'im.  Looks to me for all the world like
an 'alf-tame leopard." And every now and then a Forsyte would
come up, sidle round, and take a look at him.

June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity--a little
bit of a thing, as somebody once said, 'all hair and spirit,'
with fearless blue eyes, a firm jaw, and a bright colour, whose
face and body seemed too slender for her crown of red-gold hair.

A tall woman, with a beautiful figure, which some member of the
family had once compared to a heathen goddess, stood looking at
these two with a shadowy smile.

Her hands, gloved in French grey, were crossed one over the
other, her grave, charming face held to one side, and the eyes of
all men near were fastened on it.  Her figure swayed, so balanced
that the very air seemed to set it moving.  There was warmth, but
little colour, in her cheeks; her large, dark eyes were soft.

But it was at her lips--asking a question, giving an answer, with
that shadowy smile--that men looked; they were sensitive lips,
sensuous and sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and
perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower.

The engaged couple thus scrutinized were unconscious of this
passive goddess.  It was Bosinney who first noticed her, and
asked her name.

June took her lover up to the woman with the beautiful figure.

"Irene is my greatest chum," she said: "Please be good friends,
you two!"

At the little lady's command they all three smiled; and while
they were smiling, Soames Forsyte, silently appearing from behind
the woman with the beautiful figure, who was his wife, said:

"Ah! introduce me too!"

He was seldom, indeed, far from Irene's side at public functions,
and even when separated by the exigencies of social intercourse,
could be seen following her about with his eyes, in which were
strange expressions of watchfulness and longing.

At the window his father, James, was still scrutinizing the marks
on the piece of china.

"I wonder at Jolyon's allowing this engagement," he said to Aunt
Ann.  "They tell me there's no chance of their getting married
for years.  This young Bosinney" (he made the word a dactyl in
opposition to general usage of a short o) "has got nothing.  When
Winifred married Dartie, I made him bring every penny into
settlement--lucky thing, too--they'd ha' had nothing by this
time!"

Aunt Ann looked up from her velvet chair.  Grey curls banded her
forehead, curls that, unchanged for decades, had extinguished in
the family all sense of time.  She made no reply, for she rarely
spoke, husbanding her aged voice; but to James, uneasy of
conscience, her look was as good as an answer.

"Well," he said, "I couldn't help Irene's having no money.
Soames was in such a hurry; he got quite thin dancing attendance
on her."

Putting the bowl pettishly down on the piano, he let his eyes
wander to the group by the door.

"It's my opinion," he said unexpectedly, "that it's just as well
as it is."

Aunt Ann did not ask him to explain this strange utterance.  She
knew what he was thinking.  If Irene had no money she would not
be so foolish as to do anything wrong; for they said--they said--
she had been asking for a separate room; but, of course, Soames
had not....

James interrupted her reverie:

"But where," he asked, "was Timothy?  Hadn't he come with them?"

Through Aunt Ann's compressed lips a tender smile forced its way:

"No, he didn't think it wise, with so much of this diphtheria
about; and he so liable to take things."

James answered:

"Well, HE takes good care of himself.  I can't afford to take the
care of myself that he does."

Nor was it easy to say which, of admiration, envy, or contempt,
was dominant in that remark.

Timothy, indeed, was seldom seen.  The baby of the family, a
publisher by profession, he had some years before, when business
was at full tide, scented out the stagnation which, indeed, had
not yet come, but which ultimately, as all agreed, was bound to
set in, and, selling his share in a firm engaged mainly in the
production of religious books, had invested the quite conspicuous
proceeds in three per cent. consols.  By this act he had at once
assumed an isolated position, no other Forsyte being content with
less than four per cent.  for his money; and this isolation had
slowly and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than
commonly endowed with caution.  He had become almost a myth--a
kind of incarnation of security haunting the background of the
Forsyte universe.  He had never committed the imprudence of
marrying, or encumbering himself in any way with children.

James resumed, tapping the piece of china:

"This isn't real old Worcester.  I s'pose Jolyon's told you
something about the young man.  From all I can learn, he's got no
business, no income, and no connection worth speaking of; but
then, I know nothing--nobody tells me anything."

Aunt Ann shook her head.  Over her square-chinned, aquiline old
face a trembling passed; the spidery fingers of her hands pressed
against each other and interlaced, as though she were subtly
recharging her will.

The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she held a peculiar
position amongst them.  Opportunists and egotists one and all--
though not, indeed, more so than their neighbours--they quailed
before her incorruptible figure, and, when opportunities were too
strong, what could they do but avoid her!

Twisting his long, thin legs, James went on:

"Jolyon, he will have his own way.  He's got no children"--and
stopped, recollecting the continued existence of old Jolyon's
son, young Jolyon, June's father, who had made such a mess of it,
and done for himself by deserting his wife and child and running
away with that foreign governess.  "Well," he resumed hastily,
"if he likes to do these things, I s'pose he can afford to.  Now,
what's he going to give her?  I s'pose he'll give her a thousand
a year; he's got nobody else to leave his money to."

He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper, clean-shaven
man, with hardly a hair on his head, a long, broken nose, full
lips, and cold grey eyes under rectangular brows.

"Well, Nick," he muttered, "how are you?"

Nicholas Forsyte, with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a
preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a large fortune,
quite legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a
director), placed within that cold palm the tips of his still
colder fingers and hastily withdrew them.

"I'm bad," he said, pouting--"been bad all the week; don't sleep
at night.  The doctor can't tell why.  He's a clever fellow, or I
shouldn't have him, but I get nothing out of him but bills."

"Doctors!" said James, coming down sharp on his words: "I've had
all the doctors in London for one or another of us.  There's no
satisfaction to be got out of them; they'll tell you anything.
There's Swithin, now.  What good have they done him?  There he
is; he's bigger than ever; he's enormous; they can't get his
weight down.  Look at him!"

Swithin Forsyte, tall, square, and broad, with a chest like a
pouter pigeon's in its plumage of bright waistcoats, came
strutting towards them.

"Er--how are you?" he said in his dandified way, aspirating the
'h' strongly (this difficult letter was almost absolutely safe in
his keeping)--"how are you?"

Each brother wore an air of aggravation as he looked at the other
two, knowing by experience that they would try to eclipse his
ailments.

"We were just saying," said James, "that you don't get any
thinner."

Swithin protruded his pale round eyes with the effort of hearing.

"Thinner?  I'm in good case," he said, leaning a little forward,
"not one of your thread-papers like you!"

But, afraid of losing the expansion of his chest, he leaned back
again into a state of immobility, for he prized nothing so highly
as a distinguished appearance.

Aunt Ann turned her old eyes from one to the other.  Indulgent
and severe was her look.  In turn the three brothers looked at
Ann.  She was getting shaky.  Wonderful woman!  Eighty-six if a
day; might live another ten years, and had never been strong.
Swithin and James, the twins, were only seventy-five, Nicholas a
mere baby of seventy or so.  All were strong, and the inference
was comforting. Of all forms of property their respective healths
naturally concerned them most.

"I'm very well in myself," proceeded James, "but my nerves are
out of order.  The least thing worries me to death.  I shall have
to go to Bath."

"Bath!" said Nicholas.  "I've tried Harrogate.  That's no good.
What I want is sea air.  There's nothing like Yarmouth.  Now,
when I go there I sleep...."

"My liver's very bad," interrupted Swithin slowly.  "Dreadful
pain here;" and he placed his hand on his right side.

"Want of exercise," muttered James, his eyes on the china.  He
quickly added: "I get a pain there, too."

Swithin reddened, a resemblance to a turkey-cock coming upon his
old face.

"Exercise!" he said.  "I take plenty: I never use the lift at the
Club."

"I didn't know," James hurried out.  "I know nothing about
anybody; nobody tells me anything...."

Swithin fixed him with a stare:

"What do you do for a pain there?"

James brightened.

"I take a compound...."

"How are you, uncle?"

June stood before him, her resolute small face raised from her
little height to his great height, and her hand outheld.

The brightness faded from James's visage.

"How are you?" he said, brooding over her.  "So you're going to
Wales to-morrow to visit your young man's aunts?  You'll have a
lot of rain there.  This isn't real old Worcester."  He tapped the
bowl.  "Now, that set I gave your mother when she married was the
genuine thing."

June shook hands one by one with her three great-uncles, and
turned to Aunt Ann.  A very sweet look had come into the old
lady's face, she kissed the girl's check with trembling fervour.

"Well, my dear," she said, "and so you're going for a whole
month!"

The girl passed on, and Aunt Ann looked after her slim little
figure.  The old lady's round, steel grey eyes, over which a film
like a bird's was beginning to come, followed her wistfully
amongst the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to
say good-bye; and her finger-tips, pressing and pressing against
each other, were busy again with the recharging of her will
against that inevitable ultimate departure of her own.

'Yes,' she thought, 'everybody's been most kind; quite a lot of
people come to congratulate her.  She ought to be very happy.'
Amongst the throng of people by the door, the well-dressed throng
drawn from the families of lawyers and doctors, from the Stock
Exchange, and all the innumerable avocations of the upper-middle
class--there were only some twenty percent of Forsytes; but to
Aunt Ann they seemed all Forsytes--and certainly there was not
much difference--she saw only her own flesh and blood.  It was
her world, this family, and she knew no other, had never perhaps
known any other.  All their little secrets, illnesses,
engagements, and marriages, how they were getting on, and whether
they were making money--all this was her property, her delight,
her life; beyond this only a vague, shadowy mist of facts and
persons of no real significance.  This it was that she would have
to lay down when it came to her turn  to die; this which gave to
her that importance, that secret self-importance, without which
none of us can bear to live; and to this she clung wistfully,
with a greed that grew each day!  If life were slipping away from
her, this she would retain to the end.

She thought of June's father, young Jolyon, who had run away with
that foreign girl.  And what a sad blow to his father and to them
all.  Such a promising young fellow!  A sad blow, though there
had been no public scandal, most fortunately, Jo's wife seeking
for no divorce!  A long time ago!  And when June's mother died,
six years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they had two
children now, so she had heard.  Still, he had forfeited his
right to be there, had cheated her of the complete fulfilment of
her family pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing
and kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising
young fellow!  The thought rankled with the bitterness of a
long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart.  A little water
stood in her eyes.  With a handkerchief of the finest lawn she
wiped them stealthily.

"Well, Aunt Ann?" said a voice behind.

Soames Forsyte, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked,
flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about his whole
appearance, looked downwards and aslant at Aunt Ann, as though
trying to see through the side of his own nose.

"And what do you think of the engagement?" he asked.

Aunt Ann's eyes rested on him proudly; of all the nephews since
young Jolyon's departure from the family nest, he was now her
favourite, for she recognised in him a sure trustee of the family
soul that must so soon slip beyond her keeping.

"Very nice for the young man," she said; "and he's a good-looking
young fellow; but I doubt if he's quite the right lover for dear
June."

Soames touched the edge of a gold-lacquered lustre.

"She'll tame him," he said, stealthily wetting his finger and
rubbing it on the knobby bulbs.  "That's genuine old lacquer; you
can't get it nowadays.  It'd do well in a sale at Jobson's." He
spoke with relish, as though he felt that he was cheering up his
old aunt.  It was seldom he was so confidential.  "I wouldn't
mind having it myself," he added; "you can always get your price
for old lacquer."

"You're so clever with all those things," said Aunt Ann.  "And
how is dear Irene?"

Soames's smile died.

"Pretty well," he said.  "Complains she can't sleep; she sleeps a
great deal better than I do," and he looked at his wife, who was
talking to Bosinney by the door.

Aunt Ann sighed.

"Perhaps," she said, "it will be just as well for her not to see
so much of June.  She's such a decided character, dear June!"

Soames flushed; his flushes passed rapidly over his flat cheeks
and centered between his eyes, where they remained, the stamp of
disturbing thoughts.

"I don't know what she sees in that little flibbertigibbet," he
burst out, but noticing that they were no longer alone, he turned
and again began examining the lustre.

"They tell me Jolyon's bought another house," said his father's
voice close by; "he must have a lot of money--he must have more
money than he knows what to do with!  Montpellier Square, they
say; close to Soames!  They never told me, Irene never tells me
anything!"

"Capital position, not two minutes from me," said the voice of
Swithin, "and from my rooms I can drive to the Club in eight."

The position of their houses was of vital importance to the
Forsytes, nor was this remarkable, since the whole spirit of
their success was embodied therein.

Their father, of farming stock, had come from Dorsetshire near
the beginning of the century.

'Superior Dosset Forsyte, as he was called by his intimates, had
been a stonemason by trade, and risen to the position of a
master-builder.

Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where, building
on until he died, he was buried at Highgate.  He left over thirty
thousand pounds between his ten children.  Old Jolyon alluded to
him, if at all, as 'A hard, thick sort of man; not much
refinement about him.' The second generation of Forsytes felt
indeed that he was not greatly to their credit.  The only
aristocratic trait they could find in his character was a habit
of drinking Madeira.

Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described him thus:
"I don't recollect that he ever did anything; at least, not in my
time.  He was  er--an owner of houses, my dear.  His hair about
your Uncle Swithin's colour; rather a square build.  Tall?  No--
not very tall" (he had been five feet five, with a mottled
face); "a fresh-coloured man.  I remember he used to drink
Madeira; but ask your Aunt Ann.  What was his father?  He--er--
had to do with the land down in Dorsetshire, by the sea."

James once went down to see for himself what sort of place this
was that they had come from.  He found two old farms, with a cart
track rutted into the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the
beach; a little grey church with a buttressed outer wall, and a
smaller and greyer chapel.  The stream which worked the mill came
bubbling down in a dozen rivulets, and pigs were hunting round
that estuary.  A haze hovered over the prospect.  Down this
hollow, with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards
the sea, it appeared that the primeval Forsytes had been content
to walk Sunday after Sunday for hundreds of years.

Whether or no James had cherished hopes of an inheritance, or of
something rather distinguished to be found down there, he came
back to town in a poor way, and went about with a pathetic
attempt at making the best of a bad job.

"There's very little to be had out of that," he said; "regular
country little place, old as the hills...."

Its age was felt to be a comfort.  Old Jolyon, in whom a
desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his
ancestors as: "Yeomen--I suppose very small beer."  Yet he would
repeat the word 'yeomen' as if it afforded him consolation.

They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes, that
they were all what is called 'of a certain position.' They had
shares in all sorts of things, not as yet--with the exception of
Timothy--in consols, for they had no dread in life like that of
3 per cent. for their money.  They collected pictures, too, and
were supporters of such charitable  institutions as might be
beneficial to their sick domestics.  From their father, the
builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar.
Originally, perhaps, members of some primitive sect, they were
now in the natural course of things members of the Church of
England, and caused their wives and children to attend with some
regularity the more fashionable churches of the Metropolis.  To
have doubted their Christianity would have caused them both pain
and surprise.  Some of them paid for pews, thus expressing in the
most practical form their sympathy with the teachings of Christ.

Their residences, placed at stated intervals round the park,
watched like sentinels, lest the fair heart of this London, where
their desires were fixed, should slip from their clutches, and
leave them lower in their own estimations.

There was old Jolyon in Stanhope Place; the Jameses in Park Lane;
Swithin in the lonely glory of orange and blue chambers in Hyde
Park Mansions--he had never married, not he--the Soamses in their
nest off Knightsbridge; the Rogers in Prince's Gardens (Roger was
that remarkable Forsyte who had conceived and carried out the
notion of bringing up his four sons to a new profession.
"Collect house property, nothing like it," he would say;
"I never did anything else").

The Haymans again--Mrs. Hayman was the one married Forsyte
sister--in a house high up on Campden Hill, shaped like a
giraffe, and so tall that it gave the observer a crick in the
neck; the Nicholases in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and a
great bargain; and last, but not least, Timothy's on the
Bayswater Road, where Ann, and Juley, and Hester, lived under his
protection.

But all this time James was musing, and now he inquired of his
host and brother what he had given for that house in Montpellier
Square.  He himself had had his eye on a house there for the last
two years, but they wanted such a price.

Old Jolyon recounted the details of his purchase.

"Twenty-two years to run?" repeated James; "The very house I was
after--you've given too much for it!"

Old Jolyon frowned.

"It's not that I want it," said James hastily; it wouldn't suit
my purpose at that price.  Soames knows the house, well--he'll
tell you it's too dear--his opinion's worth having."

"I don't," said old Jolyon, "care a fig for his opinion."

"Well," murmured James, "you will have your own way--it's a good
opinion.  Good-bye!  We're going to drive down to Hurlingham.
They tell me June's going to Wales.  You'll be lonely tomorrow.
What'll you do with yourself?  You'd better come and dine with
us!"

Old Jolyon refused.  He went down to the front door and saw them
into their barouche, and twinkled at them, having already
forgotten his spleen--Mrs. James facing the horses, tall and
majestic with auburn hair; on her left, Irene--the two husbands,
father and son, sitting forward, as though they expected
something, opposite their wives.  Bobbing and bounding upon the
spring cushions, silent, swaying to each motion of their chariot,
old Jolyon watched them drive away under the sunlight.

During the drive the silence was broken by Mrs. James.

"Did you ever see such a collection of rumty-too people?"

Soames, glancing at her beneath his eyelids, nodded, and he saw
Irene steal at him one of her unfathomable looks.  It is likely
enough that each branch of the Forsyte family made that remark as
they drove away from old Jolyon's 'At Home!'

Amongst the last of the departing guests the fourth and fifth
brothers, Nicholas and Roger, walked away together, directing
their steps alongside Hyde Park towards the Praed Street Station
of the Underground.  Like all other Forsytes of a certain age
they kept carriages of their own, and never took cabs if by any
means they could avoid it.

The day was bright, the trees of the Park in the full beauty of
mid-June foliage; the brothers did not seem to notice phenomena,
which contributed, nevertheless, to the jauntiness of promenade
and conversation.

"Yes," said Roger, "she's a good-lookin' woman, that wife of
Soames's.  I'm told they don't get on."

This brother had a high forehead, and the freshest colour of any
of the Forsytes; his light grey eyes measured the street frontage
of the houses by the way, and now and then he would level his,
umbrella and take a 'lunar,' as he expressed it, of the varying
heights.

"She'd no money," replied Nicholas.

He himself had married a good deal of money, of which, it being
then the golden age before the Married Women's Property Act, he
had mercifully been enabled to make a successful use.

"What was her father?"

"Heron was his name, a Professor, so they tell me."

Roger shook his head.

"There's no money in that," he said.

"They say her mother's father was cement."

Roger's face brightened.

"But he went bankrupt," went on Nicholas.

"Ah!" exclaimed Roger, "Soames will have trouble with her; you
mark my words, he'll have trouble--she's got a foreign look."

Nicholas licked his lips.

"She's a pretty woman," and he waved aside a crossing-sweeper.

"How did he get hold of her?" asked Roger presently.  "She must
cost him a pretty penny in dress!"

"Ann tells me," replied Nicholas," he was half-cracked about her.
She refused him five times.  James, he's nervous about it, I can
see."

"Ah!" said Roger again; "I'm sorry for James; he had trouble with
Dartie."  His pleasant colour was heightened by exercise, he swung
his umbrella to the level of his eye more frequently than ever.
Nicholas's face also wore a pleasant look.

"Too pale for me," he said, "but her figures capital!"

Roger made no reply.

"I call her distinguished-looking," he said at last--it was the
highest praise in the Forsyte vocabulary.  "That young Bosinney
will never do any good for himself.  They say at Burkitt's he's
one of these artistic chaps--got an idea of improving English
architecture; there's no money in that!  I should like to hear
what Timothy would say to it."

They entered the station.

"What class are you going?  I go second."

"No second for me," said Nicholas;--"you never know what you may
catch."

He took a first-class ticket to Notting Hill Gate; Roger a second
to South Kensington.  The train coming in a minute later, the two
brothers parted and entered their respective compartments.  Each
felt aggrieved that the other had not modified his habits to
secure his society a little longer; but as Roger voiced it in his
thoughts:
'Always a stubborn beggar, Nick!'

And as Nicholas expressed it to himself:

'Cantankerous chap Roger--always was!'

There was little sentimentality about the Forsytes.  In that
great London, which they had conquered and become merged in, what
time had they to be sentimental?




CHAPTER II

OLD JOLYON GOES TO THE OPERA


At five o'clock the following day old Jolyon sat alone, a cigar
between his lips, and on a table by his side a cup of tea.  He
was tired, and  before he had finished his cigar he fell asleep.
A fly settled on his hair, his breathing sounded heavy in the
drowsy silence, his upper lip under the white moustache puffed in
and out.  From between the fingers of his veined and wrinkled
hand the cigar, dropping on the empty hearth, burned itself out.

The gloomy little study, with windows of stained glass to
exclude the view, was full of dark green velvet and
heavily-carved mahogany--a suite of which old Jolyon was wont to
say: 'Shouldn't wonder if it made a big price some day!'

It was pleasant to think that in the after life he could get more
for things than he had given.

In the rich brown atmosphere peculiar to back rooms in the
mansion of a Forsyte, the Rembrandtesque effect of his great
head, with its white hair, against the cushion of his high-backed
seat, was spoiled by the moustache, which imparted a somewhat
military look to his face.  An old clock that had been with him
since before his marriage forty years ago kept with its ticking a
jealous record of the seconds slipping away forever from its old
master.

He had never cared for this room, hardly going into it from one
year's end to another, except to take cigars from the Japanese
cabinet in the corner, and the room now had its revenge.

His temples, curving like thatches over the hollows beneath, his
cheek-bones and chin, all were sharpened in his sleep, and there
had come upon his face the confession that he was an old man.

He woke.  June had gone!  James had said he would be lonely.
James had always been a poor thing.  He recollected with
satisfaction that he had bought that house over James's head.

Serve him right for sticking at the price; the only thing the
fellow thought of was money.  Had he given too much, though?  It
wanted a lot of doing to--He dared say he would want all his
money before he had done with this affair of June's.  He ought
never to have allowed the engagement.  She had met this Bosinney
at the house of Baynes, Baynes and Bildeboy, the architects.  He
believed that Baynes, whom he knew--a bit of an old woman--was
the young man's uncle by marriage.  After that she'd been always
running after him; and when she took a thing into her head there
was no stopping her.  She was continually taking up with 'lame
ducks' of one sort or another.  This fellow had no money, but she
must needs become engaged to him--a harumscarum, unpractical
chap, who would get himself into no end of difficulties.

She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and told him;
and, as if it were any consolation, she had added:

"He's so splendid; he's often lived on cocoa for a week!"

"And he wants you to live on cocoa too?"

"Oh no; he is getting into the swim now."

Old Jolyon had taken his cigar from under his white moustaches,
stained by coffee at the edge, and looked at her, that little
slip of a thing who had got such a grip of his heart.  He knew
more about 'swims' than his granddaughter.  But she, having
clasped her hands on his knees, rubbed her chin against him,
making a sound like a purring cat.  And, knocking the ash off his
cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation:

"You're all alike: you won't be satisfied till you've got what
you want.  If you must come to grief, you must; I wash my hands
of it."

So, he had washed his hands of it, making the condition that they
should not marry until Bosinney had at least four hundred a year.

"I shan't be able to give you very much," he had said, a formula
to which June was not unaccustomed."  Perhaps this What's-his-
name will provide the cocoa."

He had hardly seen anything of her since it began.  A bad
business!  He had no notion of giving her a lot of money to
enable a fellow he knew nothing about to live on in idleness.
He had seen that sort of thing before; no good ever came of it.
Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking her resolution; she was
as obstinate as a mule, always had been from a child.  He didn't
see where it was to end.  They must cut their coat according to
their cloth.  He would not give way till he saw young Bosinney
with an income of his own.  That June would have trouble with the
fellow was as plain as a pikestaff; he had no more idea of money
than a cow.  As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young
man's aunts, he fully expected they were old cats.

And, motionless, old Jolyon stared at the wall; but for his open
eyes, he might have been asleep....  The idea of supposing that
young cub Soames could give him advice!  He had always been a
cub, with his nose in the air!  He would be setting up as a man
of property next, with a place in the country!  A man of
property!  H'mph! Like his father, he was always nosing out
bargains, a cold-blooded young beggar!

He rose, and, going to the cabinet, began methodically stocking
his cigar-case from a bundle fresh in.  They were not bad at the
price, but you couldn't get a good cigar, nowadays, nothing to
hold a candle to those old Superfinos of Hanson and Bridger's.
That was a cigar!

The thought, like some stealing perfume, carried him back to
those wonderful nights at Richmond when after dinner he sat
smoking on the terrace of the Crown and Sceptre with Nicholas
Treffry and Traquair and Jack Herring and Anthony Thornworthy.
How good his cigars were then!  Poor old Nick!--dead, and Jack
Herring--dead, and Traquair--dead of that wife of his, and
Thornworthy--awfully shaky (no wonder, with his appetite).

Of all the company of those days he himself alone seemed left,
except Swithin, of course, and he so outrageously big there was
no doing anything with him.

Difficult to believe it was so long ago; he felt young still!  Of
all his thoughts, as he stood there counting his cigars, this was
the most poignant, the most bitter.  With his white head and his
loneliness he had remained young and green at heart.  And those
Sunday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, when young Jolyon and he
went for a stretch along the Spaniard's Road to Highgate, to
Child's Hill, and back over the Heath again to dine at Jack
Straw's Castle--how delicious his cigars were then!  And such
weather!  There was no weather now.

When June was a toddler of five, and every other Sunday he took
her to the Zoo, away from the society of those two good women,
her mother and her grandmother, and at the top of the bear den
baited his umbrella with buns for her favourite bears, how sweet
his cigars were then!

Cigars!  He had not even succeeded in out-living his palate--the
famous palate that in the fifties men swore by, and speaking of
him, said: "Forsyte's the best palate in London!" The palate that
in a sense had made his fortune--the fortune of the celebrated
tea men, Forsyte and Treffry, whose tea, like no other man's tea,
had a romantic aroma, the charm of a quite singular genuineness.
About the house of Forsyte and Treffry in the City had clung an
air of enterprise and mystery, of special dealings in special
ships, at special ports, with special Orientals.

He had worked at that business!  Men did work in those days!
these young pups hardly knew the meaning of the word.  He had
gone into every detail, known everything that went on, sometimes
sat up all night over it.  And he had always chosen his agents
himself, prided himself on it.  His eye for men, he used to say,
had been the secret of his success, and the exercise of this
masterful power of selection had been the only part of it all
that he had really liked.  Not a career for a man of his ability.
Even now, when the business had been turned into a Limited
Liability Company, and was declining (he had got out of his
shares long ago), he felt a sharp chagrin in thinking of that
time.  How much better he might have done!  He would have
succeeded splendidly at the Bar!  He had even thought of standing
for Parliament.  How often had not Nicholas Treffry said to him:

"You could do anything, Jo, if you weren't so d-damned careful of
yourself!" Dear old Nick!  Such a good fellow, but a racketty
chap!  The notorious Treffry!  He had never taken any care of
himself.  So he was dead.  Old Jolyon counted his cigars with a
steady hand, and it came into his mind to wonder if perhaps he
had been too careful of himself.

He put the cigar-case in the breast of his coat, buttoned it in,
and walked up the long flights to his bedroom, leaning on one
foot and the other, and helping himself by the bannister.  The
house was too big.  After June was married, if she ever did marry
this fellow, as he supposed she would, he would let it and go
into rooms.  What was the use of keeping half a dozen servants
eating their heads off?

The butler came to the ring of his bell--a large man with a
beard, a soft tread, and a peculiar capacity for silence.  Old
Jolyon told him to put his dress clothes out; he was going to
dine at the Club.

How long had the carriage been back from taking Miss June to the
station?  Since two?  Then let him come round at half-past six!

The Club which old Jolyon entered on the stroke of seven was one
of those political institutions of the upper middle class which
have seen better days.  In spite of being talked about, perhaps
in consequence of being talked about, it betrayed a disappointing
vitality.  People had grown tired of saying that the 'Disunion'
was on its last legs.  Old Jolyon would say it, too, yet
disregarded the fact in a manner truly irritating to
well-constituted Clubmen.

"Why do you keep your name on?" Swithin often asked him with
profound vexation.  "Why don't you join the 'Polyglot'?  You can't
get a wine like our Heidsieck under twenty shillin' a bottle
anywhere in London;" and, dropping his voice, he added: "There's
only five hundred dozen left.  I drink it every night of my
life."

"I'll think of it," old Jolyon would answer; but when he did think
of it there was always the question of fifty guineas entrance
fee, and it would take him four or five years to get in.  He
continued to think of it.

He was too old to be a Liberal, had long ceased to believe in the
political doctrines of his Club, had even been known to allude to
them as 'wretched stuff,' and it afforded him pleasure to
continue a member in the teeth of principles so opposed to his
own.  He had always had a contempt for the place, having joined
it many years ago when they refused to have him at the 'Hotch
Potch' owing to his being 'in trade.'  As if he were not as good
as any of them!  He naturally despised the Club that did take
him.  The members were a poor lot, many of them in the City--
stockbrokers, solicitors, auctioneers--what not!  Like most men
of strong character but not too much originality, old Jolyon set
small store by the class to which he belonged.  Faithfully he
followed their customs, social and otherwise, and secretly he
thought them 'a common lot.'

Years and philosophy, of which he had his share, had dimmed the
recollection of his defeat at the 'Hotch Potch'; and now in his
thoughts it was enshrined as the Queen of Clubs.  He would have
been a member all these years himself, but, owing to the slipshod
way his proposer, Jack Herring, had gone to work, they had not
known what they were doing in keeping him out.  Why! they had
taken his son Jo at once, and he believed the boy was still a
member; he had received a letter dated from there eight years
ago.

He had not been near the 'Disunion' for months, and the house had
undergone the piebald decoration which people bestow on old
houses and old ships when anxious to sell them.

'Beastly colour, the smoking-room!' he thought.  'The dining-room
is good!'

Its gloomy chocolate, picked out with light green, took his
fancy.

He ordered dinner, and sat down in the very corner, at the very
table perhaps! (things did not progress much at the 'Disunion,'
a Club of almost Radical principles) at which he and young Jolyon
used to sit twenty-five years ago, when he was taking the latter
to Drury Lane, during his holidays.

The boy had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled how he
used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful
but transparent nonchalance.

He ordered himself, too, the very dinner the boy had always
chosen-soup, whitebait, cutlets, and a tart.  Ah! if he were
only opposite now!

The two had not met for fourteen years.  And not for the first
time during those fourteen years old Jolyon wondered whether he
had been a little to blame in the matter of his son.  An
unfortunate love-affair with that precious flirt Danae Thorn-
worthy (now Danae Pellew), Anthony Thornworthy's daughter, had
thrown him on the rebound into the arms of June's mother.  He
ought perhaps to have put a spoke in the wheel of their marriage;
they were too young; but after that experience of Jo's
susceptibility he had been only too anxious to see him married.
And in four years the crash had come!  To have approved his son's
conduct in that crash was, of course, impossible; reason and
training--that combination of potent factors which stood for his
principles--told him of this impossibility, and his heart cried
out.  The grim remorselessness of that business had no pity for
hearts.  There was June, the atom with flaming hair, who had
climbed all over him, twined and twisted herself about him--about
his heart that was made to be the plaything and beloved resort of
tiny, helpless things.  With characteristic insight he saw he
must part with one or with the other; no half-measures could
serve in such a situation.  In that lay its tragedy.  And the
tiny, helpless thing prevailed.  He would not run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds, and so to his son he said good-bye.

That good-bye had lasted until now.

He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to young Jolyon,
but this had been refused, and perhaps that refusal had hurt him
more than anything, for with it had gone the last outlet of his
penned-in affection; and there had come such tangible and solid
proof of rupture as only a transaction in property, a bestowal or
refusal of such, could supply.

His dinner tasted flat.  His pint of champagne was dry and bitter
stuff, not like the Veuve Clicquots of old days.

Over his cup of coffee, he bethought him that he would go to the
opera.  In the Times, therefore--he had a distrust of other
papers--he read the announcement for the evening.  It was
'Fidelio.'

Mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that
fellow Wagner.

Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its brim flattened
by use, and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days,
and, pulling out an old pair of very thin lavender kid gloves
smelling strongly of Russia leather, from habitual proximity to
the  cigar-case in the pocket of his overcoat, he stepped into a
hansom.

The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolyon was
struck by their unwonted animation.

'The hotels must be doing a tremendous business,' he thought.  A
few years ago there had been none of these big hotels.  He made
a satisfactory reflection on some property he had in the
neighbourhood.  It must be going up in value by leaps and bounds!
What traffic!

But from that he began indulging in one of those strange
impersonal speculations, so uncharacteristic of a Forsyte,
wherein lay, in part, the secret of his supremacy amongst them.
What atoms men were, and what a lot of them!  And what would
become of them all?

He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man his exact
fare, walked up to the ticket office to take his stall, and stood
there with his purse in his hand--he always carried his money in
a purse, never having approved of that habit of carrying it
loosely in the pockets, as so many young men did nowadays.  The
official leaned out, like an old dog from a kennel.

"Why," he said in a surprised voice, "it's Mr. Jolyon Forsyte!
So it is!  Haven't seen you, sir, for years.  Dear me!  Times
aren't what they were.  Why! you and your brother, and that
auctioneer--Mr. Traquair, and Mr. Nicholas Treffry--you used to
have six or seven stalls here regular every season.  And how are
you, sir?  We don't get younger!"

The colour in old Jolyon's eyes deepened; he paid his guinea.
They had not forgotten him.  He marched in, to the sounds of the
overture, like an old war-horse to battle.

Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender gloves
in the old way, and took up his glasses for a long look round the
house.  Dropping them at last on his folded hat, he fixed his
eyes on the curtain.  More poignantly than ever he felt that it
was all over and done with him.  Where were all the women, the
pretty women, the house used to be so full of?  Where was that
old feeling in the heart as he waited for one of those great
singers?  Where that sensation of the intoxication of life and
of his own power to enjoy it all?

The greatest opera-goer of his day!  There was no opera now!
That fellow Wagner had ruined everything; no melody left, nor any
voices to sing it.  Ah! the wonderful singers!  Gone!  He sat
watching the old scenes acted, a numb feeling at his heart.

From the curl of silver over his ear to the pose of his foot in
its elastic-sided patent boot, there was nothing clumsy or weak
about old Jolyon.  He was as upright--very nearly--as in those
old times when he came every night; his sight was as good--almost
as good.  But what a feeling of weariness and disillusion!

He had been in the habit all his life of enjoying things, even
imperfect things--and there had been many imperfect things--he
had enjoyed them all with moderation, so as to keep himself
young.  But now he was deserted by his power of enjoyment, by his
philosophy, and left with this dreadful feeling that it was all
done with.  Not even the Prisoners' Chorus, nor Florian's Song,
had the power to dispel the gloom of his loneliness.

If Jo were only with him!  The boy must be forty by now.  He had
wasted fourteen years out of the life of his only son.  And Jo
was no longer a social pariah.  He was married.  Old Jolyon had
been unable to refrain from marking his appreciation of the
action by enclosing his son a cheque for L500.  The cheque had
been returned in a letter from the 'Hotch Potch,' couched in
these words.


'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'Your generous gift was welcome as a sign that you might think
worse of me.  I return it, but should you think fit to invest it
for the benefit of the little chap (we call him Jolly), who bears
our Christian and, by courtesy, our surname, I shall be very
glad.

'I hope with all my heart that your health is as good as ever.

'Your loving son,

'Jo.'


The letter was like the boy.  He had always been an amiable chap.
Old Jolyon had sent this reply:


'MY DEAR JO,

'The sum (L500) stands in my books for the benefit of your boy,
under the name of Jolyon Forsyte, and will be duly-credited with
interest at 5 per cent.  I hope that you are doing well.  My
health remains good at present.

'With love, I am,
'Your affectionate Father,

'JOLYON FORSYTE.'


And every year on the 1st of January he had added a hundred and
the interest.  The sum was mounting up--next New Year's Day it
would be fifteen hundred and odd pounds!  And it is difficult to
say how much satisfaction he had got out of that yearly
transaction.  But the correspondence had ended.

In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly
constitutional, partly the result, as in thousands of his class,
of the continual handling and watching of affairs, prompting him
to judge conduct by results rather than by principle, there was
at the bottom of his heart a sort of uneasiness.  His son ought,
under the circumstances, to have gone to the dogs; that law was
laid down in all the novels, sermons, and plays he had ever read,
heard, or witnessed.

After receiving the cheque back there seemed to him to be
something wrong somewhere.  Why had his son not gone to the
dogs?  But, then, who could tell?

He had heard, of course--in fact, he had made it his business
to find out--that Jo lived in St.  John's Wood, that he had a
little house in Wistaria Avenue with a garden, and took his wife
about with him into society--a queer sort of society, no doubt--
and that they had two children--the little chap they called Jolly
(considering the circumstances the name struck him as cynical,
and old Jolyon both feared and disliked cynicism), and a girl
called Holly, born since the marriage.  Who could tell what his
son's circumstances really were?  He had capitalized the income
he had inherited from his mother's father and joined Lloyd's as
an underwriter; he painted pictures, too--water-colours.  Old
Jolyon knew this, for he had surreptitiously bought them from
time to time, after chancing to see his son's name signed at the
bottom of a representation of the river Thames in a dealer's
window.  He thought them bad, and did not hang them because of
the signature; he kept them locked up in a drawer.

In the great opera-house a terrible yearning came on him to see
his son.  He remembered the days when he had been wont to slide
him, in a brown holland suit, to and fro under the arch of his
legs; the times when he ran beside the boy's pony, teaching him
to ride; the day he first took him to school.  He had been a
loving, lovable little chap!  After he went to Eton he had
acquired, perhaps, a little too much of that desirable manner
which old Jolyon knew was only to be obtained at such places and
at great expense; but he had always been companionable.  Always a
companion, even after Cambridge--a little far off, perhaps, owing
to the advantages he had received.  Old Jolyon's feeling towards
our public schools and 'Varsities never wavered, and he retained
touchingly his attitude of admiration and mistrust towards a
system appropriate to the highest in the land, of which he had
not himself  been privileged to partake....  Now that June had
gone and left, or as good as left him, it would have been a
comfort to see his son again.  Guilty of this treason to his
family, his principles, his class, old Jolyon fixed his eyes on
the singer.  A poor thing--a wretched poor thing!  And the
Florian a perfect stick!

It was over.  They were easily pleased nowadays!

In the crowded street he snapped up a cab under the very nose of
a stout and much younger gentleman, who had already assumed it to
be his own.  His route lay through Pall Mall, and at the corner,
instead of going through the Green Park, the cabman turned to
drive up St.  James's Street.  Old Jolyon put his hand through
the trap (he could not bear being taken out of his way); in
turning, however, he found himself opposite the 'Hotch Potch, '
and the yearning that had been secretly with him the whole
evening prevailed.  He called to the driver to stop.  He would go
in and ask if Jo still belonged there.

He went in.  The hall looked exactly as it did when he used to
dine there with Jack Herring, and they had the best cook in
London; and he looked round with the shrewd, straight glance that
had caused him all his life to be better served than most men.

"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte still a member here?"

"Yes, sir; in the Club now, sir.  What name?"

Old Jolyon was taken aback.

"His father," he said.

And having spoken, he took his stand, back to the fireplace.

Young Jolyon, on the point of leaving the Club, had put on his
hat, and was in the act of crossing the hall, as the porter met
him.  He was no longer young, with hair going grey, and face--a
narrower replica of his father's, with the same large drooping
moustache--decidedly worn.  He turned pale.  This meeting was
terrible after all those years, for nothing in the world was so
terrible as a scene.  They met and crossed hands without a word.
Then, with a quaver in his voice, the father said:

"How are you, my boy?"

The son answered:

"How are you, Dad?"

Old Jolyon's hand trembled in its thin lavender glove.

"If you're going my way," he said, "I can give you a lift."

And as though in the habit of taking each other home every night
they went out and stepped into the cab.

To old Jolyon it seemed that his son had grown.  'More of a man
altogether,' was his comment.  Over the natural amiability of
that son's face had come a rather sardonic mask, as though he had
found in the circumstances of his life the necessity for armour.
The features were certainly those of a Forsyte, but the expression
was more the introspective look of a student or philosopher.
He had no doubt been obliged to look into himself a good deal in
the course of those fifteen years.

To young Jolyon the first sight of his father was undoubtedly a
shock--he looked so worn and old.  But in the cab he seemed
hardly to have changed, still having the calm look so well
remembered, still being upright and keen-eyed.

"You look well, Dad."

"Middling," old Jolyon answered.

He was the prey of an anxiety that he found he must put into
words.  Having got his son back like this, he felt he must know
what was his financial position.

"Jo," he said, "I should like to hear what sort of water you're
in.  I suppose you're in debt?"

He put it this way that his son might find it easier to confess.

Young Jolyon answered in his ironical voice:

"No!  I'm not in debt!"

Old Jolyon saw that he was angry, and touched his hand.  He had
run a risk.  It was worth it, however, and Jo had never been
sulky with him.  They drove on, without speaking again, to
Stanhope Gate.  Old Jolyon invited him in, but young Jolyon shook
his head.

"June's not here," said his father hastily: "went of to-day on a
visit.  I suppose you know that she's engaged to be married?"

"Already?" murmured young Jolyon'.

Old Jolyon stepped out, and, in paying the cab fare, for the
first time in his life gave the driver a sovereign in mistake for
a shilling.

Placing the coin in his mouth, the cabman whipped his horse
secretly on the underneath and hurried away.

Old Jolyon turned the key softly in the lock, pushed open the
door, and beckoned.  His son saw him gravely hanging up his coat,
with an expression on his face like that of a boy who intends to
steal cherries.

The door of the dining-room was open, the gas turned low; a
spirit-urn hissed on a tea-tray, and close to it a cynical
looking cat had fallen asleep on the dining-table.  Old Jolyon
'shoo'd' her off at once.  The incident was a relief to his
feelings; he rattled his opera hat behind the animal.

"She's got fleas," he said, following her out of the room.
Through the door in the hall leading to the basement he called
"Hssst!" several times, as though assisting the cat's departure,
till by some strange coincidence the butler appeared below.

"You can go to bed, Parfitt," said old Jolyon.  "I will lock up
and put out."

When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately
preceded him, with her tail in the air, proclaiming that she had
seen through this manouevre for suppressing the butler from the
first....

A fatality had dogged old Jolyon's domestic stratagems all his
life.

Young Jolyon could not help smiling.  He was very well versed in
irony, and everything that evening seemed to him ironical.  The
episode of the cat; the announcement of his own daughter's
engagement.  So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had
in the Puss!  And the poetical justice of this appealed to him.

"What is June like now?" he asked.

"She's a little thing," returned old Jolyon; they say she's like
me, but that's their folly.  She's more like your mother--the
same eyes and hair."

"Ah! and she is pretty?"

Old Jolyon was too much of a Forsyte to praise anything freely;
especially anything for which he had a genuine admiration.

"Not bad looking--a regular Forsyte chin.  It'll be lonely here
when she's gone, Jo."

The look on his face again gave young Jolyon the shock he had
felt on first seeing his father.

"What will you do with yourself, Dad?  I suppose she's wrapped up
in him?"

"Do with myself?" repeated old Jolyon with an angry break in his
voice.  "It'll be miserable work living here alone.  I don't know
how it's to end.  I wish to goodness...."  He checked himself, and
added: "The question is, what had I better do with this house?"

Young Jolyon looked round the room.  It was peculiarly vast and
dreary, decorated with the enormous pictures of still life that
he remembered as a boy--sleeping dogs with their noses resting on
bunches of carrots, together with onions and grapes lying side by
side in mild surprise.  The house was a white elephant, but he
could not conceive of his father living in a smaller place; and
all the more did it all seem ironical.

In his great chair with the book-rest sat old Jolyon, the
figurehead of his family and class and creed, with his white head
and dome-like forehead, the representative of moderation, and
order, and love of property.  As lonely an old man as there was
in London.

There he sat in the gloomy comfort of the room, a puppet in the
power of great forces that cared nothing for family or class or
creed, but moved, machine-like, with dread processes to
inscrutable ends.  This was how it struck young Jolyon, who had
the impersonal eye.

The poor old Dad!  So this was the end, the purpose to which he
had lived with such magnificent moderation!  To be lonely, and
grow older and older, yearning for a soul to speak to!

In his turn old Jolyon looked back at his son.  He wanted to talk
about many things that he had been unable to talk about all these
years.  It had been impossible to seriously confide in June his
conviction that property in the Soho quarter would go up in
value; his uneasiness about that tremendous silence of Pippin,
the superintendent of the New Colliery Company, of which he had
so long been chairman; his disgust at the steady fall in American
Golgothas, or even to discuss how, by some sort of settlement, he
could best avoid the payment of those death duties which would
follow his decease.  Under the influence, however, of a cup of
tea, which he seemed to stir indefinitely, he began to speak at
last.  A new vista of life was thus opened up, a promised land of
talk, where he could find a harbour against the waves of
anticipation and regret; where he could soothe his soul with the
opium of devising how to round off his property and make eternal
the only part of him that was to remain alive.

Young Jolyon was a good listener; it was his great quality.  He
kept his eyes fixed on his father's face, putting a question now
and then.

The clock struck one before old Jolyon had finished, and at the
sound of its striking his principles came back.  He took out his
watch with a look of surprise:

"I must go to bed, Jo," he said.

Young Jolyon rose and held out his hand to help his father up.
The old face looked worn and hollow again; the eyes were steadily
averted.

"Good-bye, my boy; take care of yourself."

A moment passed, and young Jolyon, turning on his, heel, marched
out at the door.  He could hardly see; his smile quavered.  Never
in all the fifteen years since he had first found out that life
was no simple business, had he found it so singularly
complicated.




CHAPTER III

DINNER AT SWITHIN'S


In Swithin's orange and light-blue dining-room, facing the Park,
the round table was laid for twelve.

A cut-glass chandelier filled with lighted candles hung like a
giant stalactite above its centre, radiating over large
gilt-framed mirrors, slabs of marble on the tops of side-tables,
and heavy gold chairs with crewel worked seats.  Everything
betokened that love of beauty so deeply implanted in each family
which has had its own way to make into Society, out of the more
vulgar heart of Nature.  Swithin had indeed an impatience of
simplicity, a love of ormolu, which had always stamped him
amongst his associates as a man of great, if somewhat luxurious
taste; and out of the knowledge that no one could possibly enter
his rooms without perceiving him to be a man of wealth, he had
derived a solid and prolonged happiness such as perhaps no other
circumstance in life had afforded him.

Since his retirement from land agency, a profession deplorable in
his estimation, especially as to its auctioneering department, he
had abandoned himself to naturally aristocratic tastes.

The perfect luxury of his latter days had embedded him like a fly
in sugar; and his mind, where very little took place from morning
till night, was the junction of two curiously opposite emotions,
a lingering and sturdy satisfaction that he had made his own way
and his own fortune, and a sense that a man of his distinction
should never have been allowed to soil his mind with work.

He stood at the sideboard in a white waistcoat with large gold
and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three
champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails.  Between the points of
his stand-up collar, which--though it hurt him to move--he would
on no account have had altered, the pale flesh of his under chin
remained immovable.  His eyes roved from bottle to bottle.  He
was debating, and he argued like this: Jolyon drinks a glass,
perhaps two, he's so careful of himself.  James, he can't take
his wine nowadays.  Nicholas--Fanny and he would swill water he
shouldn't wonder!  Soames didn't count; these young nephews--
Soames was thirty-one--couldn't drink!  But Bosinney?

Encountering in the name of this stranger something outside the
range of his philosophy, Swithin paused.  A misgiving arose
within him!  It was impossible to tell!  June was only a girl, in
love too!  Emily (Mrs. James) liked a good glass of champagne.
It was too dry for Juley, poor old soul, she had no palate.  As
to Hatty Chessman!  The thought of this old friend caused a cloud
of thought to obscure the perfect glassiness of his eyes: He
shouldn't wonder if she drank half a bottle!

But in thinking of his remaining guest, an expression like that
of a cat who is just going to purr stole over his old face: Mrs.
Soames!  She mightn't take much, but she would appreciate what
she drank; it was a pleasure to give her good wine!  A pretty
woman--and sympathetic to him!

The thought of her was like champagne itself!  A pleasure to give
a good wine to a young woman who looked so well, who knew how to
dress, with charming manners, quite distinguished--a pleasure to
entertain her.  Between the points of his collar he gave his head
the first small, painful oscillation of the evening.

"Adolf!" he said.  "Put in another bottle."

He himself might drink a good deal, for, thanks to that
prescription of Blight's, he found himself extremely well, and he
had been careful to take no lunch.  He had not felt so well for
weeks.  Puffing out his lower lip, he gave his last instructions:

"Adolf, the least touch of the West India when you come to the
ham."

Passing into the anteroom, he sat down on the edge of a chair,
with his knees apart; and his tall, bulky form was wrapped at
once in an expectant, strange, primeval immobility.  He was ready
to rise at a moment's notice.  He had not given a dinner-party
for months.  This dinner in honour of June's engagement had
seemed a bore at first (among Forsytes the custom of solemnizing
engagements by feasts was religiously observed), but the labours
of sending invitations and ordering the repast over, he felt
pleasantly stimulated.

And thus sitting, a watch in his hand, fat, and smooth, and
golden, like a flattened globe of butter, he thought of nothing.

A long man, with side whiskers, who had once been in Swithin's
service, but was now a greengrocer, entered and proclaimed:

"Mrs. Chessman, Mrs. Septimus Small!"

Two ladies advanced.  The one in front, habited entirely in red,
had large, settled patches of the same colour in her cheeks, and
a hard, dashing eye.  She walked at Swithin, holding out a hand
cased in a long, primrose-coloured glove:

"Well!  Swithin," she said, "I haven't seen you for ages.  How are
you?  Why, my dear boy, how stout you're getting!"

The fixity of Swithin's eye alone betrayed emotion.  A dumb and
grumbling anger swelled his bosom.  It was vulgar to be stout, to
talk of being stout; he had a chest, nothing more.  Turning to
his sister, he grasped her hand, and said in a tone of command:

"Well, Juley."

Mrs. Septimus Small was the tallest of the four sisters; her
good, round old face had gone a little sour; an innumerable pout
clung all over it, as if it had been encased in an iron wire mask
up to that evening, which, being suddenly removed, left little
rolls of mutinous flesh all over her countenance.  Even her eyes
were pouting.  It was thus that she recorded her permanent
resentment at the loss of Septimus Small.

She had quite a reputation for saying the wrong thing, and,
tenacious like all her breed, she would hold to it when she had
said it, and add to it another wrong thing, and so on.  With the
decease of her husband the family tenacity, the family
matter-of-factness, had gone sterile within her.  A great talker,
when allowed, she would converse without the faintest animation
for hours together, relating, with epic monotony, the innumerable
occasions on which Fortune had misused her; nor did she ever
perceive that her hearers sympathized with Fortune, for her
heart was kind.

Having sat, poor soul, long by the bedside of Small (a man of
poor constitution), she had acquired, the habit, and there were
countless subsequent occasions when she had sat immense periods
of time to amuse sick people, children, and other helpless
persons, and she could never divest herself of the feeling that
the world was the most ungrateful place anybody could live in.
Sunday after Sunday she sat at the feet of that extremely witty
preacher, the Rev. Thomas Scoles, who exercised a great
influence  over her; but she succeeded in convincing everybody
that even this was a misfortune.  She had passed into a proverb
in the family, and when anybody was observed to be peculiarly
distressing, he was known as a regular 'Juley.' The habit of her
mind would have killed anybody but a Forsyte at forty; but she
was seventy-two, and had never looked better.  And one felt that
there were capacities for enjoyment about her which might yet
come out.  She owned three canaries, the cat Tommy, and half a
parrot--in common with her sister Hester;--and these poor
creatures (kept carefully out of Timothy's way--he was nervous
about animals), unlike human beings, recognising that she could
not help being blighted, attached themselves to her passionately.

She was sombrely magnificent this evening in black bombazine,
with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a
black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and
mauve for evening wear was esteemed very chaste by nearly every
Forsyte.

Pouting at Swithin, she said:

"Ann has been asking for you.  You haven't been near us for an
age!"

Swithin put his thumbs within the armholes of his waistcoat, and
replied:

"Ann's getting very shaky; she ought to have a doctor!"

"Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Forsyte!"

Nicholas Forsyte, cocking his rectangular eyebrows, wore a smile.
He had succeeded during the day in bringing to fruition a scheme
for the employment of a tribe from Upper India in the gold-mines
of Ceylon.  A pet plan, carried at last in the teeth of great
difficulties--he was justly pleased.  It would double the output
of his mines, and, as he had often forcibly argued, all
experience tended to show that a man must die; and whether he
died of a miserable old age in his own country, or prematurely of
damp in the bottom of a foreign mine, was surely of little
consequence, provided that by a change in his mode of life he
benefited the British Empire.

His ability was undoubted.  Raising his broken nose towards his
listener, he would add:

"For want of a few hundred of these fellows we haven't paid a
dividend for years, and look at the price of the shares.  I can't
get ten shillings for them."

He had been at Yarmouth, too, and had come back feeling that he
had added at least ten years to his own life.  He grasped
Swithin's hand, exclaiming in a jocular voice:

"Well, so here we are again!"

Mrs. Nicholas, an effete woman, smiled a smile of frightened
jollity behind his back.

"Mr. and Mrs. James Forsyte!  Mr. and Mrs. Soames Forsyte!"

Swithin drew his heels together, his deportment ever admirable.

"Well, James, well Emily!  How are you, Soames?  How do you do?"

His hand enclosed Irene's, and his eyes swelled.  She was a
pretty woman--a little too pale, but her figure, her eyes, her
teeth!  Too good for that chap Soames!

The gods had given Irene dark brown eyes and golden hair, that
strange combination, provocative of men's glances, which is said
to be the mark of a weak character.  And the full, soft pallor of
her neck and shoulders, above a gold-coloured frock, gave to her
personality an alluring strangeness.

Soames stood behind, his eyes fastened on his wife's neck.  The
hands of Swithin's watch, which he still held open in his hand,
had left eight behind; it was half an hour beyond his
dinner-time--he had had no lunch--and a strange primeval
impatience surged up within him.

"It's not like Jolyon to be late!" he said to Irene, with
uncontrollable vexation.  "I suppose it'll be June keeping him!"

"People in love are always late," she answered.

Swithin stared at her; a dusky orange dyed his cheeks.

"They've no business to be.  Some fashionable nonsense!"

And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence of primitive
generations seemed to mutter and grumble.

"Tell me what you think of my new star, Uncle Swithin," said
Irene softly.

Among the lace in the bosom of her dress was shining a
five-pointed star, made of eleven diamonds.  Swithin looked at
the star.  He had a pretty taste in stones; no question could
have been more sympathetically devised to distract his attention.

"Who gave you that?" he asked.

"Soames."

There was no change in her face, but Swithin's pale eyes bulged
as though he might suddenly have been afflicted with insight.

"I dare say you're dull at home," he said.  "Any day you like to
come and dine with me, I'll give you as good a bottle of wine as
you'll get in London."

"Miss June Forsyte--Mr. Jolyon Forsyte!...  Mr. Boswainey!..."

Swithin moved his arm, and said in a rumbling voice:

"Dinner, now--dinner!"

He took in Irene, on the ground that he had not entertained her
since she was a bride.  June was the portion of Bosinney, who was
placed between Irene and his fiancee.  On the other side of June
was James with Mrs. Nicholas, then old Jolyon with Mrs. James,
Nicholas with Hatty Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small, completing,
the circle to Swithin again.

Family dinners of the Forsytes observe certain traditions.  There
are, for instance, no hors d'oeuvre.  The reason for this is
unknown.  Theory among the younger members traces it to the
disgraceful price of oysters; it is more probably due to a desire
to come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding at once
that hors d'oeuvre are but poor things.  The Jameses alone,
unable to withstand a custom almost universal in Park Lane, are
now and then unfaithful.

A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other succeeds to
the subsidence into their seats, lasting till well into the first
entree, but interspersed with remarks such as, "Tom's bad again;
I can't tell what's the matter with him!"  "I suppose Ann doesn't
come down in the mornings?"--"What's the name of your doctor,
Fanny?"  "Stubbs?"  "He's a quack!"--"Winifred?  She's got too many
children.  Four, isn't it?  She's as thin as a lath!"--"What
d'you give for this sherry, Swithin?  Too dry for me!"

With the second glass of champagne, a kind of hum makes itself
heard, which, when divested of casual accessories and resolved
into its primal element, is found to be James telling a story,
and this goes on for a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon
what must universally be recognised as the crowning point of a
Forsyte feast--'the saddle of mutton.'

No Forsyte has given a dinner without providing a saddle of
mutton.  There is something in its succulent solidity which makes
it suitable to people 'of a certain position.'  It is nourishing
and tasty; the sort of thing a man remembers eating.  It has a
past and a future, like a deposit paid into a bank; and it is
something that can be argued about.

Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular
locality--old Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh,
Swithin by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining that people might
sneer, but there was nothing like New Zealand!  As for Roger, the
'original' of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a
locality of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man who
had devised a new profession for his sons, he had discovered a
shop where they sold German; on being remonstrated with, he had
proved his point by producing a butcher's bill, which showed that
he paid more than any of the others.  It was on this occasion
that old Jolyon, turning to June, had said in one of his bursts
of philosophy:

"You may depend upon it, they're a cranky lot, the Forsytes--and
you'll find it out, as you grow older!"

Timothy alone held apart, for though he ate saddle of mutton
heartily, he was, he said, afraid of it.

To anyone interested psychologically in Forsytes, this great
saddle-of-mutton trait is of prime importance; not only does it
illustrate their tenacity, both collectively and as individuals,
but it marks them as belonging in fibre and instincts to that
great class which believes in nourishment and flavour, and yields
to no sentimental craving for beauty.

Younger members of the family indeed would have done without a
joint altogether, preferring guinea-fowl, or lobster salad--
something which appealed to the imagination, and had less
nourishment--but these were females; or, if not, had been
corrupted by their wives, or by mothers, who having been forced
to eat saddle of mutton throughout their married lives, had
passed a secret hostility towards it into the fibre of their
sons.

The great saddle-of-mutton controversy at an end, a Tewkesbury
ham commenced, together with the least touch of West Indian--
Swithin was so long over this course that he caused a block in
the progress of the dinner.  To devote himself to it with better
heart, he paused in his conversation.

From his seat by Mrs. Septimus Small Soames was watching.  He had
a reason of his own connected with a pet building scheme, for
observing Bosinney.  The architect might do for his purpose; he
looked clever, as he sat leaning back in his chair, moodily
making little ramparts with bread-crumbs.  Soames noted his dress
clothes to be well cut, but too small, as though made many years
ago.

He saw him turn to Irene and say something and her face sparkle
as he often saw it sparkle at other people--never at himself.  He
tried to catch what they were saying, but Aunt Juley was
speaking.

Hadn't that always seemed very extraordinary to Soames?  Only
last Sunday dear Mr. Scole, had been so witty in his sermon, so
sarcastic, "For what," he had said, "shall it profit a man if he
gain his own soul, but lose all his property?"  That, he had
said, was the motto of the middle-class; now, what had he meant
by that?  Of course, it might be what middle-class people
believed--she didn't know; what did Soames think?

He answered abstractedly: "How should I know?  Scoles is a
humbug, though, isn't he?"  For Bosinney was looking round the
table, as if pointing out the peculiarities of the guests, and
Soames wondered what he was saying.  By her smile Irene was
evidently agreeing with his remarks.  She seemed always to agree
with other people.

Her eyes were turned on himself; Soames dropped his glance at
once.  The smile had died off her lips.

A humbug?  But what did Soames mean?  If Mr. Scoles was a humbug,
a clergyman--then anybody might be--it was frightful!

"Well, and so they are!" said Soames.

During Aunt Juley's momentary and horrified silence he caught
some words of Irene's that sounded like: 'Abandon hope, all ye
who enter here!'

But Swithin had finished his ham.

"Where do you go for your mushrooms?" he was saying to Irene in a
voice like a courtier's; "you ought to go to Smileybob's--he'll
give 'em you fresh.  These little men, they won't take the
trouble!"

Irene turned to answer him, and Soames saw Bosinney watching her
and smiling to himself.  A curious smile the fellow had.  A
half-simple arrangement, like a child who smiles when he is
pleased.  As for George's nickname--'The Buccaneer'--he did not
think much of that.  And, seeing Bosinney turn to June, Soames
smiled too, but sardonically--he did not like June, who was not
looking too pleased.

This was not surprising, for she had just held the following
conversation with James:

"I stayed on the river on my way home, Uncle James, and saw a
beautiful site for a house."

James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process of
mastication.

"Eh?" he said.  "Now, where was that?"

"Close to Pangbourne."

James placed a piece of ham in his mouth, and June waited.

"I suppose you wouldn't know whether the land about there was
freehold?" he asked at last.  "You wouldn't know anything about
the price of land about there?"

"Yes," said June; "I made inquiries." Her little resolute face
under its copper crown was suspiciously eager and aglow.

James regarded her with the air of an inquisitor.

"What?  You're not thinking of buying land!" he ejaculated,
dropping his fork.

June was greatly encouraged by his interest.  It had long been
her pet plan that her uncles should benefit themselves and
Bosinney by building country-houses.

"Of course not," she said.  "I thought it would be such a
splendid place for--you or--someone to build a country-house!"

James looked at her sideways, and placed a second piece of ham in
his mouth....

"Land ought to be very dear about there," he said.

What June had taken for personal interest was only the impersonal
excitement of every Forsyte who hears of something eligible in
danger of passing into other hands.  But she refused to see the
disappearance of her chance, and continued to press her point.

"You ought to go into the country, Uncle James.  I wish I had a
lot of money, I wouldn't live another day in London."

James was stirred to the depths of his long thin figure; he had
no idea his niece held such downright views.

"Why don't you go into the country?" repeated June; "it would do
you a lot of good."

"Why?" began James in a fluster.  "Buying land--what good d'you
suppose I can do buying land, building houses?--I couldn't get
four per cent. for my money!"

"What does that matter?  You'd get fresh air."

"Fresh air!" exclaimed James; "what should I do with fresh air,"

"I should have thought anybody liked to have fresh air," said
June scornfully.

James wiped his napkin all over his mouth.

"You don't know the value of money," he said, avoiding her eye.

"No! and I hope I never shall!" and, biting her lip with
inexpressible mortification, poor June was silent.

Why were her own relations so rich, and Phil never knew where the
money was coming from for to-morrow's tobacco.  Why couldn't they
do something for him?  But they were so selfish.  Why couldn't
they build country-houses?  She had all that naive dogmatism
which is so pathetic, and sometimes achieves such great results.
Bosinney, to whom she turned in her discomfiture, was talking to
Irene, and a chill fell on June's spirit.  Her eyes grew steady
with  anger, like old Jolyon's when his will was crossed.

James, too, was much disturbed.  He felt as though someone had
threatened his right to invest his money at five per cent.
Jolyon had spoiled her.  None of his girls would have said such a
thing.  James had always been exceedingly liberal to his
children, and the consciousness of this made him feel it all the
more deeply.  He trifled moodily with his strawberries, then,
deluging them with cream, he ate them quickly; they, at all
events, should not escape him.

No wonder he was upset.  Engaged for fifty-four years (he had
been admitted a solicitor on the earliest day sanctioned by the
law) in arranging mortgages, preserving investments at a dead
level of high and safe interest, conducting negotiations on the
principle of securing the utmost possible out of other people
compatible with safety to his clients and himself, in
calculations as to the exact pecuniary possibilities of all the
relations of life, he had come at last to think purely in terms
of money.  Money was now his light, his medium for seeing, that
without which he was really unable to see, really not cognisant
of phenomena; and to have this thing, "I hope I shall never know
the value of money!" said to his face, saddened and exasperated
him.  He knew it to be nonsense, or it would have frightened him.
What was the world coming to!  Suddenly recollecting the story of
young Jolyon, however, he felt a little comforted, for what could
you expect with a father like that!  This turned his thoughts
into a channel still less pleasant.  What was all this talk about
Soames and Irene?

As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had been
established where family secrets were bartered, and family stock
priced.  It was known on Forsyte 'Change that Irene regretted her
marriage.  Her regret was disapproved of.  She ought to have
known her own mind; no dependable woman made these mistakes.

James reflected sourly that they had a nice house (rather small)
in an excellent position, no children, and no money troubles.
Soames was reserved about his affairs, but he must be getting a
very warm man.  He had a capital income from the business--for
Soames, like his father, was a member of that well-known firm of
solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte--and had always been very
careful.  He had done quite unusually well with some mortgages he
had taken up, too--a little timely foreclosure--most lucky hits!

There was no reason why Irene should not be happy, yet they said
she'd been asking for a separate room.  He knew where that ended.
It wasn't as if Soames drank.

James looked at his daughter-in-law.  That unseen glance of his
was cold and dubious.  Appeal and fear were in it, and a sense of
personal grievance.  Why should he be worried like this?  It was
very likely all nonsense; women were funny things!  They
exaggerated so, you didn't know what to believe; and then, nobody
told him anything, he had to find out everything for himself.
Again he looked furtively at Irene, and across from her to
Soames.  The latter, listening to Aunt Juley, was looking up,
under his brows in the direction of Bosinney.

'He's fond of her, I know,' thought James.  'Look at the way he's
always giving her things.'

And the extraordinary unreasonableness of her disaffection struck
him with increased force.

It was a pity, too, she was a taking little thing, and he, James,
would be really quite fond of her if she'd only let him.  She had
taken up lately with June; that was doing her no good, that was
certainly doing her no good.  She was getting to have opinions of
her own.  He didn't know what she wanted with anything of the
sort.  She'd a good home, and everything she could wish for.  He
felt that her friends ought to be chosen for her.  To go on like
this was dangerous.

June, indeed, with her habit of championing the unfortunate, had
dragged from Irene a confession, and, in return, had preached the
necessity of facing the evil, by separation, if need be.  But in
the face of these exhortations, Irene had kept a brooding silence,
as though she found terrible the thought of this struggle carried
through in cold blood.  He would never give her up, she had said
to June.

"Who cares?" June cried; "let him do what he likes--you've only
to stick to it!"  And she had not scrupled to say something of
this sort at Timothy's; James, when he heard of it, had felt a
natural indignation and horror.

What if Irene were to take it into her head to--he could hardly
frame the thought--to leave Soames?  But he felt this thought so
unbearable that he at once put it away; the shady visions it
conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in his ears, the
horror of the conspicuous happening so close to him, to one of
his own children!  Luckily, she had no money--a beggarly fifty
pound a year!  And he thought of the deceased Heron, who had had
nothing to leave her, with contempt.  Brooding over his glass,
his long legs twisted under the table, he quite omitted to rise
when the ladies left the room.  He would have to speak to Soames-
-would have to put him on his guard; they could not go on like
this, now that such a contingency had occurred to him.  And he
noticed with sour disfavour that June had left her wine-glasses
full of wine.

'That little, thing's at the bottom of it all,' he mused;
'Irene'd never have thought of it herself.'  James was a man of
imagination.

The voice of Swithin roused him from his reverie.

"I gave four hundred pounds for it," he was saying.  "Of course
it's a regular work of art."

"Four hundred!  H'm! that's a lot of money!" chimed in Nicholas.

The object alluded to was an elaborate group of statuary in
Italian marble, which, placed upon a lofty stand (also of
marble), diffused an atmosphere of culture throughout the room.
The subsidiary figures, of which there were six, female, nude,
and of highly ornate workmanship, were all pointing towards the
central figure, also nude, and female, who was pointing at
herself; and all this gave the observer a very pleasant sense of
her extreme value.  Aunt Juley, nearly opposite, had had the
greatest difficulty in not looking at it all the evening.

Old Jolyon spoke; it was he who had started the discussion.

"Four hundred fiddlesticks!  Don't tell me you gave four hundred
for that?"

Between the points of his collar Swithin's chin made the second
painful oscillatory movement of the evening.

"Four-hundred-pounds, of English money; not a farthing less.  I
don't regret it.  It's not common English--it's genuine modern
Italian!"

Soames raised the corner of his lip in a smile, and looked across
at Bosinney.  The architect was grinning behind the fumes of his
cigarette.  Now, indeed, he looked more like a buccaneer.

"There's a lot of work about it," remarked James hastily, who was
really moved by the size of the group.  "It'd sell well at
Jobson's."

"The poor foreign dey-vil that made it," went on Swithin," asked
me five hundred--I gave him four.  It's worth eight.  Looked
half-starved, poor dey-vil!

"Ah!" chimed in Nicholas suddenly, "poor, seedy-lookin' chaps,
these artists; it's a wonder to me how they live.  Now, there's
young Flageoletti, that Fanny and the girls are always hav'in'
in, to play the fiddle; if he makes a hundred a year it's as much
as ever he does!"

James shook his head.  "Ah!" he said, "I don't know how they
live!"

Old Jolyon had risen, and, cigar in mouth, went to inspect the
group at close quarters.

"Wouldn't have given two for it!" he pronounced at last.

Soames saw his father and Nicholas glance at each other
anxiously; and, on the other side of Swithin, Bosinney, still
shrouded in smoke.

'I wonder what he thinks of it?' thought Soames, who knew well
enough that this group was hopelessly vieux jeu; hopelessly of
the last generation.  There was no longer any sale at Jobson's
for such works of art.

Swithin's answer came at last.  "You never knew anything about a
statue.  You've got your pictures, and that's all!"

Old Jolyon walked back to his seat, puffing his cigar.  It was
not likely that he was going to be drawn into an argument with an
obstinate beggar like Swithin, pig-headed as a mule, who had
never known a statue from a---straw hat.

"Stucco!" was all he said.

It had long been physically impossible for Swithin to start; his
fist came down on the table.

"Stucco!  I should like to see anything you've got in your house
half as good!"

And behind his speech seemed to sound again that rumbling
violence of primitive generations.

It was James who saved the situation.

"Now, what do you say, Mr. Bosinney?  You're an architect; you
ought to know all about statues and things!"

Every eye was turned upon Bosinney; all waited with a strange,
suspicious look for his answer.

And Soames, speaking for the first time, asked:

"Yes, Bosinney, what do you say?"

Bosinney replied coolly:

"The work is a remarkable one."

His words were addressed to Swithin, his eyes smiled slyly at old
Jolyon; only Soames remained unsatisfied.

"Remarkable for what?"

"For its naivete"

The answer was followed by an impressive silence; Swithin alone
was not sure whether a compliment was intended.




CHAPTER IV

PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE


Soames Forsyte walked out of his green-painted front door three
days after the dinner at Swithin's, and looking back from across
the Square, confirmed his impression that the house wanted
painting.

He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, her
hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for him to go out.
This was not unusual.  It happened, in fact, every day.

He could not understand what she found wrong with him.  It was
not as if he drank!  Did he run into debt, or gamble, or swear;
was he violent; were his friends rackety; did he stay out at
night?  On the contrary.

The profound, subdued aversion which he felt in his wife was a
mystery to him, and a source of the most terrible irritation.
That she had made a mistake, and did not love him, had tried to
love him and could not love him, was obviously no reason.

He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his wife's not
getting on with him was certainly no Forsyte.

Soames was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely down to
his wife.  He had never met a woman so capable of inspiring
affection.  They could not go anywhere without his seeing how all
the men were attracted by her; their looks, manners, voices,
betrayed it; her behaviour under this attention had been beyond
reproach.  That she was one of those women--not too common in the
Anglo-Saxon race--born to be loved and to love, who when not
loving are not living, had certainly never even occurred to him.
Her power of attraction, he regarded as part of her value as his
property; but it made him, indeed, suspect that she could give as
well as receive; and she gave him nothing!  'Then why did she
marry me?'  was his continual thought.  He had, forgotten his
courtship; that year and a half when he had besieged and lain in
wait for her, devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her
presents, proposing to her periodically, and keeping her other
admirers away with his perpetual presence.  He had forgotten the
day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute phase of her
dislike to her home surroundings, he crowned his labours with
success.  If he remembered anything, it was the dainty
capriciousness with which the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl had
treated him.  He certainly did not remember the look on her face-
-strange, passive, appealing--when suddenly one day she had
yielded, and said that she would marry him.

It had been one of those real devoted wooings which books and
people praise, when the lover is at length rewarded for hammering
the iron till it is malleable, and all must be happy ever after
as the wedding bells.

Soames walked eastwards, mousing doggedly along on the shady
side.

The house wanted doing, up, unless he decided to move into the
country, and build.

For the hundredth time that month he turned over this problem.
There was no use in rushing into things!  He was very comfortably
off, with an increasing income getting on for three thousand a
year; but his invested capital was not perhaps so large as his
father believed--James had a tendency to expect that his children
should be better off than they were.  'I can manage eight
thousand easily enough,' he thought, 'without calling in either

Robertson's or Nicholl's.'

He had stopped to look in at a picture shop, for Soames was an
'amateur' of pictures, and had a little-room in No.  62,
Montpellier Square, full of canvases, stacked against the wall,
which he had no room to hang.  He brought them home with him on
his way back from the City, generally after dark, and would enter
this room on Sunday afternoons, to spend hours turning the
pictures to the light, examining the marks on their backs, and
occasionally making notes.

They were nearly all landscapes with figures in the foreground, a
sign of some mysterious revolt against London, its tall houses,
its interminable streets, where his life and the lives of his
breed and class were passed.  Every now and then he would take
one or two pictures away with him in a cab, and stop at Jobson's
on his way into the City.

He rarely showed them to anyone; Irene, whose opinion he secretly
respected and perhaps for that reason never solicited, had only
been into the room on rare occasions, in discharge of some wifely
duty.  She was not asked to look at the pictures, and she never
did.  To Soames this was another grievance.  He hated that pride
of hers, and secretly dreaded it.

In the plate-glass window of the picture shop his image stood and
looked at him.

His sleek hair under the brim of the tall hat had a sheen like
the hat itself; his cheeks, pale and flat, the line of his
clean-shaven lips, his firm chin with its greyish shaven tinge,
and the buttoned strictness of his black cut-away coat, conveyed
an appearance of reserve and secrecy, of imperturbable, enforced
composure; but his eyes, cold,--grey, strained--looking, with a
line in the brow between them, examined him wistfully, as if they
knew of a secret weakness.

He noted the subjects of the pictures, the names of the painters,
made a calculation of their values, but without the satisfaction
he usually derived from this inward appraisement, and walked on.

No. 62 would do well enough for another year, if he decided to
build!  The times were good for building, money had not been so
dear for years; and the site he had seen at Robin Hill, when he
had gone down there in the spring to inspect the Nicholl
mortgage--what could be better!  Within twelve miles of Hyde Park
Corner, the value of the land certain to go up, would always
fetch more than he gave for it; so that a house, if built in
really good style, was a first-class investment.

The notion of being the one member of his family with a country
house weighed but little with him; for to a true Forsyte,
sentiment, even the sentiment of social position, was a luxury
only to be indulged in after his appetite for more material
pleasure had been satisfied.

To get Irene out of London, away from opportunities of going
about and seeing people, away from her friends and those who put
ideas into her head!  That was the thing!  She was too thick with
June!  June disliked him.  He returned the sentiment.  They were
of the same blood.

It would be everything to get Irene out of town.  The house would
please her she would enjoy messing about with the decoration, she
was very artistic!

The house must be in good style, something that would always be
certain to command a price, something unique, like that last
house of Parkes, which had a tower; but Parkes had himself said
that his architect was ruinous.  You never knew where you were
with those fellows; if they had a name they ran you into no end
of expense and were conceited into the bargain.

And a common architect was no good--the memory of Parkes' tower
precluded the employment of a common architect:

This was why he had thought of Bosinney.  Since the dinner at
Swithin's he had made enquiries, the result of which had been
meagre, but encouraging: "One of the new school."

"Clever?"

"As clever as you like--a bit--a bit up in the air!"

He had not been able to discover what houses Bosinney had built,
nor what his charges were.  The impression he gathered was that
he would be able to make his own terms.  The more he reflected on
the idea, the more he liked it.  It would be keeping the thing in
the family, with Forsytes almost an instinct; and he would be
able to get 'favoured-nation,' if not nominal terms--only fair,
considering the chance to Bosinney of displaying his talents, for
this house  must be no common edifice.

Soames reflected complacently on the work it would be sure to
bring the young man; for, like every Forsyte, he could be a
thorough optimist when there was anything to be had out of it.

Bosinney's office was in Sloane Street, close at, hand, so that
he would be able to keep his eye continually on the plans.

Again, Irene would not be to likely to object to leave London if
her greatest friend's lover were given the job.  June's marriage
might depend on it.  Irene could not decently stand in the way of
June's marriage; she would never do that, he knew her too well.
And June would be pleased; of this he saw the advantage.

Bosinney looked clever, but he had also--and--it was one of his
great attractions--an air as if he did not quite know on which
side his bread were buttered; he should be easy to deal with in
money matters.  Soames made this reflection in no defrauding
spirit; it was the natural attitude of his mind--of the mind of
any good business man--of all those thousands of good business
men through whom he was threading his way up Ludgate Hill.

Thus he fulfilled the inscrutable laws of his great class--of
human nature itself--when he reflected, with a sense of comfort,
that Bosinney would be easy to deal with in money matters.

While he elbowed his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept
fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by
the dome of St.  Paul's.  It had a peculiar fascination for him,
that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week,
would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop
in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the
names and epitaphs on the monuments.  The attraction for him of
this great church was inexplicable, unless it enabled him to
concentrate his thoughts on the business of the day.  If any
affair of particular moment, or demanding peculiar acuteness, was
weighing on his mind, he invariably went in, to wander with
mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph.  Then retiring in
the same noiseless way, he would hold steadily on up Cheapside, a
thought more of dogged purpose in his gait, as though he had seen
something which he had made up his mind to buy.

He went in this morning, but, instead of stealing from monument
to monument, turned his eyes upwards to the columns and spacings
of the walls, and remained motionless.

His uplifted face, with the awed and wistful look which faces
take on themselves in church, was whitened to a chalky hue in the
vast building.  His gloved hands were clasped in front over the
handle of his umbrella.  He lifted them.  Some sacred inspiration
perhaps had come to him.

'Yes,' he thought, 'I must have room to hang my pictures.

That evening, on his return from the City, he called at
Bosinney's office.  He found the architect in his shirt-sleeves,
smoking a pipe, and ruling off lines on a plan.  Soames refused a
drink, and came at once to the point.

"If you've nothing better to do on Sunday, come down with me to
Robin Hill, and give me your opinion on a building site."

"Are you going to build?"

"Perhaps," said Soames; "but don't speak of it.  I just want your
opinion."

"Quite so," said the architect.

Soames peered about the room.

"You're rather high up here," he remarked.

Any information he could gather about the nature and scope of
Bosinney's business would be all to the good.

"It does well enough for me so far," answered the architect.
"You're accustomed to the swells."

He knocked out his pipe, but replaced it empty between his teeth;
it assisted him perhaps to carry on the conversation.  Soames
noted a hollow in each cheek, made as it were by suction.

"What do you pay for an office like this?" said he.

"Fifty too much," replied Bosinney.

This answer impressed Soames favourably.

"I suppose it is dear," he said.  "I'll call for you--on Sunday
about eleven."

The following Sunday therefore he called for Bosinney in a
hansom, and drove him to the station.  On arriving at Robin Hill,
they found no cab, and started to walk the mile and a half to the
site.

It was the 1st of August--a perfect day, with a burning sun and
cloudless sky--and in the straight, narrow road leading up the
hill their feet kicked up a yellow dust.

"Gravel soil," remarked Soames, and sideways he glanced at the
coat Bosinney wore.  Into the side-pockets of this coat were
thrust bundles of papers, and under one arm was carried a queer-
looking stick.  Soames noted these and other peculiarities.

No one but a clever man, or, indeed, a buccaneer, would have
taken such liberties with his appearance; and though these
eccentricities were revolting to Soames, he derived a certain
satisfaction from them, as evidence of qualities by which he must
inevitably profit.  If the fellow could build houses, what did
his clothes matter?

"I told you," he said, "that I want this house to be a surprise,
so don't say anything about it.  I never talk of my affairs until
they're carried through."

Bosinney nodded.

"Let women into your plans," pursued Soames, "and you never know
where it'll end."

"Ah!" Said Bosinney, "women are the devil!"

This feeling had long been at the--bottom of Soames's heart; he
had never, however, put it into words.

"Oh!" he Muttered, "so you're beginning to...."  He stopped, but
added, with an uncontrollable burst of spite: "June's got a
temper of her own--always had."

"A temper's not a bad thing in an angel."

Soames had never called Irene an angel.  He could not so have
violated his best instincts, letting other people into the secret
of her value, and giving himself away.  He made no reply.

They had struck into a half-made road across a warren.  A
cart-track led at right-angles to a gravel pit, beyond which the
chimneys of a cottage rose amongst a clump of trees at the border
of a thick wood.  Tussocks of feathery grass covered the rough
surface of the ground, and out of these the larks soared into the
hate of sunshine.  On the far horizon, over a countless
succession of fields and hedges, rose a line of downs.

Soames led till they had crossed to the far side, and there he
stopped.  It was the chosen site; but now that he was about to
divulge the spot to another he had become uneasy.

"The agent lives in that cottage," he said; "he'll give us some
lunch--we'd better have lunch before we go into this matter."

He again took the lead to the cottage, where the agent, a tall
man named Oliver, with a heavy face and grizzled beard, welcomed
them.  During lunch, which Soames hardly touched, he kept looking
at Bosinney, and once or twice passed his silk handkerchief
stealthily over his forehead.  The meal came to an end at last,
and Bosinney rose.

"I dare say you've got business to talk over," he said; "I'll
just go and nose about a bit." Without waiting for a reply he
strolled out.

Soames was solicitor to this estate, and he spent nearly an hour
in the agent's company, looking at ground-plans and discussing
the Nicholl and other mortgages; it was as it were by an
afterthought that he brought up the question of the building
site.

"Your people," he said, "ought to come down in their price to me,
considering that I shall be the first to build."

Oliver shook his head.

The site you've fixed on, Sir, he said, "is the cheapest we've
got.  Sites at the top of the slope are dearer by a good bit."

"Mind," said Soames," I've not decided; it's quite possible I
shan't build at all.  The ground rent's very high."

"Well, Mr. Forsyte, I shall be sorry if you go off, and I think
you'll make a mistake, Sir.  There's not a bit of land near
London with such a view as this, nor one that's cheaper, all
things considered; we've only to advertise, to get a mob of
people after it."

They looked at each other.  Their faces said very plainly: 'I
respect you as a man of business;  and you can't expect me to
believe a word you say.'

Well, repeated Soames, "I haven't made up my mind; the thing will
very likely go off!"  With these words, taking up his umbrella,
he put his chilly hand into the agent's, withdrew it without the
faintest pressure, and went out into the sun.

He walked slowly back towards the site in deep thought.  His
instinct told him that what the agent had said was true.  A cheap
site.  And the beauty of it was, that he knew the agent did not
really think it cheap; so that his own intuitive knowledge was a
victory over the agent's.

'Cheap or not, I mean to have it,'  he thought.

The larks sprang up in front of his feet, the air was full of
butterflies, a sweet fragrance rose from the wild grasses.  The
sappy scent of the bracken stole forth from the wood, where,
hidden in the depths, pigeons were cooing, and from afar on the
warm breeze, came the rhythmic chiming of church bells.

Soames walked with his eyes on the ground, his lips opening and
closing as though in anticipation of a delicious morsel.  But
when he arrived at the site, Bosinney was nowhere to be seen.
After waiting some little time, he crossed the warren in the
direction of the slope.  He would have shouted, but dreaded the
sound of his voice.

The warren was as lonely as a prairie, its silence only broken by
the rustle of rabbits bolting to their holes, and the song of the
larks.

Soames, the pioneer-leader of the great Forsyte army advancing to
the civilization of this wilderness, felt his spirit daunted by
the loneliness, by the invisible singing, and the hot, sweet air.
He had begun to retrace his steps when he at last caught sight of
Bosinney.

The architect was sprawling under a large oak tree, whose trunk,
with a huge spread of bough and foliage, ragged with age, stood
on the verge of the rise.

Soames had to touch him on the shoulder before he looked up.

"Hallo!  Forsyte," he said, "I've found the very place for your
house!  Look here!"

Soames stood and looked, then he said, coldly:

"You may be very clever, but this site will cost me half as much
again."

"Hang the cost, man.  Look at the view!"

Almost from their feet stretched ripe corn, dipping to a small
dark copse beyond.  A plain of fields and hedges spread to the
distant grey-bluedowns.  In a silver streak to the right could be
seen the line of the river.

The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal
summer seemed to reign over this prospect.  Thistledown floated
round them, enraptured by the serenity, of the ether.  The heat
danced over the corn, and, pervading all, was a soft, insensible
hum, like the murmur of bright minutes holding revel between
earth and heaven.

Soames looked.  In spite of himself, something swelled in his
breast.  To live here in sight of all this, to be able to point
it out to his friends, to talk of it, to possess it!  His cheeks
flushed.  The warmth, the radiance, the glow, were sinking into
his senses as, four years before, Irene's beauty had sunk into
his senses and made him long for her.  He stole a glance at
Bosinney, whose eyes, the eyes of the coachman's 'half-tame
leopard,' seemed running wild over the landscape.  The sunlight
had caught the promontories of the fellow's face, the bumpy
cheekbones, the point of his chin, the vertical ridges above his
brow; and Soames watched this rugged, enthusiastic, careless face
with an unpleasant feeling.

A long, soft ripple of wind flowed over the corn, and brought a
puff of warm air into their faces.

"I could build you a teaser here," said Bosinney, breaking the
silence at last.

"I dare say," replied Soames, drily.  "You haven't got to pay for
it."

"For about eight thousand I could build you a palace."

Soames had become very pale--a struggle was going on within him.
He dropped his eyes, and said stubbornly:

"I can't afford it."

And slowly, with his mousing walk, he led the way back to the
first site.

They spent some time there going into particulars of the
projected house, and then Soames returned to the agent's cottage.

He came out in about half an hour, and, joining Bosinney,
started for the station.

"Well," he said, hardly opening his lips, "I've taken that site
of yours, after all."

And again he was silent, confusedly debating how it was that this
fellow, whom by habit he despised, should have overborne his own
decision.




CHAPTER V

A FORSYTE MENAGE


Like the enlightened thousands of his class and generation in
this great city of London, who no longer believe in red velvet
chairs, and know that groups of modern Italian marble are 'vieux
jeu,' Soames Forsyte inhabited a house which did what it could.
It owned a copper door knocker of individual design, windows
which had been altered to open outwards, hanging flower boxes
filled with fuchsias, and at the back (a great feature) a little
court tiled with jade-green tiles, and surrounded by pink
hydrangeas in peacock-blue tubs.  Here, under a parchment-
coloured Japanese sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants
or visitors could be screened from the eyes of the curious
while they drank tea and examined at their leisure the latest
of Soames's little silver boxes.

The inner decoration favoured the First Empire and William
Morris.  For its size, the house was commodious; there were
countless nooks resembling birds' nests, and little things made
of silver were deposited like eggs.

In this general perfection two kinds of fastidiousness were at
war.  There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily
on a desert island; a master whose daintiness was, as it were, an
investment, cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in
accordance with the laws of competition.  This competitive
daintiness had caused Soames in his Marlborough days to be the
first boy into white waistcoats in summer, and corduroy
waistcoats in winter, had prevented him from ever appearing in
public with his tie climbing up his collar, and induced him to
dust his patent leather boots before a great multitude assembled
on Speech Day to hear him recite Moliere.

Skin-like immaculateness had grown over Soames, as over many
Londoners; impossible to conceive of him with a hair out of
place, a tie deviating one-eighth of an inch from the
perpendicular, a collar unglossed!  He would not have gone
without a bath for worlds--it was the fashion to take baths; and
how bitter was his scorn of people who omitted them!

But Irene could be imagined, like some nymph, bathing in wayside
streams, for the joy of the freshness and of seeing her own fair
body.

In this conflict throughout the house the woman had gone to the
wall.  As in the struggle between Saxon and Celt still going on
within the nation, the more impressionable and receptive
temperament had had forced on it a conventional superstructure.

Thus the house had acquired a close resemblance to hundreds of
other houses with the same high aspirations, having become: 'That
very charming little house of the Soames Forsytes, quite
individual, my dear--really elegant.'

For Soames Forsyte--read James Peabody, Thomas Atkins, or
Emmanuel Spagnoletti, the name in fact of any upper-middle class
Englishman in London with any pretensions to taste; and though
the decoration be different, the phrase is just.

On the evening of August 8, a week after the expedition to Robin
Hill, in the dining-room of this house--'quite individual, my
dear--really elegant'--Soames and Irene were seated at dinner.  A
hot dinner on Sundays was a little distinguishing elegance common
to this house and many others.  Early in married life Soames had
laid down the rule: 'The servants must give us hot dinner on
Sundays--they've nothing to do but play the concertina.'

The custom had produced no revolution.  For--to Soames a rather
deplorable sign--servants were devoted to Irene, who, in defiance
of all safe tradition, appeared to recognise their right to a
share in the weaknesses of human nature.

The happy pair were seated, not opposite each other, but
rectangularly, at the handsome rosewood table; they dined without
a cloth--a distinguishing elegance--and so far had not spoken a
word.

Soames liked to talk during dinner about business, or what he had
been buying, and so long as he talked Irene's silence did not
distress him.  This evening he had found it impossible to talk.
The decision to build had been weighing on his mind all the week,
and he had made up his mind to tell her.

His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly;
she had no business to make him feel like that--a wife and a
husband being one person.  She had not looked at him once since
they sat down; and he wondered what on earth she had been
thinking about all the time.  It was hard, when a man worked as
he did, making money for her--yes, and with an ache in his heart-
-that she should sit there, looking--looking as if she saw the
walls of the room closing in.  It was enough to make a man get up
and leave the table.

The light from the rose-shaded lamp fell on her neck and arms--
Soames liked her to dine in a low dress, it gave him an
inexpressible feeling of superiority to the majority of his
acquaintance, whose wives were contented with their best high
frocks or with tea-gowns, when they dined at home.  Under that
rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin made strange
contrast with her dark brown eyes.

Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its
deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured
glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything
prettier than the woman who sat at it?  Gratitude was no virtue
among Forsytes, who, competitive, and full of common-sense, had
no occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense of
exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not own her as it was
his right to own her, that he could not, as by stretching out
his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of
her heart.

Out of his other property, out of all the things he had
collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses, his investments,
he got a secret and intimate feeling; out of her he got none.

In this house of his there was writing on every wall.  His
business-like temperament protested against a mysterious warning
that she was not made for him.  He had married this woman,
conquered her, made her his own, and it seemed to him contrary to
the most fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that he
could do no more than own her body--if indeed he could do that,
which he was beginning to doubt.  If any one had asked him if he
wanted to own her soul, the question would have seemed to him
both ridiculous and sentimental.  But he did so want, and the
writing said he never would.

She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse; as though
terrified lest by word, motion, or sign she might lead him to
believe that she was fond of him; and he asked himself: Must I
always go on like this?

Like most novel readers of his generation (and Soames was a great
novel reader), literature coloured his view of life; and he had
imbibed the belief that it was only a question of time.

In the end the husband always gained the affection of his wife.
Even in those cases--a class of book he was not very fond of--
which ended in tragedy, the wife always died with poignant
regrets on her lips, or if it were the husband who died--
unpleasant thought--threw herself on his body in an agony of
remorse.

He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively choosing the
modern Society Plays with the modern Society conjugal problem, so
fortunately different from any conjugal problem in real life.  He
found that they too always ended in the same way, even when there
was a lover in the case.  While he was watching the play Soames
often sympathized with the lover; but before he reached home
again, driving with Irene in a hansom, he saw that this would not
do, and he was glad the play had ended as it had.  There was one
class of husband that had just then come into fashion, the
strong, rather rough, but extremely sound man, who was peculiarly
successful at the end of the play; with this person Soames was
really not in sympathy, and had it not been for his own position,
would have expressed his disgust with the fellow.  But he was so
conscious of how vital to himself was the necessity for being a
successful, even a 'strong,' husband, that be never spoke of a
distaste born perhaps by the perverse processes of Nature out of
a secret fund of brutality in himself.

But Irene's silence this evening was exceptional.  He had never
before seen such an expression on her face.  And since it is
always the unusual which alarms, Soames was alarmed.  He ate his
savoury, and hurried the maid as she swept off the crumbs with
the silver sweeper.  When she had left the room, he filled his.
glass with wine and said:

"Anybody been here this afternoon?"

"June."

"What did she want?"  It was an axiom with the Forsytes that
people did not go anywhere unless they wanted something.  "Came
to talk about her lover, I suppose?"

Irene made no reply.

"It looks to me," continued Soames, "as if she were sweeter on him
than he is on her.  She's always following him about."

Irene's eyes made him feel uncomfortable.

"You've no business to say such a thing!" she exclaimed.

"Why not?  Anybody can see it."

"They cannot.  And if they could, it's disgraceful to say so."

Soames's composure gave way.

"You're a pretty wife!" he said.  But secretly he wondered at the
heat of her reply; it was unlike her.  "You're cracked about
June!  I can tell you one thing: now that she has the Buccaneer
in tow, she doesn't care twopence about you, and, you'll find it
out.  But you won't see so much of her in future; we're going to
live in the country."

He had been glad to get his news out under cover of this burst of
irritation.  He had expected a cry of dismay; the silence with
which his pronouncement was received alarmed him.

"You don't seem interested," he was obliged to add.

"I knew it already."

He looked at her sharply.

"Who told you?"

"June."

"How did she know?"

Irene did not answer.  Baffled and uncomfortable, he said:

"It's a fine thing for Bosinney, it'll be the making of him.  I
suppose she's told you all about it?"

"Yes."

There was another pause, and then Soames said:

"I suppose you don't want to, go?"

Irene made no reply.

"Well, I can't tell what you want.  You never seem contented
here."

"Have my wishes anything to do with it?"

She took the vase of roses and left the room.  Soames remained
seated.  Was it for this that he had signed that contract?  Was
it for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds?
Bosinney's phrase came back to him: "Women are the devil!"

But presently he grew calmer.  It might have, been worse.  She
might have flared up.  He had expected something more than this.
It was lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him.
She must have wormed it out of Bosinney; he might have known she
would.

He lighted his cigarette.  After all, Irene had not made a scene!
She would come round--that was the best of her; she was cold, but
not sulky.  And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on
the shining table, he plunged into a reverie about the house.  It
was no good worrying; he would go and make it up presently.  She
would be sitting out there in the dark, under the Japanese
sunshade, knitting.  A beautiful, warm night....

In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes, and
the words: "Soames is a brick!  It's splendid for Phil--the very
thing for him!"

Irene's face remaining dark and puzzled, she went on:

"Your new house at Robin Hill, of course.  What?  Don't you
know?"

Irene did not know.

"Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn't to have told you!"  Looking
impatiently at her friend, she cried: "You look as if you didn't
care.  Don't you see, it's what I've' been praying for--the very
chance he's been wanting all this time.  Now you'll see what he
can do;" and thereupon she poured out the whole story.

Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in
her friend's position; the hours she spent with Irene were given
to confidences of her own; and at times, for all her affectionate
pity, it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of
compassionate contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake
in her life--such a vast, ridiculous mistake.

"He's to have all the decorations as well--a free hand.  It's
perfect--" June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered
gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin
curtain.  "Do you, know I even asked Uncle James...." But, with a
sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped; and
presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away.  She
looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in
the doorway.  In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her
hand to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door....

Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her
through the window.

Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was sitting very
still, the lace on her white shoulders stirring with the soft
rise and fall of her bosom.

But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless, in
the dark, there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as
if the whole of her being had been stirred, and some change were
taking place in its very depths.

He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.




CHAPTER VI

JAMES AT LARGE


It was not long before Soames's determination to build went the
round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision
connected with property should make among Forsytes.

It was not his fault, for he had been determined that no one
should know.  June, in the fulness of her heart, had told Mrs.
Small, giving her leave only to tell Aunt Ann--she thought it
would cheer her, the poor old sweet! for Aunt Ann had kept her
room now for many days.

Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as she lay back on
her pillows, said in her distinct, trembling old voice:

"It's very nice for dear June; but I hope they will be careful--
it's rather dangerous!"

When she was left alone again, a frown, like a cloud presaging a
rainy morrow, crossed her face.

While she was lying there so many days the process of recharging
her will went on all the time; it spread to her face, too, and
tightening movements were always in action at the corners of her
lips.

The maid Smither, who had been in her service since girlhood, and
was spoken of as "Smither--a good girl--but so slow!"--the maid
Smither performed every morning with extreme punctiliousness the
crowning ceremony of that ancient toilet.  Taking from the
recesses of their pure white band-box those flat, grey curls,
the insignia of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her
mistress's hands, and turned her back.

And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required to come and
report on Timothy; what news there was of Nicholas; whether dear
June had succeeded in getting Jolyon to shorten the engagement,
now that Mr. Bosinney was building Soames a house; whether young
Roger's wife was really--expecting; how the operation on Archie
had succeeded; and what Swithin had done about that empty house
in Wigmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and
treated him so badly; above all, about Soames; was Irene still--
still asking for a separate room?  And every morning Smither was
told: "I shall be coming down this afternoon, Smither, about two
o'clock.  I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!"

After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs. Small had spoken of the house in the
strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas, who in her turn had asked
Winifred Dartie for confirmation, supposing, of course, that,
being Soames's sister, she would know all about it.  Through her
it had in due course come round to the ears of James. He had been
a good deal agitated.

"Nobody," he said, "told him anything." And, rather than go
direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he
took his umbrella and went round to Timothy's.

He found Mrs. Septimus and Hester (who had been told--she was so
safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and indeed eager, to
discuss the news.  It was very good of dear Soames, they thought,
to employ Mr. Bosinney, but rather risky.  What had George named
him? 'The Buccaneer' How droll!  But George was always droll!
However, it would be all in the family they supposed they must
really look upon Mr. Bosinney as belonging to the family, though
it seemed strange.

James here broke in:

"Nobody knows anything about him.  I don't see what Soames wants
with a young man like that.  I shouldn't be surprised if Irene
had put her oar in.  I shall speak to...."

"Soames," interposed Aunt Juley, "told Mr. Bosinney that he
didn't wish it mentioned.  He wouldn't like it to be talked
about, I'm sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed,
I...."

James put his hand behind his ear:

"What?" he said.  "I'm getting very deaf.  I suppose I don't hear
people.  Emily's got a bad toe.  We shan't be able to start for
Wales till the end of the month.  There' s always something!"
And, having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away.

It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards
Soames's, where he intended to dine, for Emily's toe kept her in
bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on a visit to the country.  He
took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of the Row to the
Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture of short, burnt grass,
dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and
strange waifs; lying prone on their faces, like corpses on a
field over which the wave of battle has rolled.

He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to right nor,
left.  The appearance of this park, the centre of his own
battle-field, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no
thought or speculation in his mind.  These corpses flung down,
there, from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these
pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of idle Elysium
snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no
fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination;
his nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures
on which he browsed.

One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be
behind-hand in his rent, and it had become a grave question
whether he had not better turn him out at once, and so run the
risk of not re-letting before Christmas.  Swithin had just been
let in very badly, but it had served him right--he had held on
too long.

He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella
carefully by the wood, just below the crook of the handle, so as
to keep the ferule off the ground, and not fray the silk in the
middle.  And, with his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long
legs moving with swift mechanical precision, this passage through
the Park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on so much
idleness--on so many human evidences of the remorseless battle of
Property, raging beyond its ring--was like the flight of some
land bird across the sea.

He felt a--touch on the arm as he came out at Albert Gate.

It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly,
where he had been walking home from the office, had suddenly
appeared alongside.

"Your mother's in bed," said James; "I was, just coming to you,
but I suppose I shall be in the way."

The outward relations between James and his son were marked by a
lack of sentiment peculiarly Forsytean, but for all that the two
were by no means unattached.  Perhaps they regarded one another
as an investment; certainly they were solicitous of each other's
welfare, glad of each other's company.  They had never exchanged
two words upon the more intimate problems of life, or revealed in
each other's presence the existence of any deep feeling.

Something beyond the power of word-analysis bound them together,
something hidden deep in the fibre of nations and families--for
blood, they say, is thicker than water--and neither of them was a
cold-blooded man.  Indeed, in James love of his children was now
the prime motive of his existence.  To have creatures who were
parts of himself, to whom he might transmit the money he saved,
was at the root of his saving; and, at seventy-five, what was
left that could give him pleasure, but--saving?  The kernel of
life was in this saving for his children.

Than James Forsyte, notwithstanding all his 'Jonah-isms,' there
was no saner man (if the leading symptom of sanity, as we are
told, is self-preservation, though without doubt Timothy went too
far) in all this London, of which he owned so much, and loved
with such a dumb love, as the centre of his opportunities.  He
had the marvellous instinctive sanity of the middle class.  In
him--more than in Jolyon, with his masterful will and his moments
of tenderness and philosophy--more than in Swithin, the martyr to
crankiness--Nicholas, the sufferer from ability--and Roger, the
victim of enterprise--beat the true pulse of compromise; of all
the brothers he was least remarkable in mind and person, and for
that reason more likely to live for ever.

To James, more than to any of the others, was "the family"
significant and dear.  There had always been something primitive
and cosy in his attitude towards life; he loved the family
hearth, he loved gossip, and he loved grumbling.  All his
decisions were formed of a cream which he skimmed off the family
mind; and, through that family, off the minds of thousands of
other families of similar fibre.  Year after year, week after
week, he went to Timothy's, and in his brother's front
drawing-room--his legs twisted, his long white whiskers framing
his clean-shaven mouth--would sit watching the family pot simmer,
the cream rising to the top; and he would go away sheltered,
refreshed, comforted, with an indefinable sense of comfort.

Beneath the adamant of his self-preserving instinct there was
much real softness in James; a visit to Timothy's was like an
hour spent in the lap of a mother; and the deep craving he
himself had for the protection of the family wing reacted in turn
on his feelings towards his own children; it was a nightmare to
him to think of them exposed to the treatment of the world, in
money, health, or reputation.  When his old friend John Street's
son volunteered for special service, he shook his head
querulously, and wondered what John Street was about to allow it;
and when young Street was assagaied, he took it so much to heart
that he made a point of calling everywhere with the special
object of saying: He knew how it would be--he'd no patience with
them!

When his son-in-law Dartie had that financial crisis, due to
speculation in Oil Shares, James made himself ill worrying over
it; the knell of all prosperity seemed to have sounded.  It took
him three months and a visit to Baden-Baden to get better; there
was something terrible in the idea that but for his, James's,
money, Dartie's name might have appeared in the Bankruptcy List.

Composed of a physiological mixture so sound that if he had an
earache he thought he was dying, he regarded the occasional
ailments of his wife and children as in the nature of personal
grievances, special interventions of Providence for the purpose
of destroying his peace of mind; but he did not believe at all in
the ailments of people outside his own immediate family,
affirming them in every case to be due to neglected liver.

His universal comment was: "What can they expect?  I have it
myself, if I'm not careful!"

When he went to Soames's that evening he felt that life was hard
on him: There was Emily with a bad toe, and Rachel gadding about
in the country; he got no sympathy from anybody; and Ann, she was
ill--he did not believe she would last through the summer; he had
called there three times now without her being able to see him!
And this idea of Soames's, building a house, that would have to
be looked into.  As to the trouble with Irene, he didn't know
what was to come of that--anything might come of it!

He entered 62, Montpellier Square with the fullest intentions of
being miserable.  It was already half-past seven, and Irene,
dressed for dinner, was seated in the drawing-room.  She was
wearing her gold-coloured frock--for, having been displayed at a
dinner-party, a soiree, and a dance, it was now to be worn at
home--and she had adorned the bosom with a cascade of lace, on
which James's eyes riveted themselves at once.

"Where do you get your things?" he said in an aggravated voice.
"I never see Rachel and Cicely looking half so well.  That
rose-point, now--that's not real!"

Irene came close, to prove to him that he was in error.

And, in spite of himself, James felt the influence of her
deference, of the faint seductive perfume exhaling from her.  No
self-respecting Forsyte surrendered at a blow; so he merely said:
He didn't know--he expected she was spending a pretty penny on
dress.

The gong sounded, and, putting her white arm within his, Irene
took him into the dining-room.  She seated him in Soames's usual
place, round the corner on her left.  The light fell softly
there, so that he would not be worried by the gradual dying of
the day; and she began to talk to him about himself.

Presently, over James came a change, like the mellowing that
steals upon a fruit in the, sun; a  sense of being caressed, and
praised, and petted, and all without the bestowal of a single
caress or word of praise.  He felt that what he was eating was
agreeing with him; he could not get that feeling at home; he did
not know when he had enjoyed a glass of champagne so much, and,
on inquiring the brand and price, was surprised to find that it
was one of which he had a large stock himself, but could never
drink; he instantly formed the resolution to let his wine
merchant know that he had been swindled.

Looking up from his food, he remarked:

"You've a lot of nice things about the place.  Now, what did you
give for that sugar-sifter?  Shouldn't wonder if it was worth
money!"

He was particularly pleased with the appearance of a picture, on
the wall opposite, which he himself had given them:

"I'd no idea it was so good!" he said.

They rose to go into the drawing-room, and James followed Irene
closely.

"That's what I call a capital little dinner," he murmured,
breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder; "nothing heavy--and
not too Frenchified.  But I can't get it at home.  I pay my cook
sixty pounds a year, but she can't give me a dinner like that!"

He had as yet made no allusion to the building of the house, nor
did he when Soames, pleading the excuse of business, betook
himself to the room at the top, where he kept his pictures.

James was left alone with his daughter-in-law.  The glow of the
wine, and of an excellent liqueur, was still within him.  He felt
quite warm towards her.  She was really a taking little thing;
she listened to you, and seemed to understand what you were
saying; and, while talking, he kept examining her figure, from
her bronze-coloured shoes to the waved gold of her hair.  She was
leaning back in an Empire chair, her shoulders poised against the
top--her body, flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips,
swaying when she moved, as though giving to the arms of a lover.
Her lips were smiling, her eyes half-closed.

It may have been a recognition of danger in the very charm of her
attitude, or a twang of digestion, that caused a sudden dumbness
to fall on James.  He did not remember ever having been quite
alone with Irene before.  And, as he looked at her, an odd
feeling crept over him, as though he had come across something
strange and foreign.

Now what was she thinking about--sitting back like that?

Thus when he spoke it was in a sharper voice, as if he had been
awakened from a pleasant dream.

"What d'you do with yourself all day?" he said.  "You never come
round to Park Lane!"

She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James did not look
at her.  He did not want to believe that she was really avoiding
them--it would mean too much.

"I expect the fact is, you haven't time," he said; "You're always
about with June.  I expect you're useful to her with her young
man, chaperoning, and one thing and another.  They tell me she's
never at home now; your Uncle Jolyon he doesn't like it, I fancy,
being left so much alone as he is.  They tell me she's always
hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose he comes here
every day.  Now, what do you think of him?  D'you think he knows
his own mind?  He seems to me a poor thing.  I should say the
grey mare was the better horse!"

The colour deepened in Irene's face; and James watched her
suspiciously.

"Perhaps you don't quite understand Mr. Bosinney," she said.

"Don't understand him!" James humied out: "Why not?--you can see
he's one of these artistic chaps.  They say he's clever--they all
think they're clever.  You know more about him than I do," he
added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.

"He is designing a house for Soames," she said softly, evidently
trying to smooth things over.

"That brings me to what I was going to say," continued James; "I
don't know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why
doesn't he go to a first-rate man?"

"Perhaps Mr. Bosinney is first-rate!"

James rose, and took a turn with bent head.

"That's it'," he said, "you young people, you all stick together;
you all think you know best!"

Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger, and
levelled it at her bosom, as though bringing an indictment
against her beauty:

"All I can say is, these artistic people, or whatever they call
themselves, they're as unreliable as they can be; and my advice
to you is, don't you have too much to do with him!"

Irene smiled; and in the curve of her lips was a strange
provocation.  She seemed to have lost her deference.  Her breast
rose and fell as though with secret anger; she drew her hands
inwards from their rest on the arms of her chair until the tips
of her fingers met, and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at
James.

The latter gloomily scrutinized the floor.

"I tell you my opinion," he said, "it's a pity you haven't got a
child to think about, and occupy you!"

A brooding look came instantly on Irene's face, and even James
became conscious of the rigidity that took possession of her
whole figure beneath the softness of its silk and lace clothing.

He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and like most
men with but little courage, he sought at once to justify himself
by bullying.

"You don't seem to care about going about.  Why don't you drive
down to Hurlingham with us?  And go to the theatre now and then.
At your time of life you ought to take an interest in things.
You're a young woman!"

The brooding look darkened on her face; he grew nervous.

"Well, I know nothing about it," he said; "nobody tells me
anything.  Soames ought to be able to take care of himself.  If
he can't take care of himself he mustn't look to me--that's all."

Biting the corner of his forefinger he stole a cold, sharp look
at his daughter-in-law.

He encountered her eyes fixed on his own, so dark and deep, that
he stopped, and broke into a gentle perspiration.

"Well, I must be going," he said after a short pause, and a
minute later rose, with a slight appearance of surprise, as
though he had expected to be asked to stop.  Giving his hand to
Irene, he allowed himself to be conducted to the door, and let
out into the street.  He would not have a cab, he would walk,
Irene was to say good-night to Soames for him, and if she wanted
a little gaiety, well, he would drive her down to Richmond any
day.

He walked home, and going upstairs, woke Emily out of the first
sleep she had had for four and twenty hours, to tell her that it
was his impression things were in a bad way at Soames's; on this
theme he descanted for half an hour, until at last, saying that
he would not sleep a wink, he turned on his side and instantly
began to snore.

In Montpellier Square Soames, who had come from the picture room,
stood invisible at the top of the stairs, watching Irene sort the
letters brought by the last post.  She turned back into the
drawing-room; but in a minute came out, and stood as if
listening.  Then she came stealing up the stairs, with a kitten
in her arms.  He could see her face bent over the little beast,
which was purring against her neck.  Why couldn't she look at him
like that?

Suddenly she saw him, and her face changed.

"Any letters for me?" he said.

"Three."

He stood aside, and without another word she passed on into the
bedroom.




CHAPTER VII

OLD JOLYON'S PECCADILLO


Old Jolyon came out of Lord's cricket ground that same afternoon
with the intention of going home.  He had not reached Hamilton
Terrace before he changed his mind, and hailing a cab, gave the
driver an address in Wistaria Avenue.  He had taken a resolution.

June had hardly been at home at all that week; she had given him
nothing of her company for a long time past, not, in fact, since
she had become engaged to Bosinney.  He never asked her for her
company.  It was not his habit to ask people for things!  She had
just that one idea now--Bosinney and his affairs--and she left
him stranded in his great house, with a parcel of servants, and
not a soul to speak to from morning to night.  His Club was
closed for cleaning; his Boards in recess; there was nothing,
therefore, to take him into the City.  June had wanted him to go
away; she would not go herself, because Bosinney was in London.

But where was he to go by himself?  He could not go abroad alone;
the sea upset his liver; he hated hotels.  Roger went to a
hydropathic--he was not going to begin that at his time of life,
those new-fangled places we're all humbug!

With such formulas he clothed to himself the desolation of his
spirit; the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day
looking forth with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a
face wont to be strong and serene.

And so that afternoon he took this journey through St.  John's
Wood, in the golden-light that sprinkled the rounded green bushes
of the acacia's before the little houses, in the summer sunshine
that seemed holding a revel over the little gardens; and he
looked about him with interest; for this was a district which no
Forsyte entered without open disapproval and secret curiosity.

His cab stopped in front of a small house of that peculiar buff
colour which implies a long immunity from paint.  It had an outer
gate, and a rustic approach.

He stepped out, his bearing extremely composed; his massive head,
with its drooping moustache and wings of white hair, very
upright, under an excessively large top hat; his glance firm, a
little angry.  He had been driven into this!

"Mrs. Jolyon Forsyte at home?"

"Oh, yes sir!--what name shall I say, if you please, sir?"

Old Jolyon could not help twinkling at the little maid as he gave
his name.  She seemed to him such a funny little toad!

And he followed her through the dark hall, into a small double,
drawing-room, where the furniture was covered in chintz, and the
little maid placed him in a chair.

"They're all in the garden, sir; if you'll kindly take a seat,
I'll tell them."

Old Jolyon sat down in the chintz-covered chair, and looked
around him.  The whole place seemed to him, as he would have
expressed it, pokey; there was a certain--he could not tell
exactly what--air of shabbiness, or rather of making two ends
meet, about everything.  As far as he could see, not a single
piece of furniture was worth a five-pound note.  The walls,
distempered rather a long time ago, were decorated with
water-colour sketches; across the ceiling meandered a long crack.

These little houses were all old, second-rate concerns; he should
hope the rent was under a hundred a year; it hurt him more than
he could have said, to think of a Forsyte--his own son living in
such a place.

The little maid came back.  Would he please to go down into the
garden?

Old Jolyon marched out through the French windows.  In descending
the steps he noticed that they wanted painting.

Young Jolyon, his wife, his two children, and his dog Balthasar,
were all out there under a pear-tree.

This walk towards them was the most courageous act of old
Jolyon's life; but no muscle of his face moved, no nervous
gesture betrayed him.  He kept his deep-set eyes steadily on the
enemy.

In those two minutes he demonstrated to perfection all that
unconscious soundness, balance, and vitality of fibre that made,
of him and so many others of his class the core of the nation.
In the unostentatious conduct of their own affairs, to the
neglect of everything else, they typified the essential
individualism, born in the Briton from the natural isolation of
his country's life.

The dog Balthasar sniffed round the edges of his trousers; this
friendly and cynical mongrel--offspring of a liaison between a
Russian poodle and a fox-terrier--had a nose for the unusual.

The strange greetings over, old Jolyon seated himself in a wicker
chair, and his two grandchildren, one on each side of his knees,
looked at him silently, never having seen so old a man.

They were unlike, as though recognising the difference set
between them by the circumstances of their births.  Jolly, the
child of sin, pudgy-faced, with his tow-coloured hair brushed off
his forehead, and a dimple in his chin, had an air of stubborn
amiability, and the eyes of a Forsyte; little Holly, the child of
wedlock, was a dark-skinned, solemn soul, with her mother's, grey
and wistful eyes.

The dog Balthasar, having walked round the three small flower-
beds, to show his extreme contempt for things at large, had also
taken a seat in front of old Jolyon, and, oscillating a tail
curled by Nature tightly over his back, was staring up with
eyes that did not blink.

Even in the garden, that sense of things being pokey haunted old
Jolyon; the wicker chair creaked under his weight; the
garden-beds looked 'daverdy'; on the far side, under the smut-
stained wall, cats had made a path.

While he and his grandchildren thus regarded each other with the
peculiar scrutiny, curious yet trustful, that passes between the
very young and the very old, young Jolyon watched his wife.

The colour had deepened in her thin, oval face, with its straight
brows, and large, grey eyes.  Her hair, brushed in fine, high
curves back from her forehead, was going grey, like his own, and
this greyness made the sudden vivid colour in her cheeks
painfully pathetic.

The look on her face, such as he had never seen there before,
such as she had always hidden from him, was full of secret
resentments, and longings, and fears.  Her eyes, under their
twitching brows, stared painfully.  And she was silent.

Jolly alone sustained the conversation; he had many possessions,
and was anxious that his unknown friend with extremely large
moustaches, and hands all covered with blue veins, who sat with
legs crossed like his own father (a habit he was himself trying
to acquire), should know it; but being a Forsyte, though not yet
quite eight years old, he made no mention of the thing at the
moment dearest to his heart--a camp of soldiers in a shop-window,
which his father had promised to buy.  No doubt it seemed to him
too precious; a tempting of Providence to mention it yet.

And the sunlight played through the leaves on that little party
of the three generations grouped tranquilly under the pear-tree,
which had long borne no fruit.

Old Jolyon's furrowed face was reddening patchily, as old men's
faces redden in the sun.  He took one of Jolly's hands in his
own; the boy climbed on to his knee; and little Holly, mesmerized
by this sight, crept up to them; the sound of the dog Balthasar's
scratching arose rhythmically.

Suddenly young Mrs. Jolyon got up and hurried indoors.  A minute
later her husband muttered an excuse, and followed.  Old Jolyon
was left alone with his grandchildren.

And Nature with her quaint irony began working in him one of her
strange revolutions, following her cyclic laws into the depths of
his heart.  And that tenderness for little children, that passion
for the beginnings of life which had once made him forsake his
son and follow June, now worked in him to forsake June and follow
these littler things.  Youth, like a flame, burned ever in his
breast, and to youth he turned, to the round little limbs, so
reckless, that wanted care, to the small round faces so
unreasonably solemn or bright, to the treble tongues,  and the
shrill, chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands, and
the feel of small bodies against his legs, to all that was young
and young, and once more young.  And his eyes grew soft, his
voice, and thin-veined hands soft, and soft his heart within him.
And to those small creatures he became at once a place of
pleasure, a place where they were secure, and could talk and
laugh and play; till, like sunshine, there radiated from old
Jolyon's wicker chair the perfect gaiety of three hearts.

But with young Jolyon following to his wife's room it was
different.

He found her seated on a chair before her dressing-glass, with
her hands before her face.

Her shoulders were shaking with sobs.  This passion of hers for
suffering was mysterious to him.  He had been through a hundred
of these moods; how he had survived them he never knew, for he
could never believe they were moods, and that the last hour of
his partnership had not struck.

In the night she would be sure to throw her arms round his
neck and say: "Oh! Jo, how I make you suffer!" as she had done a
hundred times before.

He reached out his hand, and, unseen, slipped his razor-case into
his pocket.  'I cannot stay here,' he thought, 'I must go down!'
Without a word he left the room, and went back to the lawn.

Old Jolyon had little Holly on his knee; she had taken possession
of his watch; Jolly, very red in the face, was trying to show
that he could stand on his head.  The dog Balthasar, as close as
he might be to the tea-table, had fixed his eyes on the cake.

Young Jolyon felt a malicious desire to cut their enjoyment
short.

What business had his father to come and upset his wife like
this?  It was a shock, after all these years!  He ought to have
known; he ought to have given them warning; but when did a
Forsyte ever imagine that his conduct could upset anybody!  And
in his thoughts he did old Jolyon wrong.

He spoke sharply to the children, and told them to go in to their
tea.  Greatly surprised, for they had never heard their father
speak sharply before, they went off, hand in hand, little Holly
looking back over her shoulder.

Young Jolyon poured out the tea.

"My wife's not the thing today," he said, but he knew well enough
that his father had penetrated the cause of that sudden
withdrawal, and almost hated the old man for sitting there so
calmly.

"You've got a nice little house here," said old Jolyon with a
shrewd look; "I suppose you've taken a lease of it!"

Young Jolyon nodded.

"I don't like the neighbourhood," said old Jolyon; "a ramshackle
lot."

Young Jolyon replied: "Yes, we're a ramshackle lot."'

The silence was now only broken by the sound of the dog
Balthasar's scratching.

Old Jolyon said simply: "I suppose I oughtn't to have come here,
Jo; but I get so lonely!"

At these words young Jolyon got up and put his hand on his
father's shoulder.

In the next house someone was playing over and over again: 'La
Donna  mobile' on an untuned piano; and the little garden had
fallen into shade, the sun now only reached the wall at the end,
whereon basked a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily
down on the dog Balthasar.  There was a drowsy hum of very
distant traffic; the creepered trellis round the garden shut out
everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its top
branches still gilded by the sun.

For some time they sat there, talking but little.  Then old
Jolyon rose to go, and not a word was said about his coming
again.

He walked away very sadly.  What a poor miserable place; and he
thought of the great, empty house in Stanhope Gate, fit residence
for a Forsyte, with its huge billiard-room and drawing-room that
no one entered from one week's end to another.

That woman, whose face he had rather liked, was too thin-skinned
by half; she gave Jo a bad time he knew!  And those sweet
children!  Ah! what a piece of awful folly!

He walked towards the Edgware Road, between rows of little
houses, all suggesting to him (erroneously no doubt, but the
prejudices of a Forsyte are sacred) shady histories of some sort
or kind.

Society, forsooth, the chattering hags and jackanapes--had set
themselves up to pass judgment on his flesh and blood!  A parcel
of old women!  He stumped his umbrella on the ground, as though
to drive it into the heart of that unfortunate body, which had
dared to ostracize his son and his son's son, in whom he could
have lived again!

He stumped his umbrella fiercely; yet he himself had followed
Society's behaviour for fifteen years--had only today been false
to it!

He thought of June, and her dead mother, and the whole story,
with all his old bitterness.  A wretched business!

He was a long time reaching Stanhope Gate, for, with native
perversity, being extremely tired, he walked the whole way.

After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to
the dining-room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when
June was out--it was less lonely so.  The evening paper had not
yet come; he had finished the Times, there was therefore nothing
to do.

The room faced the backwater of traffic, and was very silent.  He
disliked dogs, but a dog even would have been company.  His gaze,
travelling round the walls, rested on a picture entitled: 'Group
of Dutch fishing boats at sunset'; the chef d'oeuvre of his
collection.  It gave him no pleasure.  He closed his eyes.  He
was lonely!  He oughtn't to complain, he knew, but he couldn't
help it: He was a poor thing--had always been a poor thing--no
pluck!  Such was his thought.

The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing his
master apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution in his
movements.  This bearded man also wore a moustache, which had
given rise to grave doubts in the minds of many members--of the
family--, especially those who, like Soames, had been to public
schools, and were accustomed to niceness in such matters.  Could
he really be considered a butler?  Playful spirits alluded to him
as: 'Uncle Jolyon's Nonconformist'; George, the acknowledged wag,
had named him: 'Sankey.'

He moved to and fro between the great polished sideboard and the
great polished table inimitably sleek and soft.

Old Jolyon watched him, feigning sleep.  The fellow was a sneak--
he had always thought so--who cared about nothing but rattling
through his work, and getting out to his betting or his woman or
goodness knew what!  A slug!  Fat too! And didn't care a pin
about his master!

But then against his will, came one of those moments of
philosophy which made old Jolyon different from other Forsytes:

After all why should the man care?  He wasn't paid to care, and
why expect it?  In this world people couldn't look for affection
unless they paid for it.  It might be different in the next--he
didn't know--couldn't tell!  And again he shut his eyes.

Relentless and stealthy, the butler pursued his labours, taking
things from the various compartments of the sideboard.  His back
seemed always turned to old Jolyon; thus, he robbed his
operations of the unseemliness of being carried on in his
master's presence; now and then he furtively breathed on the
silver, and wiped it with a piece of chamois leather.  He
appeared to pore over the quantities of wine in the decanters,
which he carried carefully and rather high, letting his heard
droop over them protectingly.  When he had finished, he stood for
over a minute watching his master, and in his greenish eyes there
was a look of contempt:

After all, this master of his was an old buffer, who hadn't much
left in him!

Soft as a tom-cat, he crossed the room to press the bell.  His
orders were 'dinner at seven.' What if his master were asleep; he
would soon have him out of that; there was the night to sleep in!
He had himself to think of, for he was due at his Club at
half-past eight!

In answer to the ring, appeared a page boy with a silver soup
tureen.  The butler took it from his hands and placed it on the.
table, then, standing by the open door, as though about to usher
company into the room, he said in a solemn voice:

"Dinner is on the table, sir!"

Slowly old Jolyon got up out of his chair, and sat down at the
table to eat his dinner.




CHAPTER VIII

PLANS OF THE HOUSE


Forsytes, as is generally admitted, have shells, like that
extremely useful little animal which is made into Turkish
delight, in other words, they are never seen, or if seen would
not be recognised, without habitats, composed of circumstance,
property, acquaintances, and wives, which seem to move along with
them in their passage through a world composed of thousands of
other Forsytes with their habitats.  Without a habitat a Forsyte
is inconceivable--he would be like a novel without a plot, which
is well-known to be an anomaly.

To Forsyte eyes Bosinney appeared to have no habitat, he seemed
one of those rare and unfortunate men who go through life
surrounded by circumstance, property, acquaintances, and wives
that do not belong to them.

His rooms in Sloane Street, on the top floor, outside which, on a
plate, was his name, 'Philip Baynes Bosinney, Architect,' were
not those of a Forsyte.--He had no sitting-room apart from his
office, but a large recess had been screened off to conceal the
necessaries of life--a couch, an easy chair, his pipes, spirit
case, novels and slippers.  The business part of the room had the
usual furniture; an open cupboard with pigeon-holes, a round oak
table, a folding wash-stand, some hard chairs, a standing desk of
large dimensions covered with drawings and designs.  June had
twice been to tea there under the chaperonage of his aunt.

He was believed to have a bedroom at the back.

As far as the family had been able to ascertain his income, it
consisted of two consulting appointments at twenty pounds a year,
together with an odd fee once in a way, and--more worthy item--a
private annuity under his father's will of one hundred and fifty
pounds a year.

What had transpired concerning that father was not so reassuring.
It appeared that he had been a Lincolnshire country doctor of
Cornish extraction, striking appearance, and Byronic tendencies--
a well-known figure, in fact, in his county.  Bosinney's uncle by
marriage, Baynes, of Baynes and Bildeboy, a Forsyte in instincts
if not in name, had but little that was worthy to relate of his
brother-in-law.

"An odd fellow!' he would say: 'always spoke of his three eldest
boys as 'good creatures, but so dull'; they're all doing
capitally in the Indian Civil!  Philip was the only one he liked.
I've heard him talk in the queerest way; he once said to me: 'My
dear fellow, never let your poor wife know what you're thinking
of!  But I didn't follow his advice; not I!  An eccentric man!
He would say to Phil: 'Whether you live like a gentleman or not,
my boy, be sure you die like one! and he had himself embalmed in
a frock coat suit, with a satin cravat and a diamond pin.  Oh,
quite an original, I can assure you!"

Of Bosinney himself Baynes would speak warmly, with a certain
compassion: "He's got a streak of his father's Byronism.  Why,
look at the way he threw up his chances when he left my office;
going off like that for six months with a knapsack, and all for
what?--to study foreign architecture--foreign!  What could he
expect?  And there he is--a clever young fellow--doesn't make his
hundred a year!  Now this engagement is the best thing that could
have happened--keep him steady; he's one of those that go to bed
all day and stay up all night, simply because they've no method;
but no vice about him--not an ounce of vice.  Old Forsyte's a
rich man!"

Mr. Baynes made himself extremely pleasant to June, who
frequently visited his house in Lowndes Square at this period.

"This house of your cousin's--what a capital man of business--is
the very thing for Philip," he would say to her; "you mustn't
expect to see too much of him just now, my dear young lady.  The
good cause--the good cause!  The young man must make his way.
When I was his age I was at work day and night.  My dear wife
used to say to me, 'Bobby, don't work too hard, think of your
health'; but I never spared myself!"

June had complained that her lover found no time to come to
Stanhope Gate.

The first time he came again they had not been together a quarter
of an hour before, by one of those coincidences of which she was
a mistress, Mrs. Septimus Small arrived.  Thereon Bosinney rose
and hid himself, according to previous arrangement, in the little
study, to wait for her departure.

"My dear," said Aunt Juley, "how thin he is!  I've often noticed
it with engaged people; but you mustn't let it get worse.
There's Barlow's extract of veal; it did your Uncle Swithin a lot
of good."

June, her little figure erect before the hearth, her small face
quivering grimly, for she regarded her aunt's untimely visit in
the light of a personal injury, replied with scorn:

"It's because he's busy; people who can do anything worth doing
are never fat!"

Aunt Juley pouted; she herself had always been thin, but the only
pleasure she derived from the fact was the opportunity of longing
to be stouter.

"I don't think," she said mournfully, "that you ought to let them
call him 'The Buccaneer'; people might think it odd, now that
he's going to build a house for Soames.  I do hope he will be
careful; it's so important for him.  Soames has such good taste!"

"Taste!" cried June, flaring up at once; "wouldn't give that for
his taste, or any of the family's!"

Mrs. Small was taken aback.

"Your Uncle Swithin," she said, "always had beautiful taste!  And
Soames's little house is lovely; you don't mean to say you don't
think so!"

"H'mph!" said June, "that's only because Irene's there!"

Aunt Juley tried to say something pleasant:

"And how will dear Irene like living in the country?"

June gazed at her intently, with a look in her eyes as if her
conscience had suddenly leaped up into them; it passed; and an
even more intent look took its place, as if she had stared that
conscience out of countenance.  She replied imperiously:

"Of course she'll like it; why shouldn't she?"

Mrs. Small grew nervous.

"I didn't know," she said; "I thought she mightn't like to leave
her friends.  Your Uncle James says she doesn't take enough
interest in life.  We think--I mean Timothy thinks--she ought to
go out more.  I expect you'll miss her very much!"

June clasped her hands behind her neck.

"I do wish," she cried, "Uncle Timothy wouldn't talk about what
doesn't concern him!"

Aunt Juley rose to the full height of her tall figure.

"He never talks about what doesn't concern him," she said.

June was instantly compunctious; she ran to her aunt and kissed
her.

"I'm very sorry, auntie; but I wish they'd let Irene alone."

Aunt Juley, unable to think of anything further on the subject
that would be suitable, was silent; she prepared for departure,
hooking her black silk cape across her chest, and, taking up her
green reticule:

"And how is your dear grandfather?" she asked in the hall, "I
expect he's very lonely now that all your time is taken up with
Mr. Bosinney."

She bent and kissed her niece hungrily, and with little, mincing
steps passed away.

The tears sprang up in June's eyes; running into the little
study, where Bosinney was sitting at the table drawing birds on
the back of an envelope, she sank down by his side and cried:

"Oh, Phil! it's all so horrid!"  Her heart was as warm as the
colour of her hair.

On the following Sunday morning, while Soames was shaving, a
message was brought him to the effect that Mr. Bosinney was
below, and would be glad to see him.  Opening the door into his
wife's room, he said:

"Bosinney's downstairs.  Just go and entertain him while I finish
shaving.  I'll be down in a minute.  It's about the plans, I
expect."

Irene looked at him, without reply, put the finishing touch to
her dress and went downstairs.  He could not make her out about
this house.  She had said nothing against it, and, as far as
Bosinney was concerned, seemed friendly enough.

From the window of his dressing-room he could see them talking
together in the little court below.  He hurried on with his
shaving, cutting his chin twice.  He heard them laugh, and
thought to himself: "Well, they get on all right, anyway!"

As he expected, Bosinney had come round to fetch him to look at
the plans.

He took his hat and went over.

The plans were spread on the oak table in the architect's room;
and pale, imperturbable, inquiring, Soames bent over them for a
long time without speaking.

He said at last in a puzzled voice:

"It's an odd sort of house!"

A rectangular house of two stories was designed in a quadrangle
round a covered-in court.  This court, encircled by a gallery on
the upper floor, was roofed with a glass roof, supported by eight
columns running up from the ground.

It was indeed, to Forsyte eyes, an odd house.

"There's a lot of room cut to waste," pursued Soames.

Bosinney began to walk about, and Soames did not like the
expression on his face.

"The principle of this house," said the architect, "was that you
should have room to breathe--like a gentleman!"

Soames extended his finger and thumb, as if measuring the extent
of the distinction he should acquire; and replied:

"Oh! yes; I see."

The peculiar look came into Bosinney's face which marked all his
enthusiasms.

"I've tried to plan you a house here with some self-respect of
its own.  If  you don't like it, you'd better say so.  It's
certainly the last thing to be considered--who wants self-respect
in a house, when you can squeeze in an extra lavatory?"  He put
his finger suddenly down on the left division of the centre
oblong: "You can swing a cat here.  This is for your pictures,
divided from this court by curtains; draw them back and you'll
have a space of fifty-one by twenty-three six.  This double-faced
stove in the centre, here, looks one way towards the court, one
way towards the picture room; this end wall is all window; You've
a southeast light from that, a north light from the court.  The
rest of your pictures you can hang round the gallery upstairs, or
in the other rooms."  "In architecture," he went on--and though
looking at Soames he did not seem to see him, which gave Soames
an unpleasant feeling--"as in life, you'll get no self-respect
without regularity.  Fellows tell you that's old fashioned.  It
appears to be peculiar any way; it never occurs to us to embody
the main principle of life in our buildings; we load our houses
with decoration, gimcracks, corners, anything to distract the
eye.  On the contrary the eye should rest; get your effects with
a few strong lines.  The whole thing is regularity there's no
self-respect without it."

Soames, the unconscious ironist, fixed his gaze on Bosinney's
tie, which was far from being in the perpendicular; he was
unshaven too, and his dress not remarkable for order.
Architecture appeared to have exhausted his regularity.

"Won't it look like a barrack?" he inquired.

He did not at once receive a reply.

"I can see what it is," said Bosinney, "you want one of Little-
master's houses--one of the pretty and commodious sort, where the
servants will live in garrets, and the front door be sunk so that
you may come up again.  By all means try Littlemaster, you'll
find him a capital fellow, I've known him all my life!"

Soames was alarmed.  He had really been struck by the plans, and
the concealment of his satisfaction had been merely instinctive.
It was difficult for him to pay a compliment.  He despised people
who were lavish with their praises.

He found himself now in the embarrassing position of one who must
pay a compliment or run the risk of losing a good thing.
Bosinney was just the fellow who might tear up the plans and
refuse to act for him; a kind of grown-up child!

This grown-up childishness, to which he felt so superior,
exercised a peculiar and almost mesmeric effect on Soames, for he
had never felt anything like it in himself.

"Well," he stammered at last, "it's--it's, certainly original."

He had such a private distrust and even dislike of the word
'original' that he felt he had not really given himself away by
this remark.

Bosinney seemed pleased.  It was the sort of thing that would
please a fellow like that!  And his success encouraged Soames.

"It's--a big place," he said.

"Space, air, light," he heard Bosinney murmur, "you can't live
like a gentleman in one of Littlemaster's--he builds for
manufacturers."

Soames made a deprecating movement; he had been identified with a
gentleman; not for a good deal of money now would he be classed
with manufacturers.  But his innate distrust of general
principles revived.  What the deuce was the good of talking about
regularity and self-respect?  It looked to him as if the house
would be cold.

"Irene can't stand the cold!" he said.

"Ah!" said Bosinney sarcastically.  "Your wife?  She doesn't like
the cold?  I'll see to that; she shan't be cold.  Look here!" he
pointed, to four marks at regular intervals on the walls of the
court.  "I've given you hot-water pipes in aluminium casings; you
can get them with very good designs."

Soames looked suspiciously at these marks.

"It's all very well, all this," he said, "but what's it going to
cost?"

The architect took a sheet of paper from his pocket:

"The house, of course, should be built entirely of stone, but, as
I thought you wouldn't stand that, I've compromised for a facing.
It ought to have a copper roof, but I've made it green slate.  As
it is, including metal work, it'll cost you eight thousand five
hundred."

"Eight thousand five hundred?" said Soames.  "Why, I gave you an
outside limit of eight!"

"Can't be done for a penny less," replied Bosinney coolly.

"You must take it or leave it!"

It was the only way, probably, that such a proposition could have
been made to Soames.  He was nonplussed.  Conscience told him to
throw the whole thing up.  But the design was good, and he knew
it--there was completeness about it, and dignity; the servants'
apartments were excellent too.  He would gain credit by living in
a house like that--with such individual features, yet perfectly.
well-arranged.

He continued poring over the plans, while Bosinney went into his
bedroom to shave and dress.

The two walked back to Montpellier Square in silence, Soames
watching him out of the corner of his eye.

The Buccaneer was rather a good-looking fellow--so he thought--
when he was properly got up.

Irene was bending over her flowers when the two men came in.

She spoke of sending across the Park to fetch June.

"No, no," said Soames, "we've still got business to talk over!"

At lunch he was almost cordial, and kept pressing Bosinney to
eat.  He was pleased to see the architect in such high spirits,
and left him to spend the afternoon with Irene, while he stole
off to his pictures, after his Sunday habit.  At tea-time he came
down to the drawing-room, and found them talking, as he expressed
it, nineteen to the dozen.

Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself that things
were taking the right turn.  It was lucky she and Bosinney got
on; she seemed to be falling into line with the idea of the new
house.

Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him to spring the
five hundred if necessary; but he hoped that the afternoon might
have softened Bosinney's estimates.  It was so purely a matter
which Bosinney could remedy if he liked; there must be a dozen
ways in which he could cheapen the production of a house without
spoiling the effect.

He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene was handing the
architect his first cup of tea.  A chink of sunshine through the
lace of the blinds warmed her cheek, shone in the gold of her
hair, and in her soft eyes.  Possibly the same gleam deepened
Bosinney's colour, gave the rather startled look to his face.

Soames hated sunshine, and he at once got up, to draw the blind.
Then he took his own cup of tea from his wife, and said, more
coldly than he had intended:

"Can't you see your way to do it for eight thousand after all?
There must be a lot of little things you could alter."

Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and
answered:

"Not one!"

Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible
point of personal vanity.

"Well," he agreed, with sulky resignation; "you must have it your
own way, I suppose."

A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames rose too, to
see him off the premises.  The architect seemed in absurdly high
spirits.  After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames
returned moodily to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting
away the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of
curiosity, he asked:

"Well, what do you think of 'The Buccaneer'?"

He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer, and he had
to wait some time.

"I don't know," she said at last.

"Do you think he's good-looking?"

Irene smiled.  And it seemed to Soames that she was mocking him.

"Yes," she answered; "very."




CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF AUNT ANN


There came a morning at the end of September when Aunt Ann was
unable to take from Smither's hands the insignia of personal
dignity.  After one look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly
sent for, announced that Miss Forsyte had passed away in her
sleep.

Aunts Juley and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock.  They had
never imagined such an ending.  Indeed, it is doubtful whether
they had ever realized that an ending was bound to come.
Secretly they felt it unreasonable of Ann to have left them like
this without a word, without even a struggle.  It was unlike her.

Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was the thought
that a Forsyte should have let go her grasp on life.  If one,
then why not all!

It was a full hour before they could make up their minds to tell
Timothy.  If only it could be kept from him!  If only it could be
broken to him by degrees!

And long they stood outside his door whispering together.  And
when it was over they whispered together again.

He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went on.  Still,
he had taken it better than could have been expected.  He would
keep his bed, of course!

They separated, crying quietly.

Aunt Juley stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow.  Her face,
discoloured by tears, was divided into compartments by the little
ridges of pouting flesh which had swollen with emotion.  It was
impossible to conceive of life without Ann, who had lived with
her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short interregnum
of her married life, which seemed now so unreal.  At fixed
intervals she went to her drawer, and took from beneath the
lavender bags a fresh pocket-handkerchief.  Her warm heart could
not bear the thought that Ann was lying there so cold.

Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater of the
family energy, sat in the drawing-room, where the blinds were
drawn; and she, too, had wept at first, but quietly, without
visible effect.  Her guiding principle, the conservation of
energy, did not abandon her in sorrow.  She sat, slim,
motionless, studying the grate, her hands idle in the lap of her
black silk dress.  They would want to rouse her into doing
something, no doubt.  As if there were any good in that!  Doing
something would not bring back Ann!  Why worry her?

Five o'clock brought three of the brothers, Jolyon and James and
Swithin; Nicholas was at Yarmouth, and Roger had a bad attack of
gout.  Mrs. Hayman had been by herself earlier in the day, and,
after seeing Ann, had gone away, leaving a message for Timothy--
which was kept from him--that she ought to have been told sooner.
In fact, there was a feeling amongst them all that they ought to
have been told sooner, as though they had missed something; and
James said:

"I knew how it'd be; I told you she wouldn't last through the
summer."

Aunt Hester made no reply; it was nearly October, but what was
the good of arguing; some people were never satisfied.

She sent up to tell her sister that the brothers were there.
Mrs. Small came down at once.  She had bathed her face, which was
still swollen, and though she looked severely at Swithin's
trousers, for they were of light blue--he had come straight from
the club, where the news had reached him--she wore a more cheerful
expression than usual, the instinct for doing the wrong thing
being even now too strong for her.

Presently all five went up to look at the body.  Under the pure
white sheet a quilted counter-pane had been placed, for now, more
than ever, Aunt Ann had need of warmth; and, the pillows removed,
her spine and head rested flat, with the semblance of their
life-long inflexibility; the coif banding the top of her brow was
drawn on either side to the level of the ears, and between it and
the sheet her face, almost as white, was turned with closed eyes
to the faces of her brothers and sisters.  In its extraordinary
peace the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone now under
the scarce-wrinkled parchment of skin--square jaw and chin,
cheekbones, forehead with hollow temples, chiselled nose--the
fortress of an unconquerable spirit that had yielded to death,
and in its upward sightlessness seemed trying to regain that
spirit, to regain the guardianship it had just laid down.

Swithin took but one look at the face, and left the room; the
sight, he said afterwards, made him very queer.  He went
downstairs shaking the whole house, and, seizing his hat,
clambered into his brougham, without giving any directions to the
coachman.  He was driven home, and all the evening sat in his
chair without moving.

He could take nothing for dinner but a partridge, with an
imperial pint of champagne....

Old Jolyon stood at the bottom of the bed, his hands folded in
front of him.  He alone of those in the room remembered the death
of his mother, and though he looked at Ann, it was of that he was
thinking.  Ann was an old woman, but death had come to her at
last--death came to all!  His face did not move, his gaze seemed
travelling from very far.

Aunt Hester stood beside him.  She did not cry now, tears were
exhausted--her nature refused to permit a further escape of
force; she twisted her hands, looking not at Ann, but from side
to side, seeking some way of escaping the effort of realization.

Of all the brothers and sisters James manifested the most
emotion.  Tears rolled down the parallel furrows of his thin
face; where he should go now to tell his troubles he did not
know; Juley was no good, Hester worse than useless!  He felt
Ann's death more than he had ever thought he should; this would
upset him for weeks!

Presently Aunt Hester stole out, and Aunt Juley began moving
about, doing 'what was necessary,' so that twice she knocked
against something.  Old Jolyon, roused from his reverie, that
reverie of the long, long past, looked sternly at her, and went
away.  James alone was left by the bedside; glancing stealthily
round, to see that he was not observed, he twisted his long body
down, placed a kiss on the dead forehead, then he, too, hastily
left the room.  Encountering Smither in the hall, he began to ask
her about the funeral, and, finding that she knew nothing,
complained bitterly that, if they didn't take care, everything
would go wrong.  She had better send for Mr. Soames--he knew all
about that sort of thing; her master was very much upset, he
supposed--he would want looking after; as for her mistresses,
they were no good--they had no gumption!  They would be ill too,
he shouldn't wonder.  She had better send for the doctor; it was
best to take things in time.  He didn't think his sister Ann had
had the best opinion; if she'd had Blank she would have been
alive now.  Smither might send to Park Lane any time she wanted
advice.  Of course, his carriage was at their service for the
funeral.  He supposed she hadn't such a thing as a glass of
claret and a biscuit--he had had no lunch!

The days before the funeral passed quietly.  It had long been
known, of course, that Aunt Ann had left her little property to
Timothy.  There was, therefore, no reason for the slightest
agitation.  Soames, who was sole executor, took charge of all
arrangements, and in due course sent out the following invitation
to every male member of the family:


To...........

Your presence is requested at the funeral of Miss Ann Forsyte, in
Highgate Cemetery, at noon of Oct. 1st.  Carriages will meet at
"The Bower," Bayswater Road, at 10.45.  No flowers by request.

'R.S.V.P.'


The morning came, cold, with a high, grey, London sky, and at
half-past ten the first carriage, that of James, drove up.  It
contained James and his son-in-law Dartie, a fine man, with a
square chest, buttoned very tightly into a frock coat, and a
sallow, fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches,
and that incorrigible commencement of whisker which, eluding the
strictest attempts at shaving, seems the mark of something deeply
ingrained in the personality of the shaver, being especially
noticeable in men who speculate.

Soames, in his capacity of executor, received the guests, for
Timothy still kept his bed; he would get up after the funeral;
and Aunts Juley and Hester would not be coming down till all was
over, when it was understood there would be lunch for anyone who
cared to come back.  The next to arrive was Roger, still limping
from the gout, and encircled by three of his sons--young Roger,
Eustace, and Thomas.  George, the remaining son, arrived almost
immediately afterwards in a hansom, and paused in the hall to ask
Soames how he found undertaking pay.

They disliked each other.

Then came two Haymans--Giles and Jesse perfectly silent, and very
well dressed, with special creases down their evening trousers.
Then old Jolyon alone.  Next, Nicholas, with a healthy colour in
his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness in every movement
of his head and body.  One of his sons followed him, meek and
subdued.  Swithin Forsyte, and Bosinney arrived at the same
moment,--and stood--bowing precedence to each other,--but on the
door opening they tried to enter together; they renewed their
apologies in the hall, and, Swithin, settling his stock, which
had become disarranged in the struggle, very slowly mounted the
stairs.  The other Hayman; two married sons of Nicholas, together
with Tweetyman, Spender, and Warry, the husbands of married
Forsyte and Hayman daughters.  The company was then complete,
twenty-one in all, not a male member of the family being absent
but Timothy and young Jolyon.

Entering the scarlet and green drawing-room, whose apparel made
so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried
nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic
blackness of his trousers.  There seemed a sort of indecency in
that blackness and in the colour of their gloves--a sort of
exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked looks of
secret envy at 'the Buccaneer,' who had no gloves, and was
wearing grey trousers.  A subdued hum of conversation rose, no
one speaking of the departed, but each asking after the other, as
though thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, which
they had come to honour.

And presently James said:

"Well, I think we ought to be starting."

They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off
in strict precedence, mounted the carriages.

The hearse started at a foot's pace; the carriages moved slowly
after.  In the first went old Jolyon with Nicholas; in the
second, the twins, Swithin and James; in the third, Roger and
young Roger; Soames, young Nicholas, George, and Bosinney
followed in the fourth.  Each of the other carriages, eight in
all, held three or four of the family; behind them came the
doctor's brougham; then, at a decent interval, cabs containing
family clerks and servants; and at the very end, one containing
nobody at all, but bringing the total cortege up to the number of
thirteen.

So long as the procession kept to the highway of the Bayswater
Road, it retained the foot's-pace, but, turning into less
important thorough-fares, it soon broke into a trot, and so
proceeded, with intervals of walking in the more fashionable
streets, until it arrived.  In the first carriage old Jolyon and
Nicholas were talking of their wills.  In the second the twins,
after a single attempt, had lapsed into complete silence; both
were rather deaf, and the exertion of making themselves heard was
too great.  Only once James broke this silence:

"I shall have to be looking about for some ground somewhere.
What arrangements have you made, Swithin?"

And Swithin, fixing him with a dreadful stare, answered:

"Don't talk to me about such things!"

In the third carriage a disjointed conversation was carried on in
the intervals of looking out to see how far they had got, George
remarking, "Well, it was really time that the poor old lady
went."  He didn't believe in people living beyond seventy, Young
Nicholas replied mildly that the rule didn't seem to apply to the
Forsytes.  George said he himself intended to commit suicide at
sixty.  Young Nicholas, smiling and stroking a long chin, didn't
think his father would like that theory; he had made a lot of
money since he was sixty.  Well, seventy was the outside limit;
it was then time, George said, for them to go and leave their
money to their children.  Soames, hitherto silent, here joined
in; he had not forgotten the remark about the 'undertaking,' and,
lifting his eyelids almost imperceptibly, said it was all very
well for people who never made money to talk.  He himself
intended to live as long as he could.  This was a hit at George,
who was notoriously hard up.  Bosinney muttered abstractedly
"Hear, hear!" and, George yawning, the conversation dropped.

Upon arriving, the coffin was borne into the chapel, and, two by
two, the mourners filed in behind it.  This guard of men, all
attached to the dead by the bond of kinship, was an impressive
and singular sight in the great city of London, with its
overwhelming diversity of life, its innumerable vocations,
pleasures, duties, its terrible hardness, its terrible call to
individualism.

The family had gathered to triumph over all this, to give a show
of tenacious unity, to illustrate gloriously that law of property
underlying the growth of their tree, by which it had thriven and
spread, trunk and branches, the sap flowing through all, the full
growth reached at the appointed time.  The spirit of the old
woman lying in her last sleep had called them to this
demonstration.  It was her final appeal to that unity which had
been their strength--it was her final triumph that she had died
while the tree was yet whole.

She was spared the watching of the branches jut out beyond the
point of balance.  She could not look into the hearts of her
followers.  The same law that had worked in her, bringing her up
from a tall, straight-backed slip of a girl to a woman strong
and grown, from a woman grown to a woman old, angular, feeble,
almost witchlike, with individuality all sharpened and sharpened,
as all rounding from the world's contact fell off from her--that
same law would work, was working, in the family she had watched
like a mother.

She had seen it young, and growing, she had seen it strong and
grown, and before her old eyes had time or strength to see any
more, she died.  She would have tried, and who knows but she
might have kept it young and strong, with her old fingers, her
trembling kisses--a little longer; alas! not even Aunt Ann could
fight with Nature.

'Pride comes before a fall!' In accordance with this, the
greatest of Nature's ironies, the Forsyte family had gathered for
a last proud pageant before they fell.  Their faces to right and
left, in single lines, were turned for the most part impassively
toward the ground, guardians of their thoughts; but here and
there, one looking upward, with a line between his brows,
searched to see some sight on the chapel walls too much for him,
to be listening to something that appalled.  And the responses,
low-muttered, in voices through which rose the same tone, the
same unseizable family ring, sounded weird, as though murmured in
hurried duplication by a single person.

The service in the chapel over, the mourners filed up again to
guard the body to the tomb.  The vault stood open, and, round it,
men in black were waiting.

From that high and sacred field, where thousands of the upper
middle class lay in their last sleep, the eyes of the Forsytes
travelled down across the flocks of graves.  There--spreading to
the distance, lay London, with no sun over it, mourning the loss
of its daughter, mourning with this family, so dear, the loss of
her who was mother and guardian.  A hundred thousand spires and
houses, blurred in the great grey web of property, lay there like
prostrate worshippers before the grave of this, the oldest
Forsyte of them all.

A few words, a sprinkle of earth, the thrusting of the coffin
home, and Aunt Ann had passed to her last rest.

Round the vault, trustees of that passing, the five brothers
stood, with white heads bowed; they would see that Ann was
comfortable where she was going.  Her little property must stay
behind, but otherwise, all that could be should be done....

Then severally, each stood aside, and putting on his hat, turned
back to inspect the new inscription on the marble of the family
vault:


SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ANN FORSYTE,
THE DAUGHTER OF THE ABOVE JOLYON
AND ANN FORSYTE, WHO DEPARTED
THIS LIFE THE 27TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER,
1886, AGED EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS AND FOUR DAYS


Soon perhaps, someone else would be wanting an inscription.  It
was strange and intolerable, for they had not thought somehow,
that Forsytes could die.  And one and all they had a longing to
get away from this painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded
them of things they could not bear to think about--to get away
quickly and go about their business and forget.

It was cold, too; the wind, like some slow, disintegrating force,
blowing up the hill over the graves, struck them with its chilly
breath; they began to split into groups, and as quickly as
possible to fill the waiting carriages.

Swithin said he should go back to lunch at Timothy's, and he
offered to take anybody with him in his brougham.  It was
considered a doubtful privilege to drive with Swithin in his
brougham, which was not a large one; nobody accepted, and he went
off alone.  James and Roger followed immediately after; they also
would drop in to lunch.  The others gradually melted away, Old
Jolyon taking three nephews to fill up his carriage; he had a
want of those young faces.

Soames, who had to arrange some details in the cemetery office,
walked away with Bosinney.  He had much to talk over with him,
and, having finished his business, they strolled to Hampstead,
lunched together at the Spaniard's Inn, and spent a long time in
going into practical details connected with the building of the
house; they then proceeded to the tram-line, and came as far as
the Marble Arch, where Bosinney went off to Stanhope Gate to see
June.

Soames felt in excellent spirits when he arrived home, and
confided to Irene at dinner that he had had a good talk with
Bosinney, who really seemed a sensible fellow; they had had a
capital walk too, which had done his liver good--he had been
short of exercise for a long time--and altogether a very
satisfactory day.  If only it hadn't been for poor Aunt Ann, he
would have taken her to the theatre; as it was, they must make
the best of an evening at home.

"The Buccaneer asked after you more than once," he said
suddenly.  And moved by some inexplicable desire to assert his
proprietorship, he rose from his chair and planted a kiss on
his wife's shoulder.





PART II


CHAPTER I

PROGRESS OF THE HOUSE


The winter had been an open one.  Things in the trade were slack;
and as Soames had reflected before making up his mind, it had
been a good time for building.  The shell of the house at Robin
Hill was thus completed by the end of April.

Now that there was something to be seen for his money, he had
been coming down once,  twice, even three times a week, and would
mouse about among the debris for hours, careful never to soil his
clothes, moving silently through the unfinished brickwork of
doorways, or circling round the columns in the central court.

And he would stand before them for minutes' together, as though
peering into the real quality of their substance

On April 30 he had an appointment with Bosinney to go over the
accounts, and five minutes before the proper time he entered the
tent which the architect had pitched for himself close to the old
oak tree.

The accounts were already prepared on a folding table, and  with
a nod Soames sat down to study them.  It was some time before he
raised his head.

"I can't make them out," he said at last; "they come to nearly
seven hundred more than they ought"

After a glance at Bosinney's face he went on quickly:

"If you only make a firm stand against these builder chaps you'll
get them down.  They stick you with everything if you don't look
sharp....  Take ten per cent. off all round.  I shan't mind it's
coming out a hundred or so over the mark!"

Bosinney shook his head:

"I've taken off every farthing I can!"

Soames pushed back the table with a movement of anger, which sent
the account sheets fluttering to the ground.

"Then all I can say is," he flustered out, "you've made a pretty
mess of it!"

"I've told you a dozen times," Bosinney answered sharply, "that
there'd be extras.  I've pointed them out to you over and over
again!"

"I know that," growled Soames: "I shouldn't have objected to a ten
pound note here and there.  How was I to know that by 'extras'
you meant seven hundred pounds?"

The qualities of both men had contributed to this notinconsider-
able discrepancy.  On the one hand, the architect's devotion
to his idea, to the image of a house which he had created and
believed in--had made him nervous of being stopped, or forced
to the use of makeshifts; on the other, Soames' not less true
and wholehearted devotion to the very best article that could  be
obtained for the money, had rendered him averse to believing that
things worth thirteen shillings could not be bought with twelve.

I wish I'd never undertaken your house," said Bosinney suddenly.
"You come down here worrying me out of my life.  You want double
the value for your money anybody else would, and now that you've
got a house that for its size is not to be beaten in the county,
you don't want to pay for it.  If you're anxious to be off your
bargain, I daresay I can find the balance above the estimates
myself, but I'm d----d if I do another stroke of work for you!"

Soames regained his composure.  Knowing that Bosinney had no
capital, he regarded this as a wild suggestion.  He saw, too,
that he would be kept indefinitely out of this house on which he
had set his heart, and just at the crucial point when the
architect's personal care made all the difference.  In the
meantime there was Irene to be thought of!  She had been very
queer lately.  He really believed it was only because she had
taken to Bosinney that she tolerated the idea of the house at
all.  It would not do to make an open breach with her.

"You needn't get into a rage," he said.  "If I'm willing to put
up with it, I suppose you needn't cry out.  All I meant was that
when you tell me a thing is going to cost so much, I like to--
well, in fact, I--like to know where I am."

"Look here!" said Bosinney, and Soames was both annoyed and
surprised by the shrewdness of his glance.  "You've got my
services dirt cheap.  For the kind of work I've put into this
house, and the amount of time I've given to it, you'd have had to
pay Littlemaster or some other fool four times as much.  What you
want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a fourth-rate fee, and
that's exactly what you've got!"

Soames saw that he really meant what he said, and, angry though
he was, the consequences of a row rose before him too vividly.
He saw his house unfinished, his wife rebellious, himself a
laughingstock.

"Let's go over it," he said sulkily, "and see how the money's
gone."

"Very well," assented Bosinney.  "But we'll hurry up, if you
don't mind.  I have to get back in time to take June to the
theatre."

Soames cast a stealthy look at him, and said: "Coming to our
place, I suppose to meet her?" He was always coming to their
place!

There had been rain the night before-a spring rain, and the earth
smelt of sap and wild grasses.  The warm, soft breeze swung the
leaves and the golden buds of the old oak tree, and in the
sunshine the blackbirds were whistling their hearts out.

It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable
yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand
motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his
arms to embrace he knows not what.  The earth gave forth a
fainting warmth, stealing up through the chilly garment in which
winter had wrapped her.  It was her long caress of invitation, to
draw men down to lie within her arms, to roll their bodies on
her, and put their lips to her breast.

On just such a day as this Soames had got from Irene the promise
he had asked her for so often.  Seated on the fallen trunk of a
tree, he had promised for the twentieth time that if their
marriage were not a success, she should be as free as if she had
never married him!

"Do you swear it?" she had said.  A few days back she had
reminded him of that oath.  He had answered: "Nonsense!  I
couldn't have sworn any such thing!"  By some awkward fatality he
remembered it now.  What queer things men would swear for the
sake of women!  He would have sworn it at any time to gain her!
He would swear it now, if thereby he could touch her--but nobody
could touch her, she was cold-hearted!

And memories crowded on him with the fresh, sweet savour of the
spring wind-memories of his courtship.

In the spring of the year 1881 he was visiting his old school-
fellow and client, George Liversedge, of Branksome, who, with
the view of developing his pine-woods in the neighbourhood of
Bournemouth, had placed the formation of the company necessary
to the scheme in Soames's hands.  Mrs. Liversedge, with a sense
of the fitness of things, had given a musical tea in his honour.
Later in the course of this function, which Soames, no musician,
had regarded as an unmitigated bore, his eye had been caught by
the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by herself.  The
lines of her tall, as yet rather thin figure, showed through the
wispy, clinging stuff of her black dress, her black-gloved hands
were crossed in front of her, her lips slightly parted, and her
large, dark eyes wandered from face to face.  Her hair, done low
on her neck, seemed to gleam above her black collar like coils of
shining metal.  And as Soames stood looking at her, the sensation
that most men have felt at one time or another went stealing
through him--a peculiar satisfaction of the senses, a peculiar
certainty, which novelists and old ladies call love at first
sight.  Still stealthily watching her, he at once made his way to
his hostess, and stood doggedly waiting for the music to cease.

"Who is that girl with yellow hair and dark eyes?" he asked.

"That--oh!  Irene Heron.  Her father, Professor Heron, died this
year.  She lives with her stepmother.  She's a nice girl, a
pretty girl, but no money!"

"Introduce me, please," said Soames.

It was very little that he found to say, nor did he find her
responsive to that little.  But he went away with the resolution
to see her again.  He effected his object by chance, meeting her
on the pier with her stepmother, who had the habit of walking
there from twelve to one of a forenoon.  Soames made this lady's
acquaintance with alacrity, nor was it long before he perceived
in her the ally he was looking for.  His keen scent for the
commercial side of family life soon told him that Irene cost her
stepmother more than the fifty pounds a year she brought her; it
also told him that Mrs. Heron, a woman yet in the prime of life,
desired to be married again.  The strange ripening beauty of her
stepdaughter stood in the way of this desirable consummation.
And Soames, in his stealthy tenacity, laid his plans.

He left Bournemouth without having given himself away, but in a
month's time came back, and this time he spoke, not to the girl,
but to her stepmother.  He had made up his mind, he said; he
would wait any time.  And he had long to wait, watching Irene
bloom, the lines of her young figure softening, the stronger
blood deepening the gleam of her eyes, and warming her face to a
creamy glow; and at each visit he proposed to her, and when that
visit was at an end, took her refusal away with him, back to
London, sore at heart, but steadfast and silent as the grave.  He
tried to come at the secret springs of her resistance; only once
had he a gleam of light.  It was at one of those assembly dances,
which afford the only outlet to the passions of the population of
seaside watering-places.  He was sitting with her in an
embrasure, his senses tingling with the contact of the waltz.
She had looked at him over her, slowly waving fan; and he had
lost his head.  Seizing that moving wrist, he pressed his lips to
the flesh of her arm.  And she had shuddered--to this day he had
not forgotten that shudder--nor the look so passionately averse
she had given him.

A year after that she had yielded.  What had made her yield he
could never make out; and from Mrs. Heron, a woman of some
diplomatic talent, he learnt nothing.  Once after they were
married he asked her, "What made you refuse me so often?"  She had
answered by a strange silence.  An enigma to him from the day
that he first saw her, she was an enigma to him still....

Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his rugged,
good-looking, face was a queer, yearning, yet happy look, as
though he too saw a promise of bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a
coming happiness in the spring air.  Soames looked at him waiting
there.  What was the matter with the fellow that he looked so
happy?  What was he waiting for with that smile on his lips and
in his eyes?  Soames could not see that for which Bosinney was
waiting as he stood there drinking in the flower-scented wind.
And once more he felt baffled in the presence of this man whom by
habit he despised.  He hastened on to the house.

"The only colour for those tiles," he heard Bosinney say,--"is
ruby with a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect.
I should like Irene's opinion.  I'm ordering the purple leather
curtains for the doorway of this court; and if you distemper the
drawing-room ivory cream over paper, you'll get an illusive look.
You want to aim all through the decorations at what I call
charm."

Soames said: "You mean that my wife has charm!"

Bosinney evaded the question.

"You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that
court."

Soames smiled superciliously.

"I'll look into Beech's some time," he said, "and see what's
appropriate!"

They found little else to say to each other, but on the way to
the Station Soames asked:

"I suppose you find Irene very artistic."

"Yes." The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: "If
you want to discuss her you can do it with someone else!"

And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the afternoon
burned the brighter within him.

Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station, then
Soames asked:

"When do you expect to have finished?"

"By the end of June, if you really wish me to decorate as well."

Soames nodded.  "But you quite understand," he said, "that the
house is costing me a lot beyond what I contemplated.  I may as
well tell you that I should have thrown it up, only I'm not in
the habit of giving up what I've set my mind on."

Bosinney made no reply.  And Soames gave him askance a look of
dogged dislike--for in spite of his fastidious air and that
supercilious, dandified taciturnity, Soames, with his set lips
and squared chin, was not unlike a bulldog....

When, at seven o'clock that evening, June arrived at 62,
Montpellier Square, the maid Bilson told her that Mr. Bosinney
was in the drawing-room; the mistress--she said--was dressing,
and would be down in a minute.  She would tell her that Miss June
was here.

June stopped her at once.

"All right, Bilson," she said, "I'll just go in.  You, needn't
hurry Mrs. Soames."

She took off her cloak, and Bilson, with an understanding look,
did not even open the drawing-room door for her, but ran
downstairs.

June paused for a moment to look at herself in the little
old-fashioned silver mirror above the oaken rug chest--a slim,
imperious young figure, with a small resolute face, in a white
frock, cut moon-shaped at the base of a neck too slender for her
crown of twisted red-gold hair.

She opened the drawing-room door softly, meaning to take him by
surprise.  The room was filled with a sweet hot scent of
flowering azaleas.

She took a long breath of the perfume, and heard Bosinney's
voice, not in the room, but quite close, saying.

"Ah! there were such heaps of things I wanted to talk about, and
now we shan't have time!"

Irene's voice answered: "Why not at dinner?"

"How can one talk...."

June's first thought was to go away, but instead she crossed to
the long window opening on the little court.  It was from there
that the scent of the azaleas came, and, standing with their
backs to her, their faces buried in the goldenpink blossoms,
stood her lover and Irene.

Silent but unashamed, with flaming cheeks and angry eyes, the
girl watched.

"Come on Sunday by yourself--We can go over the house together."

June saw Irene look up at him through her screen of blossoms.  It
was not the look of a coquette, but--far worse to the watching
girl--of a woman fearful lest that look should say too much.

"I've promised to go for a drive with Uncle...."

"The big one!  Make him bring you; it's only ten miles--the very
thing for his horses."

"Poor old Uncle Swithin!"

A wave of the azalea scent drifted into June's face; she felt
sick and dizzy.

"Do! ah! do!"

"But why?"

"I must see you there--I thought you'd like to help me...."

The answer seemed to the girl to come softly with a tremble from
amongst the blossoms: "So I do!"

And she stepped into the open space of the window.

"How stuffy it is here!" she said; "I can't bear this scent!"

Her eyes, so angry and direct, swept both their faces.

"Were you talking about the house?  I haven't seen it yet, you
know--shall we all go on Sunday?"'

From Irene's face the colour had flown.

"I am going for a drive that day with Uncle Swithin," she
answered.

"Uncle Swithin!  What does he matter?  You can throw him over!"

"I am not in the habit of throwing people over!"

There was a sound of footsteps and June saw Soames standing just
behind her.

"Well! if you are all ready," said Irene, looking from one to
the other with a strange smile, "dinner is too!"




CHAPTER II

JUNE'S  TREAT


Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the
men.

In silence the soup was finished--excellent, if a little thick;
and fish was brought.  In silence it was handed.

Bosinney ventured: "It's the first spring day."

Irene echoed softly: "Yes--the first spring day."

"Spring!" said June: "there isn't a breath of air!" No one
replied.

The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover.  And
Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with
white....

Soames said: "You'll find it dry."

Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs.  They were
refused by June, and silence fell.

Soames said: "You'd better take a cutlet, June; there's nothing
coming."

But June again refused, so they were borne away.  And then Irene
asked: "Phil, have you heard my blackbird?"

Bosinney answered: "Rather--he's got a hunting-song.  As I came
round I heard him in the Square."

"He's such a darling!"

"Salad, sir?" Spring chicken was removed.

But Soames was speaking: "The asparagus is very poor.  Bosinney,
glass of sherry with your sweet?  June, you're drinking nothing!"

June said: "You know I never do.  Wine's such horrid stuff!"

An apple charlotte came upon a silver dish, and smilingly Irene
said: "The azaleas are so wonderful this year!"

To this Bosinney murmured: "Wonderful! The scent's
extraordinary!"

June said: "How can you like the scent?  Sugar, please, Bilson."

Sugar was handed her, and Soames remarked: "This charlottes
good!"

The charlotte was removed.  Long silence followed.  Irene,
beckoning, said: "Take out the azalea, Bilson.  Miss June can't
bear the scent."

"No; let it stay," said June.

Olives from France, with Russian caviare, were placed on little
plates.  And Soames remarked: "Why can't we have the Spanish?"
But no one answered.

The olives were removed.  Lifting her tumbler June demanded:
"Give me some water, please."  Water was given her.  A silver tray
was brought, with German plums.  There was a lengthy pause.  In
perfect harmony all were eating them.

Bosinney counted up the stones: "This year--next year--some time."

Irene finished softly: "Never! There was such a glorious sunset.
The sky's all ruby still--so beautiful!"

He answered: "Underneath the dark."

Their eyes had met, and June cried scornfully: "A London sunset!"

Egyptian cigarettes were handed in a silver box.  Soames, taking
one, remarked: "What time's your play begin?"

No one replied, and Turkish coffee followed in enamelled cups.

Irene, smiling quietly, said: "If only...."

"Only what?" said June.

"If only it could always be the spring!"

Brandy was handed; it was pale and old.

Soames said: "Bosinney, better take some brandy."

Bosinney took a glass; they all arose.

"You want a cab?" asked Soames.

June answered: "No! My cloaks please, Bilson."  Her cloak was
brought.

Irene, from the window, murmured: "Such a lovely night!  The
stars are coming out!"

Soames added: "Well, I hope you'll both enjoy yourselves."

From the door June answered: "Thanks.  Come, Phil."

Bosinney cried: "I'm coming."

Soames smiled a sneering smile, and said: "I wish you luck!"

And at the door Irene watched them go.

Bosinney called: "Good night!"

"Good night!" she answered softly....

June made her lover take her on the top of a 'bus, saying she
wanted air, and there sat silent, with her face to the breeze.

The driver turned once or twice, with the intention of venturing
a remark, but thought better of it.  They were a lively couple!
The spring had got into his blood, too; he felt the need for
letting steam escape, and clucked his tongue, flourishing his
whip, wheeling his horses, and even they, poor things, had
smelled the spring, and for a brief half-hour spurned the
pavement with happy hoofs.

The whole town was alive; the boughs, curled upward with their
decking of young leaves, awaited some gift the breeze could
bring.  New-lighted lamps were gaining mastery, and the faces of
the crowd showed pale under that glare, while on high the great
white clouds slid swiftly, softly, over the purple sky.

Men in, evening dress had thrown back overcoats, stepping
jauntily up the steps of Clubs; working folk loitered; and women-
-those women who at that time of night are solitary--solitary and
moving eastward in a stream--swung slowly along, with expectation
in their gait, dreaming of good wine and a good supper, or--for
an unwonted minute, of kisses given for love.

Those countless figures, going their ways under the lamps and the
moving-sky, had one and all received some restless blessing from
the stir of spring.  And one and all, like those clubmen with
their opened coats, had shed something of caste, and creed, and
custom, and by the cock of their hats, the pace of their walk,
their laughter, or their silence, revealed their common kinship
under the passionate heavens.

Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence, and mounted to
their seats in the upper boxes.  The piece had just begun, and
the half-darkened house, with its rows of creatures peering all
one way, resembled a great garden of flowers turning their faces
to the sun.

June had never before been in the upper boxes.  From the age of
fifteen she had habitually accompanied her grandfather to the
stalls, and not common stalls, but the best seats in the house,
towards the centre of the third row, booked by old Jolyon, at
Grogan and Boyne's, on his way home from the City, long before
the day; carried in his overcoat pocket, together with his
cigarcase and his old kid gloves, and handed to June to keep till
the appointed night.  And in those stalls--an erect old figure
with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous and eager,
with a red-gold head--they would sit through every kind of play,
and on the way home old Jolyon would say of the principal actor:
"Oh, he's a poor stick!  You should have seen little Bobson!"

She had looked forward to this evening with keen delight; it was
stolen, chaperone-less, undreamed of at Stanhope Gate, where she
was supposed to be at Soames'.  She had expected reward for her
subterfuge, planned for her lover's sake; she had expected it to
break up the thick, chilly cloud, and make the relations between
them which of late had been so puzzling, so tormenting--sunny and
simple again as they had been before the winter.  She had come
with the intention of saying something definite; and she looked
at the stage with a furrow between her brows, seeing nothing, her
hands squeezed together in her lap.  A swarm of jealous
suspicions stung and stung her.

If Bosinney was conscious of her trouble he made no sign.

The curtain dropped.  The first act had come to an end.

"It's awfully hot here!" said the girl; "I should like to go
out."

She was very white, and she knew--for with her nerves thus
sharpened she saw everything--that he was both uneasy and
compunctious.

At the back of the theatre an open balcony hung over the street;
she took possession of this, and stood leaning there without a
word, waiting for him to begin.

At last she could bear it no longer.

"I want to say something to you, Phil," she said.

"Yes?"

The defensive tone of his voice brought the colour flying to her
cheek, the words flying to her lips: "You don't give me a chance
to be nice to you; you haven't for ages now!"

Bosinney stared down at the street.  He made no answer....

June cried passionately: "You know I want to do everything for
you--that I want to be everything to you...."

A hum rose from the street, and, piercing it with a sharp
'ping,' the bell sounded for the raising of the curtain. June did
not stir.  A desperate struggle was going on within her.  Should
she put everything to the proof?  Should she challenge directly
that influence, that attraction which was driving him away from
her?  It was her nature to challenge, and she said: "Phil, take
me to see the house on Sunday!"

With a smile quivering and breaking on her lips, and trying, how
hard, not to show that she was watching, she searched his face,
saw it waver and hesitate, saw a troubled line come between his
brows, the blood rush into his face.  He answered: "Not Sunday,
dear; some other day!"

"Why not Sunday?  I shouldn't be in the way on Sunday."

He made an evident effort, and said: "I have an engagement."

"You are going to take...."

His eyes grew angry; he shrugged his shoulders, and answered: "An
engagement that will prevent my taking you to see the house!"

June bit her lip till the blood came, and walked back to her seat
without another word, but she could not help the tears of rage
rolling down her face.  The house had been mercifully darkened
for a crisis, and no one could see her trouble.

Yet in this world of Forsytes let no man think himself immune
from observation.

In the third row behind, Euphemia, Nicholas's youngest daughter,
with her married-sister, Mrs. Tweetyman, were watching.

They reported at Timothy's, how they had seen June and her fiance
at the theatre.

"In the stalls?"  "No, not in the...."  "Oh! in the dress
circle, of course.  That seemed to be quite fashionable nowadays
with young people!"

Well--not exactly.  In the....  Anyway, that engagement wouldn't
last long.  They had never seen anyone look so thunder and
lightningy as that little June!  With tears of enjoyment in their
eyes, they related how she had kicked a man's hat as she returned
to her seat in the middle of an act, and how the man had looked.
Euphemia had a noted, silent laugh, terminating most disappoint-
ingly in squeaks; and when Mrs. Small, holding up her hands, said:
"My dear!  Kicked a ha-at?" she let out such a number of these that
she had to be recovered with smelling-salts.  As she went away
she said to Mrs. Tweetyman:

"Kicked a--ha-at!  Oh!  I shall die."

For 'that little June' this evening, that was to have been 'her
treat,' was the most miserable she had ever spent.  God knows she
tried to stifle her pride, her suspicion, her jealousy!

She parted from Bosinney at old Jolyon's door without breaking
down; the feeling that her lover must be conquered was strong
enough to sustain her till his retiring footsteps brought home
the true extent of her wretchedness.

The noiseless 'Sankey' let her in.  She would have slipped up to
her own room, but old Jolyon, who had heard her entrance, was in
the dining-room doorway.

"Come in and have your milk," he said.  "It's been kept hot for
you.  You're very late.  Where have you been?"

June stood at the fireplace, with a foot on the fender and an arm
on the mantelpiece, as her grandfather had done when he came in
that night of the opera.  She was too near a breakdown to care
what she told him.

"We dined at Soames's."

"H'm! the man of property!  His wife there and Bosinney?"

"Yes."

Old Jolyon's glance was fixed on her with the penetrating gaze
from which it was difficult to hide; but she was not looking at
him, and when she turned her face, he dropped his scrutiny at
once.  He had seen enough, and too much.  He bent down to lift
the cup of milk for her from the hearth, and, turning away,
grumbled: "You oughtn't to stay out so late; it makes you fit for
nothing."

He was invisible now behind his paper, which he turned with a
vicious crackle; but when June came up to kiss him, he said:
"Good-night, my darling," in a tone so tremulous and unexpected,
that it was all the girl could do to get out of the room without
breaking into the fit of sobbing which lasted her well on into
the night.

When the door was closed, old Jolyon dropped his paper, and
stared long and anxiously in front of him.

'The beggar!' he thought.  'I always knew she'd have trouble with
him!'

Uneasy doubts and suspicions, the more poignant that he felt
himself powerless to check or control the march of events, came
crowding upon him.

Was the fellow going to jilt her?  He longed to go and say to
him: "Look here, you sir!  Are you going to jilt my grand-
daughter?"  But how could he?  Knowing little or nothing, he
was yet certain, with his unerring astuteness, that there was
something going on.  He suspected Bosinney of being too much at
Montpellier Square.

'This fellow,' he thought, 'may not be a scamp; his face is not a
bad one, but he's a queer fish.  I don't know what to make of
him.  I shall never know what to make of him!  They tell me he
works like a nigger, but I see no good coming of it.  He's
unpractical, he has no method.  When he comes here, he sits as
glum as a monkey.  If I ask him what wine he'll have, he says:
"Thanks, any wine." If I offer him a cigar, he smokes it as if it
were a twopenny German thing.  I never see him looking at June as
he ought to look at her; and yet, he's not after her money.  If
she were to make a sign, he'd be off his bargain to-morrow.  But
she won't--not she!  She'll stick to him!  She's as obstinate as
fate--She'll never let go!'

Sighing deeply, he turned the paper; in its columns, perchance he
might find consolation.

And upstairs in her room June sat at her open window, where the
spring wind came, after its revel across the Park, to cool her
hot cheeks and burn her heart.




CHAPTER III

DRIVE WITH SWITHIN


Two lines of a certain song in a certain famous old school's
songbook run as follows:

'How the buttons on his blue frock shone, tra-la-la!
How he carolled and he sang, like a bird!....'

Swithin did not exactly carol and sing like a bird, but he felt
almost like endeavouring to hum a tune, as he stepped out of Hyde
Park  Mansions, and contemplated his horses drawn up before the
door.

The afternoon was as balmy as a day in June, and to complete the
simile of the old song, he had put on a blue frock-coat,
dispensing with an overcoat, after sending Adolf down three times
to make sure that there was not the least suspicion of east in
the wind; and the frock-coat was buttoned so tightly around his
personable form, that, if the buttons did not shine, they might
pardonably have done so.  Majestic on the pavement he fitted on a
pair of dog-skin gloves; with his large bell-shaped top hat, and
his great stature and bulk he looked too primeval for a Forsyte.
His thick white hair, on which Adolf had bestowed a touch of
pomatum, exhaled the fragrance of opoponax and cigars--the
celebrated Swithin brand, for which he paid one hundred and
forty shillings the hundred, and of which old Jolyon had unkindly
said, he wouldn't smoke them as a gift; they wanted the stomach
of a horse!

"Adolf!"

"Sare!"

"The new plaid rug!"

He would never teach that fellow to look smart; and Mrs. Soames
he felt sure, had an eye!

"The phaeton hood down; I am going--to--drive--a--lady!"

A pretty woman would want to show off her frock; and well--he was
going to drive a lady!  It was like a new beginning to the good
old days.

Ages since he had driven a woman!  The last time, if he
remembered, it had been Juley; the poor old soul had been as
nervous as a cat the whole time, and so put him out of patience
that, as he dropped her in the Bayswater Road, he had said: "Well
I'm d---d if I ever drive you again!"  And he never had, not he!

Going up to his horses' heads, he examined their bits; not that
he knew anything about bits--he didn't pay his coachman sixty
pounds a  year to do his work for him, that had never been his
principle.  Indeed, his reputation as a horsey man rested mainly
on the fact that once, on Derby Day, he had been welshed by some
thimble-riggers.  But someone at the Club, after seeing him drive
his greys up to the door--he always drove grey horses, you got
more style for the money, some thought--had called him 'Four-
in-hand Forsyte.' The name having reached his ears through that
fellow Nicholas Treffry, old Jolyon's dead partner, the great
driving man notorious for more carriage accidents than any man in
the kingdom--Swithin had ever after conceived it right to act up
to it.  The name had taken his fancy, not because he had ever
driven four-in-hand, or was ever likely to, but because of
something distinguished in the sound.  Four-in-hand Forsyte!  Not
bad!  Born too soon, Swithin had missed his vocation.  Coming
upon London twenty years later, he could not have failed to have
become a stockbroker, but at the time when he was obliged to
select, this great profession had not as yet became the chief
glory of the upper-middle class.  He had literally been forced
into land agency.

Once in the driving seat, with the reins handed to him, and
blinking over his pale old cheeks in the full sunlight, he took a
slow look round--Adolf was already up behind; the cockaded groom
at the horses' heads stood ready to let go; everything was
prepared for the signal, and Swithin gave it.  The equipage
dashed forward, and before you could say Jack Robinson, with a
rattle and flourish drew up at Soames' door.

Irene came out at once, and stepped in--he afterward described it
at Timothy's--"as light as--er--Taglioni, no fuss about it, no
wanting this or wanting that;" and above all, Swithin dwelt on
this, staring at Mrs. Septimus in a way that disconcerted her a
good deal, "no silly nervousness!"  To Aunt Hester he portrayed
Irene's hat.  "Not one of your great flopping things, sprawling
about, and catching the dust, that women are so fond of nowadays,
but a neat little--" he made a circular motion of his hand, "white
veil--capital taste."

"What was it made of?" inquired Aunt Hester, who manifested a
languid but permanent excitement at any mention of dress.

"Made of?" returned Swithin; "now how should I know?"

He sank into silence so profound that Aunt Hester began to be
afraid he had fallen into a trance.  She did not try to rouse him
herself, it not being her custom.

'I wish somebody would come,' she thought; 'I don't like the look
of him!'

But suddenly Swithin returned to life.  "Made of" he wheezed out
slowly, "what should it be made of?"

They had not gone four miles before Swithin received the
impression that Irene liked driving with him.  Her face was so
soft behind that white veil, and her dark eyes shone so in the
spring light, and whenever he spoke she raised them to him and
smiled.

On Saturday morning Soames had found her at her writing-table
with a note written to Swithin, putting him off.  Why did she
want to put him off? he asked.  She might put her own people off
when she liked, he would not have her putting off his people!

She had looked at him intently, had torn up the note, and said:
"Very well!"

And then she began writing another.  He took a casual glance
presently, and saw that it was addressed to Bosinney.

"What are you writing to him about?" he asked.

Irene, looking at him again with that intent look, said quietly:
"Something he wanted me to do for him!"

"Humph!" said Soames,--"Commissions!"

"You'll have your work cut out if you begin that sort of thing!"
He said no more.

Swithin opened his eyes at the mention of Robin Hill; it was a
long way for his horses, and he always dined at half-past seven,
before the rush at the Club began; the new chef took more trouble
with an early dinner--a lazy rascal!

He would like to have a look at the house, however.  A house
appealed to any Forsyte, and especially to one who had been an
auctioneer.  After all he said the distance was nothing.  When he
was a younger man he had had rooms at Richmond for many years,
kept his carriage and pair there, and drove them up and down to
business every day of his life.

Four-in-hand Forsyte they called him!  His T-cart, his horses had
been known from Hyde Park Corner to the Star and Garter.  The
Duke of Z....  wanted to get hold of them, would have given him
double the money, but he had kept them; know a good thing when
you have it, eh?  A look of solemn pride came portentously on his
shaven square old face, he rolled his head in his stand-up
collar, like a turkey-cock preening himself.

She was really--a charming woman!  He enlarged upon her frock
afterwards to Aunt Juley, who held up her hands at his way of
putting it.

Fitted her like a skin--tight as a drum; that was how he liked
'em, all of a piece, none of your daverdy, scarecrow women!  He
gazed at Mrs. Septimus Small, who took after James--long and
thin.

"There's style about her," he went on, "fit for a king!  And
she's so quiet with it too!"

"She seems to have made quite a conquest of you, any way,"
drawled Aunt Hester from her corner.

Swithin heard extremely well when anybody attacked him.

"What's that?" he said.  "I know a--pretty--woman when I see one,
and all I can say is, I don't see the young man about that's fit
for her; but perhaps--you--do, come, perhaps--you-do!"

"Oh?" murmured Aunt Hester, "ask Juley!"

Long before they reached Robin Hill, however, the unaccustomed
airing had made him terribly sleepy; he drove with his eyes
closed, a life-time of deportment alone keeping his tall and
bulky form from falling askew.

Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them, and all three
entered the house together; Swithin in front making play with a
stout gold-mounted Malacca cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for
his knees were feeling the effects of their long stay in the same
position.  He had assumed his fur coat, to guard against the
draughts of the unfinished house.

The staircase--he said--was handsome! the baronial style!  They
would want some statuary about!  He came to a standstill between
the columns of the doorway into the inner court, and held out his
cane inquiringly.

What was this to be--this vestibule, or whatever they called it?
But gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him.

"Ah! the billiard-room!"

When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre,
he turned to Irene:

"Waste this on plants?  You take my advice and have a billiard
table here!"

Irene smiled.  She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun's
coif across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below
this seemed to Swithin more charming than ever.  He nodded.  She
would take his advice he saw.

He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he
described as 'spacious"; but fell into such raptures as he
permitted to a man of his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which
he descended by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light.

"You'll have room here," he said, "for six or seven hundred
dozen--a very pooty little cellar!"

Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from
the copse below, Swithin came to a stop.

"There's a fine view from here," he remarked; "you haven't such a
thing as a chair?"

A chair was brought him from Bosinney's tent.

"You go down," he said blandly; "you two!  I'll sit here and look
at the view."

He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with
one hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other
planted on his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing
with its flat top the pale square of his face; his stare, very
blank, fixed on the landscape.

He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields.  He
was, indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of
reflection.  The air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the
prospect a fine one, a remarka....  His head fell a little to one
side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd!  He--ah!  They were
waving to him from the bottom!  He put up his hand, and moved it
more than once.  They were active--the prospect was remar....
His head fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it fell to
the right.  It remained there; he was asleep.

And asleep, a sentinel on the--top of the rise, he  appeared to
rule over this prospect--remarkable--like some image blocked out
by the special artist, of primeval Forsytes in pagan days, to
record the domination of mind over matter!

And all the unnumbered generations of his yeoman ancestors, wont
of a Sunday to stand akimbo surveying their little plots of land,
their grey unmoving eyes hiding their instinct with its hidden
roots of violence, their instinct for possession to the exclusion
of all the world--all these unnumbered generations seemed to sit
there with him on the top of the rise.

But from him, thus slumbering, his jealous Forsyte spirit
travelled far, into God-knows-what jungle of fancies; with those
two young people, to see what they were doing down there in the
copse--in the copse where the spring was running riot with the
scent of sap and bursting buds, the song of birds innumerable, a
carpet of bluebells and sweet growing things, and the sun caught
like gold in the tops of the trees; to see what they were doing,
walking along there so close together on the path that was too
narrow; walking along there so close that they were always
touching; to watch Irene's eyes, like dark thieves, stealing the
heart out of the spring.  And a great unseen chaperon, his spirit
was there, stopping with them to look at the little furry corpse
of a mole, not dead an hour, with his mushroom-and-silver coat
untouched by the rain or dew; watching over Irene's bent head,
and the soft look of her pitying eyes; and over that young man's
head, gazing at her so hard, so strangely.  Walking on with them,
too, across the open space where a wood-cutter had been at work,
where the bluebells were trampled down, and a trunk had swayed
and staggered down from its gashed stump.  Climbing it with them,
over, and on to the very edge of the copse, whence there
stretched an undiscovered country, from far away in which came
the sounds, 'Cuckoo-cuckoo!'

Silent, standing with them there, and uneasy at their silence!
Very queer, very strange!

Then back again, as though guilty, through the wood--back to the
cutting, still silent, amongst the songs of birds that never
ceased, and the wild scent--hum! what was it--like that herb
they put in--back to the log across the path....

And then unseen, uneasy, flapping above them, trying to make
noises, his Forsyte spirit watched her balanced on the log, her
pretty figure swaying, smiling down at that young man gazing up
with such strange, shining eyes, slipping now--a--ah! falling,
o--oh! sliding--down his breast; her soft, warm body clutched,
her head bent back from his lips; his kiss; her recoil; his cry:
"You must know--I love you!"  Must know--indeed, a pretty...?
Love!  Hah!

Swithin awoke; virtue had gone out of him.  He had a taste in his
mouth.  Where was he?

Damme!  He had been asleep!

He had dreamed something about a new soup, with a taste of mint
in it.

Those young people--where had they got to?  His left leg had pins
and needles.

"Adolf!"  The rascal was not there; the rascal was asleep
somewhere.

He stood up, tall, square, bulky in his fur, looking anxiously
down over the fields, and presently he saw them coming.

Irene was in front; that young fellow--what had they nicknamed
him--'The Buccaneer?' looked precious hangdog there behind her;
had got a flea in his ear, he shouldn't wonder.  Serve him right,
taking her down all that way to look at the house!  The proper
place to look at a house from was the lawn.

They saw him.  He extended his arm, and moved it spasmodically to
encourage them.  But they had stopped.  What were they standing
there for, talking--talking?  They came on again.  She had been,
giving him a rub, he had not the least doubt of it, and no
wonder, over a house like that--a great ugly thing, not the sort
of house he was accustomed to.

He looked intently at their faces, with his pale, immovable
stare.  That young man looked very queer!

"You'll never make anything of this!" he said tartly, pointing at
the mansion;--"too newfangled!"

Bosinney gazed at him as though he had not heard; and Swithin
afterwards described him to Aunt Hester as "an extravagant sort
of fellow very odd way of looking at you--a bumpy beggar!"

What gave rise to this sudden piece of psychology he did not
state; possibly Bosinney's, prominent forehead and cheekbones and
chin, or something hungry in his face, which quarrelled with
Swithin's conception of the calm satiety that should characterize
the perfect gentleman.

He brightened up at the mention of tea.  He had a contempt for
tea--his brother Jolyon had been in tea; made a lot of money by
it--but he was so thirsty, and had such a taste in his mouth,
that he was prepared to drink anything.  He longed to inform
Irene of the taste in his mouth--she was so sympathetic--but it
would not be a distinguished thing to do; he rolled his tongue
round, and faintly smacked it against his palate.

In a far corner of the tent Adolf was bending his cat-like
moustaches over a kettle.  He left it at once to draw the cork of
a pint-bottle of champagne.  Swithin smiled, and, nodding at
Bosinney, said: "Why, you're quite a Monte Cristo!"  This
celebrated novel--one of the half-dozen he had read--had produced
an extraordinary impression on his mind.

Taking his glass from the table, he held it away from him to
scrutinize the colour; thirsty as he was, it was not likely that
he was going to drink trash!  Then, placing it to his lips, he
took a sip.

"A very nice wine," he said at last, passing it before his nose;
"not the equal of my Heidsieck!"

It was at this moment that the idea came to him which he
afterwards imparted at Timothy's in this nutshell: "I shouldn't
wonder a bit if that architect chap were sweet upon Mrs. Soames!"

And from this moment his pale, round eyes never ceased to bulge
with the interest of his discovery.

"The fellow," he said to Mrs. Septimus, "follows her about with
his eyes like a dog--the bumpy beggar!  I don't wonder at it--
she's a very charming woman, and, I should say, the pink of
discretion!"  A vague consciousness of perfume caging about
Irene, like that from a flower with half-closed petals and a
passionate heart, moved him to the creation of this image.  "But
I wasn't sure of it," he said, "till I saw him pick up her
handkerchief."

Mrs. Small's eyes boiled with excitement.

"And did he give it her back?" she asked.

"Give it back?" said Swithin: "I saw him slobber on it when he
thought I wasn't looking!"

Mrs. Small gasped--too interested to speak.

"But she gave him no encouragement," went on Swithin; he stopped,
and stared for a minute or two in the way that alarmed Aunt
Hester so--he had suddenly recollected that, as they were
starting back in the phaeton, she had given Bosinney her hand a
second time, and let it stay there too....  He had touched his
horses smartly with the whip, anxious to get her all to himself.
But she had looked back, and she had not answered his first
question; neither had he been able to see her face--she had kept
it hanging down.

There is somewhere a picture, which Swithin has not seen, of a
man sitting on a rock, and by him, immersed in the still, green
water, a sea-nymph lying on her back, with her hand on her naked
breast.  She has a half-smile on her face--a smile of hopeless
surrender and of secret joy.

Seated by Swithin's side, Irene may have been smiling like that.

When, warmed by champagne, he had her all to himself, he
unbosomed himself of his wrongs; of his smothered resentment
against the new chef at the club; his worry over the house in
Wigmore Street, where the rascally tenant had gone bankrupt
through helping his brother-in-law as if charity did not begin at
home; of his deafness, too, and that pain he sometimes got in his
right side.  She listened, her eyes swimming under their lids.
He thought she was thinking deeply of his troubles, and pitied
himself terribly.  Yet in his fur coat, with frogs across the
breast, his top hat aslant, driving this beautiful woman, he had
never felt more distinguished.

A coster, however, taking his girl for a Sunday airing, seemed to
have the same impression about himself.  This person had flogged
his donkey into a gallop alongside, and sat, upright as a
waxwork, in his shallopy chariot, his chin settled pompously on a
red handkerchief, like Swithin's on his full cravat; while his
girl, with the ends of a fly-blown boa floating out behind, aped
a woman of fashion.  Her swain moved a stick with a ragged bit of
string dangling from the end, reproducing with strange fidelity
the circular flourish of Swithin's whip, and rolled his head at
his lady with a leer that had a weird likeness to Swithin's
primeval stare.

Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian's presence,
Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed.
He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank.  The two chariots,
however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast.
Swithin's yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash
the costermonger, but was saved from so far forgetting his
dignity by a special intervention of Providence.  A carriage
driving out through a gate forced phaeton and donkey-cart into
proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle skidded, and
was overturned.

Swithin did not look round.  On no account would he have pulled
up to help the ruffian.  Serve him right if he had broken his
neck!

But he could not if he would.  The greys had taken alarm.  The
phaeton swung from side to side, and people raised frightened
faces as they went dashing past.  Swithin's great arms, stretched
at full length, tugged at the reins.  His cheeks were puffed, his
lips compressed, his swollen face was of a dull, angry red.

Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch she gripped it
tightly.  Swithin heard her ask:

"Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?"

He gasped out between his pants: "It's nothing; a--little fresh!"

"I've never been in an accident."

"Don't you move!"  He took a look at her.  She was smiling,
perfectly calm.  "Sit still," he repeated.  "Never fear, I'll get
you home!"

And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was surprised to
hear her answer in a voice not like her own:

"I don't care if I never get home!"

The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithin's exclamation was
jerked back into his throat.  The horses, winded by the rise of a
hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their own
accord.

"When"--Swithin described it at Timothy's--"I pulled 'em up,
there she was as cool as myself.  God bless my soul! she behaved
as if she didn't care whether she broke her neck or not!  What
was it she said: 'I don't care if I never get home?"  Leaning over
the handle of his cane, he wheezed out, to Mrs. Small's terror:
"And I'm not altogether surprised, with a finickin' feller like
young Soames for a husband!"

It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had done after
they had left him there alone; whether he had gone wandering
about like the dog to which Swithin had compared him; wandering
down to that copse where the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo
still calling from afar; gone down there with her handkerchief
pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling with the scent of mint
and thyme.  Gone down there with such a wild, exquisite pain in
his heart that he could have cried out among the trees.  Or what,
indeed, the fellow had done.  In fact, till he came to Timothy's,
Swithin had forgotten all about him.




CHAPTER IV

JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF


Those ignorant of Forsyte 'Change would not, perhaps, foresee all
the stir made by Irene's visit to the house.

After Swithin had related at Timothy's the full story of his
memorable drive, the same, with the least suspicion of curiosity,
the merest touch of malice, and a real desire to do good, was
passed on to June.

"And what a dreadful thing to say, my dear!" ended Aunt Juley;
"that about not going home.  What did she mean?"

It was a strange recital for the girl.  She heard it flushing
painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt handshake, took her
departure.

"Almost rude!" Mrs. Small said to Aunt Hester, when June was
gone.

The proper construction was put on her reception of the news.
She was upset.  Something was therefore very wrong.  Odd!  She
and Irene had been such friends!

It all tallied too well with whispers and hints that had been
going about for some time past.  Recollections of Euphemia's
account of the visit to the theatre--Mr. Bosinney always at
Soames's?  Oh, indeed!  Yes, of course, he would be about the
house!  Nothing open.  Only upon the greatest, the most important
provocation was it necessary to say anything open on Forsyte
'Change.  This machine was too nicely adjusted; a hint, the
merest trifling expression of regret or doubt, sufficed to set
the family soul so sympathetic--vibrating.  No one desired that
harm should come of these vibrations--far from it; they were set
in motion with the best intentions, with the feeling, that each
member of the family had a stake in the family soul.

And much kindness lay at the bottom of the gossip; it would
frequently result in visits of condolence being made, in
accordance with the customs of Society, thereby conferring a real
benefit upon the sufferers, and affording consolation to the
sound, who felt pleasantly that someone at all events was
suffering from that from which they themselves were not
suffering.  In fact, it was simply a desire to keep things
well-aired, the desire which animates the Public Press, that
brought James, for instance, into communication with Mrs.
Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases, the little
Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on.  That great class to
which they had risen, and now belonged, demanded a certain
candour, a still more certain reticence.  This combination
guaranteed their membership.

Many of the younger Forsytes felt, very naturally, and would
openly declare, that they did not want their affairs pried into;
but so powerful was the invisible, magnetic current of family
gossip, that for the life of them they could not help knowing all
about everything.  It was felt to be hopeless.

One of them (young Roger) had made an heroic attempt to free the
rising generation, by speaking of Timothy as an 'old cat.' The
effort had justly recoiled upon himself; the words, coming round
in the most delicate way to Aunt Juley's ears, were repeated by
her in a shocked voice to Mrs. Roger, whence they returned again
to young Roger.

And, after all, it was only the wrong-doers who suffered; as, for
instance, George, when he lost all that money playing billiards;
or young Roger himself, when he was so dreadfully near to
marrying the girl to whom, it was whispered, he was already
married by the laws of Nature; or again Irene, who was thought,
rather than said, to be in danger.

All this was not only pleasant but salutary.  And it made so many
hours go lightly at Timothy's in the Bayswater Road; so many
hours that must otherwise have been sterile and heavy to those
three who lived there; and Timothy's was but one of hundreds of
such homes in this City of London--the homes of neutral persons
of the secure classes, who are out of the battle themselves, and
must find their reason for existing, in the battles of others.

But for the sweetness of family gossip, it must indeed have been
lonely there.  Rumours and tales, reports, surmises--were they
not the children of the house, as dear and precious as the
prattling babes the brother and sisters had missed in their own
journey?  To talk about them was as near as they could get to
the possession of all those children and grandchildren, after
whom their soft hearts yearned.  For though it is doubtful
whether Timothy's heart yearned, it is indubitable that at the
arrival of each fresh Forsyte child he was quite upset.

Useless for young Roger to say, "Old cat!" for Euphemia to hold up
her hands and cry: "Oh! those three!" and break into her silent
laugh with the squeak at the end.  Useless, and not too kind.

The situation which at this stage might seem, and especially to
Forsyte eyes, strange--not to  say 'impossible'--was, in view of
certain facts, not so strange after all.  Some things had been
lost sight of.  And first, in the security bred of many harmless
marriages, it had been forgotten that Love is no hot-house
flower, but a wild plant, born of  a wet night, born of an hour
of sunshine; sprung  from wild seed, blown along the road by a
wild wind.  A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within
the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms
outside we call a  weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and
colour  are always, wild!  And further--the facts and figures of
their own lives being against the perception of this truth--it
was not generally recognised by Forsytes that, where, this wild
plant springs, men and women  are but moths around the pale,
flame-like  blossom.

It was long since young Jolyon's escapade--there was danger of a
tradition again arising that people in their position never cross
the hedge to pluck that flower; that one could reckon on having
love, like measles, once in due season, and getting over it
comfortably for all time--as with measles, on a soothing mixture
of butter and honey--in the arms of wedlock.

Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and Mrs.
Soames reached, James was the most affected.  He had long
forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of
chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship.  He
had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair,
where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather,
he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house,--a
Forsyte never forgot a house--he had afterwards sold it at a
clear profit of four hundred pounds.

He had long forgotten those days, with their hopes and fears and
doubts about the prudence of the match (for Emily, though pretty,
had nothing, and he himself at that time was making a bare
thousand a year), and that strange, irresistible attraction which
had drawn him on, till he felt he must die if he could not marry
the girl with the fair hair, looped so neatly back, the fair arms
emerging from a skin-tight bodice, the fair form decorously
shielded by a cage of really stupendous circumference.

James had passed through the fire, but he had passed also through
the river of years which washes out the fire; he had experienced
the saddest experience of all--forgetfulness of what it was like
to be in love.

Forgotten!  Forgotten so long, that he had forgotten even that he
had forgotten.

And now this rumour had come upon him, this rumour about his
son's wife; very vague, a shadow dodging among the palpable,
straightforward appearances of things, unreal, unintelligible as
a ghost, but carrying with it, like a ghost, inexplicable terror.

He tried to bring it home to his mind, but it was no more use
than trying to apply to himself one of those tragedies he read of
daily in his evening paper.  He simply could not.  There could be
nothing in it.  It was all their nonsense.  She didn't get on
with Soames as well as she might, but she was a good little
thing--a good little thing!

Like the not inconsiderable majority of men, James relished a
nice little bit of scandal, and would say, in a matter-of-fact
tone, licking his lips, "Yes, yes--she and young Dyson; they tell
me they're living at Monte Carlo!"

But the significance of an affair of this sort--of its past, its
present, or its future--had never struck him.  What it meant,
what torture and raptures had gone to its construction, what
slow, overmastering fate had lurked within the facts, very naked,
sometimes sordid, but generally spicy, presented to his gaze.  He
was not in the habit of blaming, praising, drawing deductions, or
generalizing at all about such things; he simply listened rather
greedily, and repeated what he was told, finding considerable
benefit from the practice, as from the consumption of a sherry
and bitters before a meal.

Now, however, that such a thing--or rather the rumour, the breath
of it--had come near him personally, he felt as in a fog, which
filled his mouth full of a bad, thick flavour, and made it
difficult to draw breath.

A scandal!  A possible scandal!

To repeat this word to himself thus was the only way in which he
could focus or make it thinkable.  He had forgotten the
sensations necessary for understanding the progress, fate, or
meaning of any such business; he simply could no longer grasp the
possibilities of people running any risk for the sake of passion.

Amongst all those persons of his acquaintance, who went into the
City day after day and did their business there, whatever it was,
and in their leisure moments bought shares, and houses, and ate
dinners, and played games, as he was told, it would have seemed
to him ridiculous to suppose that there were any who would run
risks for the sake of anything so recondite, so figurative, as
passion.

Passion!  He seemed, indeed, to have heard of it, and rules such
as 'A young man and a young woman ought never to be trusted
together' were fixed in his mind as the parallels of latitude are
fixed on a map (for all Forsytes, when it comes to 'bed-rock'
matters of fact, have quite a fine taste in realism); but as to
anything else--well, he could only appreciate it at all through
the catch-word 'scandal.'

Ah! but there was no truth in it--could not be.  He was not
afraid; she was really a good little thing.  But there it was
when you got a thing like that into your mind.  And James was of
a nervous temperament--one of those men whom things will not
leave alone, who suffer tortures from anticipation and
indecision.  For fear of letting something slip that he might
otherwise secure, he was physically unable to make up his mind
until absolutely certain that, by not making it up, he would
suffer loss.

In life, however, there were many occasions when the business of
making up his mind did not even rest with himself, and this was
one of them.

What could he do?  Talk it over with Soames?  That would only
make matters worse.  And, after all, there was nothing in it, he
felt sure.

It was all that house.  He had mistrusted the idea from the
first.  What did Soames want to go into the country for?  And, if
he must go spending a lot of money building himself a house, why
not have a first-rate man, instead of this young Bosinney, whom
nobody knew anything about?  He had told them how it would be.
And he had heard that the house was costing Soames a pretty penny
beyond what he had reckoned on spending.

This fact, more than any other, brought home to James the real
danger of the situation.  It was always like this with these
'artistic' chaps; a sensible man should have nothing to say to
them.  He had warned Irene, too.  And see what had come of it!

And it suddenly sprang into James's mind that he ought to go and
see for himself.  In the midst of that fog of uneasiness in which
his mind was enveloped the notion that he could go and look at
the house afforded him inexplicable satisfaction.  It may have
been simply the decision to do something--more possibly the fact
that he was going to look at a house--that gave him relief.
He felt that in staring at an edifice of bricks and mortar, of
wood and stone, built by the suspected man himself, he would be
looking into the heart of that rumour about Irene.

Without saying a word, therefore, to anyone, he took a hansom to
the station and proceeded by train to Robin Hill; thence--there
being no 'flies,' in accordance with the custom of the
neighbourhood--he found himself obliged to walk.

He started slowly up the hill, his angular knees and high
shoulders bent complainingly, his eyes fixed on his feet, yet,
neat for all that, in his high hat and his frock-coat, on which
was the speckless gloss imparted by perfect superintendence.
Emily saw to that; that is, she did not, of course, see to it--
people of good position not seeing to each other's buttons, and
Emily was of good position--but she saw that the butler saw to
it.

He had to ask his way three times; on each occasion he repeated
the directions given him, got the man to repeat them, then
repeated them a second time, for he was naturally of a talkative
disposition, and one could not be too careful in a new
neighbourhood.

He kept assuring them that it was a new house he was looking for;
it was only, however, when he was shown the roof through the
trees that he could feel really satisfied that he had not been
directed entirely wrong.

A heavy sky seemed to cover the world with the grey whiteness of
a whitewashed ceiling.  There was no freshness or fragrance in
the air.  On such a day even British workmen scarcely cared to do
more then they were obliged, and moved about their business
without the drone of talk which whiles away the pangs of labour.

Through spaces of the unfinished house, shirt-sleeved figures
worked slowly, and sounds arose--spasmodic knockings, the
scraping of metal, the sawing of wood, with the rumble of
wheelbarrows along boards; now and again the foreman's dog,
tethered by a string to an oaken beam, whimpered feebly, with a
sound like the singing of a kettle.

The fresh-fitted window-panes, daubed each with a white patch in
the centre, stared out at James like the eyes of a blind dog.

And the building chorus went on, strident and mirthless under the
grey-white sky.  But the thrushes, hunting amongst the fresh-
turned earth for worms, were silent quite.

James picked his way among the heaps of gravel--the drive was
being laid--till he came opposite the porch.  Here he stopped and
raised his eyes.  There was but little to see from this point of
view, and that little he took in at once; but he stayed in this
position many minutes, and who shall know of what he thought.

His china-blue eyes under white eyebrows that jutted out in
little horns, never stirred; the long upper lip of his wide
mouth, between the fine white whiskers, twitched once or twice;
it was easy to see from that anxious rapt expression, whence
Soames derived the handicapped look which sometimes came upon his
face.  James might have been saying to himself: 'I don't know--
life's a tough job.'

In this position Bosinney surprised him.

James brought his eyes down from whatever bird's-nest they had
been looking for in the sky to Bosinney's face, on which was a
kind of humorous scorn.

"How do you do, Mr. Forsyte?  Come down to see for yourself?"

It was exactly what James, as we know, had come for, and he was
made correspondingly uneasy.  He held out his hand, however,
saying:

"How are you?" without looking at Bosinney.

The latter made way for him with an ironical smile.

James scented something suspicious in this courtesy.  "I should
like to walk round the outside first," he said, "and see what
you've been doing!"

A flagged terrace of rounded stones with a list of two or three
inches to port had been laid round the south-east and south-west
sides of the house, and ran with a bevelled edge into mould,
which was in preparation for being turfed; along this terrace
James led the way.

"Now what did this cost?" he asked, when he saw the terrace
extending round the corner.

"What should you think?" inquired Bosinney.

"How should I know?" replied James somewhat nonplussed; "two or
three hundred, I dare say!"

"The exact sum!"

James gave him a sharp look, but the architect appeared
unconscious, and he put the answer down to mishearing.

On arriving at the garden entrance, he stopped to look at the
view.

"That ought to come down," he said, pointing to the oak-tree.

"You think so?  You think that with the tree there you don't get
enough view for your money."

Again James eyed him suspiciously--this young man had a peculiar
way of putting things: "Well!" he said, with a perplexed,
nervous, emphasis, "I don't see what you want with a tree."

"It shall come down to-morrow," said Bosinney.

James was alarmed.  "Oh," he said, "don't go saying I said it was
to come down!  I know nothing about it!"

"No?"

James went on in a fluster: "Why, what should I know about it?
It's nothing to do with me!  You do it on your own
responsibility."

"You'll allow me to mention your name?"

James grew more and more alarmed: "I don't know what you want
mentioning my name for," he muttered; "you'd better leave the
tree alone.  It's not your tree!"

He took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow.  They entered
the house.  Like Swithin, James was impressed by the inner
court-yard.

You must have spent a douce of a lot of money here," he said,
after staring at the columns and gallery for some time.  "Now,
what did it cost to put up those columns?"

"I can't tell you off-hand," thoughtfully answered Bosinney, "but
I know it was a deuce of a lot!"

"I should think so," said James.  "I should...."  He caught the
architect's eye, and broke off.  And now, whenever he came to
anything of which he desired to know the cost, he stifled that
curiosity.

Bosinney appeared determined that he should see everything, and
had not James been of too 'noticing' a nature, he would
certainly have found himself going round the house a second time.
He seemed so anxious to be asked questions, too, that James felt
he must be on his guard.  He began to suffer from his exertions,
for, though wiry enough for a man of his long build, he was
seventy-five years old.

He grew discouraged; he seemed no nearer to anything, had not
obtained from his inspection any of the knowledge he had vaguely
hoped for.  He had merely increased his dislike and mistrust of
this young man, who had tired him out with his politeness, and in
whose manner he now certainly detected mockery.

The fellow was sharper than he had thought, and better-looking
than he had hoped.  He had a--a 'don't care' appearance that
James, to whom risk was the most intolerable thing in life, did
not appreciate; a peculiar smile, too, coming when least
expected; and very queer eyes.  He reminded James, as he said
afterwards, of a hungry cat.  This was as near as he could get,
in conversation with Emily, to a description of the peculiar
exasperation, velvetiness, and mockery, of which Bosinney's
manner had been composed.

At last, having seen all that was to be seen, he came out again
at the door where he had gone in; and now, feeling that he was
wasting time and strength and money, all for nothing, he took the
courage of a Forsyte in both hands, and, looking sharply at
Bosinney, said:

"I dare say you see a good deal of my daughter-in-law; now, what
does she think of the house?  But she hasn't seen it, I suppose?"

This he said, knowing all about Irene's visit not, of course,
that there was anything in the visit, except that extraordinary
remark she had made about 'not caring to get home'--and the story
of how June had taken the news!

He had determined, by this way of putting the question, to give
Bosinney a chance, as he said to himself.

The latter was long in answering, but kept his eyes with
uncomfortable steadiness on James.

"She has seen the house, but I can't tell you what she thinks of
it."

Nervous and baffled, James was constitutionally prevented from
letting the matter drop.

"Oh!" he said, "she has seen it?  Soames brought her down, I
suppose?"

Bosinney smilingly replied: "Oh, no!"

"What, did she come down alone?"

"Oh, no!"

"Then--who brought her?"

"I really don't know whether I ought to tell you who brought
her."

To James, who knew that it was Swithin, this answer appeared
incomprehensible.

"Why!" he stammered, "you know that...." but he stopped, suddenly
perceiving his danger.

"Well," he said, "if you don't want to tell me I suppose you
won't!  Nobody tells me anything."

Somewhat to his surprise Bosinney asked him a question.

"By the by," he said, "could you tell me if there are likely to
be any more of you coming down?  I should like to be on the
spot!"

"Any more?" said James bewildered, "who should there be more?  I
don't know of any more.  Good-bye?"

Looking at the ground he held out his hand, crossed the palm of
it with Bosinney's, and taking his umbrella just above the silk,
walked away along the terrace.

Before he turned the corner he glanced back, and saw Bosinney
following him slowly--'slinking along the wall' as he put it to
himself, 'like a great cat.' He paid no attention when the young
fellow raised his hat.

Outside the drive, and out of sight, he slackened his pace still
more.  Very slowly, more bent than when he came, lean, hungry,
and disheartened, he made his way back to the station.

The Buccaneer, watching him go so sadly home, felt sorry perhaps
for his behaviour to the old man.




CHAPTER V

SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND


James said nothing to his son of this visit to the house; but,
having occasion to go to Timothy's on morning on a matter
connected with a drainage scheme which was being forced by the
sanitary authorities on his brother, he mentioned it there.

It was not, he said, a bad house.  He could see that a good deal
could be made of it.  The fellow was clever in his way, though
what it was going to cost Soames before it was done with he
didn't know.

Euphemia Forsyte, who happened to be in the room--she had come
round to borrow the Rev. Mr. Scoles' last novel, 'Passion and
Paregoric', which was having such a vogue--chimed in.

"I saw Irene yesterday at the Stores; she and Mr. Bosinney were
having a nice little chat in the Groceries."

It was thus, simply, that she recorded a scene which had really
made a deep and complicated impression on her.  She had been
hurrying to the silk department of the Church and Commercial
Stores--that Institution than which, with its admirable system,
admitting only guaranteed persons on a basis of payment before
delivery, no emporium can be more highly recommended to Forsytes-
-to match a piece of prunella silk for her mother, who was
waiting in the carriage outside.

Passing through the Groceries her eye was unpleasantly attracted
by the back view of a very beautiful figure.  It was so
charmingly proportioned, so balanced, and so well clothed, that
Euphemia's instinctive propriety was at once alarmed; such
figures, she knew, by intuition rather than experience, were
rarely connected with virtue--certainly never in her mind, for
her own back was somewhat difficult to fit.

Her suspicions were fortunately confirmed.  A young man coming
from the Drugs had snatched off his hat, and was accosting the
lady with the unknown back.

It was then that she saw with whom she had to deal; the lady was
undoubtedly Mrs. Soames, the young man Mr. Bosinney.  Concealing
herself rapidly over the purchase of a box of Tunisian dates, for
she was impatient of awkwardly meeting people with parcels in her
hands, and at the busy time of the morning, she was quite
unintentionally an interested observer of their little interview.

Mrs. Soames, usually somewhat pale, had a delightful colour in
her cheeks; and Mr. Bosinney's manner was strange, though
attractive (she thought him rather a distinguished-looking man,
and George's name for him, 'The Buccaneer'--about which there was
something romantic--quite charming).  He seemed to be pleading.
Indeed, they talked so earnestly--or, rather, he talked so
earnestly, for Mrs. Soames did not say much--that they caused,
inconsiderately, an eddy in the traffic.  One nice old General,
going towards Cigars, was obliged to step quite out of the way,
and chancing to look up and see Mrs. Soames' face, he actually
took off his hat, the old fool!  So like a man!

But it was Mrs. Soames' eyes that worried Euphemia.  She never
once looked at Mr. Bosinney until he moved on, and then she
looked after him.  And, oh, that look!

On that look Euphemia had spent much anxious thought.  It is not
too much to say that it had hurt her with its dark, lingering
softness, for all the world as though the woman wanted to
drag him back, and unsay something she had been saying.

Ah, well, she had had no time to go deeply into the matter just
then, with that prunella silk on her hands; but she was 'very
intriguee'--very!  She had just nodded to Mrs. Soames, to show her
that she had seen; and, as she confided, in talking it over
afterwards, to her chum Francie (Roger's daughter), "Didn't she
look caught out just? ...."

James, most averse at the first blush to accepting any news
confirmatory of his own poignant suspicions, took her up at once.

"Oh" he said, "they'd be after wall-papers no doubt."

Euphemia smiled.  "In the Groceries?" she said softly; and,
taking 'Passion and Paregoric' from the table, added: "And so
you'll lend me this, dear Auntie?  Good-bye!" and went away.

James left almost immediately after; he was late as it was.

When he reached the office of Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte, he
found Soames, sitting in his revolving, chair, drawing up a
defence.  The latter greeted his father with a curt good-morning,
and, taking an envelope from his pocket, said:

"It may interest you to look through this."

James read as follows:


309D, SLOANE STREET,
May 15.

'DEAR FORSYTE,

'The construction of your house being now completed, my duties as
architect have come to an end.  If I am to go on with the
business of decoration, which at your request I undertook, I
should like you to clearly understand that I must have a free
hand.

'You never come down without suggesting something that goes
counter to my scheme.  I have here three letters from you, each
of which recommends an article I should never dream of putting
in.  I had your father here yesterday afternoon, who made further
valuable suggestions.

'Please make up your mind, therefore, whether you want me to
decorate for you, or to retire which on the whole I should prefer
to do.

'But understand that, if I decorate, I decorate alone, without
interference of any sort.

If I do the thing, I will do it thoroughly, but I must have a
free hand.

'Yours truly,

'PHILIP BOSINNEY.'


The exact and immediate cause of this letter cannot, of course,
be told, though it is not improbable that Bosinney may have been
moved by some sudden revolt against his position towards Soames--
that eternal position of Art towards Property--which is so
admirably summed up, on the back of the most indispensable of
modern appliances, in a sentence comparable to the very finest in
Tacitus:


THOS.  T.  SORROW, Inventor.
BERT M.  PADLAND, Proprietor.


"What are you going to say to him?" James asked.

Soames did not even turn his head.  "I haven't made up my mind,"
he said, and went on with his defence.

A client of his, having put some buildings on a piece of ground
that did not belong to him, had been suddenly and most irritat-
ingly warned to take them off again.  After carefully going into
the facts, however, Soames had seen his way to advise that his
client had what was known as a title by possession, and that,
though undoubtedly the ground did not belong to him, he was
entitled to keep it, and had better do so; and he was now
following up this advice by taking steps to--as the sailors say--
'make it so.'

He had a distinct reputation for sound advice; people saying of
him: "Go to young Forsyte--a long-headed fellow!" and he prized
this reputation highly.

His natural taciturnity was in his favour; nothing could be more
calculated to give people, especially people with property
(Soames had no other clients), the impression that he was a safe
man.  And he was safe.  Tradition, habit, education, inherited
aptitude, native caution, all joined to form a solid professional
honesty, superior to temptation--from the very fact that it was
built on an innate avoidance of risk.  How could he fall, when
his soul abhorred circumstances which render a fall possible--a
man cannot fall off the floor!

And those countless Forsytes, who, in the course of innumerable
transactions concerned with property of all sorts (from wives to
water  rights), had occasion for the services of a safe man,
found it both reposeful and profitable to confide in Soames.
That slight superciliousness of his, combined with an air of
mousing amongst precedents, was in his favour too--a man would
not be supercilious unless he knew!

He was really at the head of the business, for though James still
came nearly every day to, see for himself, he did little now but
sit in his chair, twist his legs, slightly confuse things already
decided, and presently go away again, and the other partner,
Bustard, was a poor thing, who did a great deal of work, but
whose opinion was never taken.

So Soames went steadily on with his defence.  Yet it would be
idle to say that his mind was at ease.  He was suffering from a
sense of impending  trouble, that had haunted him for some time
past.  He tried to think it physical--a condition of his liver--
but knew that it was not.

He looked at his watch.  In a quarter of an hour he was due at
the General Meeting of the New Colliery Company--one of Uncle
Jolyon's concerns; he should see Uncle Jolyon there, and say
something to him about Bosinney--he had not made up his mind
what, but something--in any case he should not answer this letter
until he had seen Uncle Jolyon.  He got up and methodically put
away the draft of his defence.  Going into a dark little
cupboard, he turned up the light, washed his hands with a piece
of brown Windsor soap, and dried them on a roller towel.  Then he
brushed his hair, paying strict attention to the parting, turned
down the light, took his hat, and saying he would be back at
half-past two, stepped into the Poultry.

It was not far to the Offices of the New Colliery Company in
Ironmonger Lane, where, and not at the Cannon Street Hotel, in
accordance with the more ambitious practice of other companies,
the General Meeting was always held.  Old Jolyon had from the
first set his face against the Press.  What business--he said--
had the Public with his concerns!

Soames arrived on the stroke of time, and took his seat alongside
the Board, who, in a row, each Director behind his own ink-pot,
faced their Shareholders.

In the centre of this row old Jolyon, conspicuous in his black,
tightly-buttoned frock-coat and his white moustaches, was leaning
back with finger tips crossed on a copy of the Directors' report
and accounts.

On his right hand, always a little larger than life, sat the
Secretary, 'Down-by-the-starn' Hemmings; an all-too-sad sadness
beaming in his fine eyes; his iron-grey beard, in mourning like
the rest of him, giving the feeling of an all-too-black tie
behind it.

The occasion indeed was a melancholy one, only six weeks having
elapsed since that telegram had come from Scorrier, the mining
expert, on a private mission to the Mines, informing them that
Pippin, their Superintendent, had committed suicide in
endeavouring, after his extraordinary two years' silence, to
write a letter to his Board.  That letter was on the table now;
it would be read to the Shareholders, who would of course be put
into possession of all the facts.

Hemmings had often said to Soames, standing with his coat-tails
divided before the fireplace:

"What our Shareholders don't know about our affairs isn't worth
knowing.  You may take that from me, Mr. Soames."

On one occasion, old Jolyon being present, Soames recollected a
little unpleasantness.  His uncle had looked up sharply and said:
"Don't talk nonsense, Hemmings!  You mean that what they do know
isn't worth knowing!" Old Jolyon detested humbug.

Hemmings, angry-eyed, and wearing a smile like that of a trained
poodle, had replied in an outburst of artificial applause: "Come,
now, that's good, sir--that's very good.  Your uncle will have
his joke!"

The next time he had seen Soames he had taken the opportunity of
saying to him: "The chairman's getting very old!--I can't get him
to understand things; and he's so wilful--but what can you
expect, with a chin like his?"

Soames had nodded.

Everyone knew that Uncle Jolyon's chin was a caution.  He was
looking worried to-day, in spite of his General Meeting look; he
(Soames) should certainly speak to him about Bosinney.

Beyond old Jolyon on the left was little Mr. Booker, and he, too,
wore his General Meeting look, as though searching for some
particularly tender shareholder.  And next him was the deaf
director, with a frown; and beyond the deaf director, again, was
old Mr. Bleedham, very bland, and having an air of conscious
virtue--as well he might, knowing that the brown-paper parcel he
always brought to the Board-room was concealed behind his hat
(one of that old-fashioned class, of flat-brimmed top-hats which
go with very large bow ties, clean-shaven lips, fresh cheeks, and
neat little, white whiskers).

Soames always attended the General Meeting; it was considered
better that he should do so, in case 'anything should arise!' He
glanced round with his close, supercilious air at the walls of
the room, where hung plans of the mine and harbour, together with
a large photograph of a shaft leading to a working which had
proved quite remarkably unprofitable.  This photograph--a witness
to the eternal irony underlying commercial enterprise till
retained its position on the--wall, an effigy of the directors'
pet, but dead, lamb.

And now old Jolyon rose, to present the report and accounts.

Veiling under a Jove-like serenity that perpetual antagonism
deep-seated in the bosom of a director towards his shareholders,
he faced them calmly.  Soames faced them too.  He knew most of
them by sight.  There was old Scrubsole, a tar man, who always
came, as Hemmings would say, 'to make himself nasty,' a
cantankerous-looking old fellow with a red face, a jowl, and an
enormous low-crowned hat reposing on his knee.  And the Rev. Mr.
Boms, who always proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, in
which he invariably expressed the hope that the Board would not
forget to elevate their employees, using the word with a double
e, as being more vigorous and Anglo-Saxon (he had the strong
Imperialistic tendencies of his cloth).  It was his salutary
custom to buttonhole a director afterwards, and ask him whether
he thought the coming year would be good or bad; and, according
to the trend of the answer, to buy or sell three shares within
the ensuing fortnight.

And there was that military man, Major O'Bally, who could not
help speaking, if only to second the re-election of the auditor,
and who sometimes caused serious consternation by taking toasts--
proposals rather--out of the hands of persons who had been
flattered with little slips of paper, entrusting the said
proposals to their care.

These made up the lot, together with four or five strong, silent
shareholders, with whom Soames could sympathize--men of business,
who liked to keep an eye on their affairs for themselves, without
being fussy--good, solid men, who came to the City every day and
went back in the evening to good, solid wives.

Good, solid wives!  There was something in that thought which
roused the nameless uneasiness in Soames again.

What should he say to his uncle?  What answer should he make to
this letter?

 .  .  .  "If any shareholder has any question to put, I shall
be glad to answer it." A soft thump.  Old Jolyon had let the
report and accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell
glasses between thumb and forefinger.

The ghost of a smile appeared on Soames' face.  They had better
hurry up with their questions!  He well knew his uncle's method
(the ideal one) of at once saying: "I propose, then, that the
report and accounts be adopted!"  Never let them get their wind--
shareholders were notoriously wasteful of time!

A tall, white-bearded man, with a gaunt, dissatisfied face,
arose:

"I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman, in raising a question on
this figure of  L5000 in the accounts.  'To the widow and
family"' (he looked sourly round), "'of our late superintendent,'
who so--er--ill-advisedly (I say--ill-advisedly) committed
suicide, at a time when his services were of the utmost value to
this Company.  You have stated that the agreement which he has so
unfortunately cut short with his own hand was for a period of
five years, of which one only had expired--I--"

Old Jolyon made a gesture of impatience.

"I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman--I ask whether this amount
paid, or proposed to be paid, by the Board to the er--deceased--
is for services which might have been rendered to the Company--
had he not committed suicide?"

"It is in recognition of past services, which we all know--you as
well as any of us--to have been of vital value."

"Then, sir, all I have to say is that the services being past,
the amount is too much."

The shareholder sat down.

Old Jolyon waited a second and said: "I now propose that the
report and--"

The shareholder rose again: "May I ask if the Board realizes
that it is not their money which--I don't hesitate to say that if
it were their money...."

A second shareholder, with a round, dogged face, whom Soames
recognised as the late superintendent's brother-in-law, got up
and said warmly: "In my opinion, sir, the sum is not enough!"

The Rev. Mr. Boms now rose to his feet.  "If I may venture to
express myself," he said, "I should say that the fact of the--er-
-deceased having committed suicide should weigh very heavily--
very heavily with our worthy chairman.  I have no doubt it has
weighed with him, for--I say this for myself and I think for
everyone present (hear, hear)--he enjoys our confidence in a high
degree.  We all desire, I should hope, to be charitable.  But I
feel sure" (he-looked severely at the late superintendent's
brother-in-law) "that he will in some way, by some written
expression, or better perhaps by reducing the amount, record our
grave disapproval that so promising and valuable a life should
have been thus impiously removed from a sphere where both its own
interests and--if I may say so--our interests so imperatively
demanded its continuance.  We should not--nay, we may not--
countenance so grave a dereliction of all duty, both human and
divine."

The reverend gentleman resumed his seat.  The late super-
intendent's brother-in-law again rose: "What I have said I
stick to," he said; "the amount is not enough!"

The first shareholder struck in: "I challenge the legality of the
payment.  In my opinion this payment is not legal.  The Company's
solicitor is present; I believe I am in order in asking him the
question."

All eyes were now turned upon Soames.  Something had arisen!

He stood up, close-lipped and cold; his nerves inwardly
fluttered, his attention tweaked away at last from contemplation
of that cloud looming on the horizon of his mind.

"The point," he said in a low, thin voice, "is by no means clear.
As there is no possibility of future consideration being
received, it is doubtful whether the payment is strictly legal.
If it is desired, the opinion of the court could be taken."

The superintendent's brother-in-law frowned, and said in a
meaning tone: "We have no doubt the opinion of the court could be
taken.  May I ask the name of the gentleman who has given us that
striking piece of information?  Mr. Soames Forsyte?  Indeed!"  He
looked from Soames to old Jolyon in a pointed manner.

A flush coloured Soames' pale cheeks, but his superciliousness
did not waver.  Old Jolyon fixed his eyes on the speaker.

"If," he said, "the late superintendents brother-in-law has
nothing more to say, I propose that the report and accounts...."

At this moment, however, there rose one of those five silent,
stolid shareholders, who had excited Soames' sympathy.  He said:

"I deprecate the proposal altogether.  We are expected to give
charity to this man's wife and children, who, you tell us, were
dependent on him.  They may have been; I do not care whether they
were or not.  I object to the whole thing on principle.  It is
high time a stand was made against this sentimental human-
itarianism.  The country is eaten up with it.  I object to
my money being paid to these people of whom I know nothing, who
have done nothing to earn it.  I object in toto; it is not
business.  I now move that the report and accounts be put back,
and amended by striking out the grant altogether."

Old Jolyon had remained standing while the strong, silent man was
speaking.  The speech awoke an echo in all hearts, voicing, as it
did, the worship of strong men, the movement against generosity,
which had at that time already commenced among the saner members
of the community.

The words 'it is not business' had moved even the Board;
privately everyone felt that indeed it was not.  But they knew
also the chairman's domineering temper and tenacity.  He, too, at
heart must feel that it was not business; but he was committed to
his own proposition.  Would he go back upon it?  It was thought
to be unlikely.

All waited with interest.  Old Jolyon held up his hand;
dark-rimmed glasses depending between his finger and thumb
quivered slightly with a suggestion of menace.

He addressed the strong, silent shareholder.

"Knowing, as you do, the efforts of our late superintendent upon
the occasion of the explosion at the mines, do you seriously wish
me to put that amendment, sir?"

"I do."

Old Jolyon put the amendment.

"Does anyone second this?" he asked, looking calmly round.

And it was then that Soames, looking at his uncle, felt the power
of will that was in that old man.  No one stirred.  Looking
straight into the eyes of the strong, silent shareholder, old
Jolyon said:

"I now move, 'That the report and accounts for the year 1886 be
received and adopted.' You second that?  Those in favour signify
the same in the usual way.  Contrary--no.  Carried.  The next
business, gentlemen...."

Soames smiled.  Certainly Uncle Jolyon had a way with him!

But now his attention relapsed upon Bosinney.

Odd how that fellow haunted his thoughts, even in business hours.

Irene's visit to the house--but there was nothing in that, except
that she might have told him; but then, again, she never did tell
him anything.  She was more silent, more touchy, every day.  He
wished to God the house were finished, and they were in it, away
from London.  Town did not suit her; her nerves were not strong
enough.  That nonsense of the separate room had cropped up again!

The meeting was breaking up now.  Underneath the photograph of
the lost shaft Hemmings was buttonholed by the Rev. Mr. Boms.
Little Mr. Booker, his bristling eyebrows wreathed in angry
smiles, was having a parting turn-up with old Scrubsole.  The two
hated each other like poison.  There was some matter of a
tar-contract between them, little Mr. Booker having secured it
from the Board for a nephew of his, over old Scrubsole's head.
Soames had heard that from Hemmings, who liked a gossip, more
especially about his directors, except, indeed, old Jolyon, of
whom he was afraid.

Soames awaited his opportunity.  The last shareholder was
vanishing through the door, when he approached his uncle, who was
putting on his hat.

"Can I speak to you for a minute, Uncle Jolyon?"

It is uncertain what Soames expected to get out of this
interview.

Apart from that somewhat mysterious awe in which Forsytes in
general held old Jolyon, due to his philosophic twist, or
perhaps--as Hemmings would doubtless have said--to his chin,
there was, and always had been, a subtle antagonism between the
younger man and the old.  It had lurked under their dry manner of
greeting, under their non-committal allusions to each other, and
arose perhaps from old Jolyon's perception of the quiet tenacity
('obstinacy,' he rather naturally called it) of the young man, of
a secret doubt whether he could get his own way with him.

Both these Forsytes, wide asunder as the poles in many respects,
possessed in their different ways--to a greater degree than the
rest of the family--that essential quality of tenacious and
prudent insight into 'affairs,' which is the highwater mark of
their great class.  Either of them, with a little luck and
opportunity, was equal to a lofty career; either of them would
have made a good financier, a great contractor, a statesman,
though old Jolyon, in certain of his moods when under the
influence of a cigar or of Nature--would have been capable of,
not perhaps despising, but certainly of questioning, his own high
position, while Soames, who never smoked cigars, would not.

Then, too, in old Jolyon's mind there was always the secret ache,
that the son of James--of James, whom he had always thought such
a poor thing, should be pursuing the paths of success, while his
own son...!

And last, not least--for he was no more outside the radiation of
family gossip than any other Forsyte--he had now heard the
sinister, indefinite, but none the less disturbing rumour about
Bosinney, and his pride was wounded to the quick.

Characteristically, his irritation turned not against Irene but
against Soames.  The idea that his nephew's wife (why couldn't
the fellow take better care of her--Oh! quaint injustice! as
though Soames could possibly take more care!)--should be drawing
to herself June's lover, was intolerably humiliating.  And seeing
the danger, he did not, like James, hide it away in sheer
nervousness, but owned with the dispassion of his broader
outlook, that it was not unlikely; there was something very
attractive about Irene!

He had a presentiment on the subject of Soames' communication as
they left the Board Room together, and went out into the noise
and hurry of Cheapside.  They walked together a good minute
without speaking, Soames with his mousing, mincing step, and old
Jolyon upright and using his umbrella languidly as a
walking-stick.

They turned presently into comparative quiet, for old Jolyon's
way to a second Board led him in the direction of Moorage Street.

Then Soames, without lifting his eyes, began: "I've had this
letter from Bosinney.  You see what he says; I thought I'd let
you know.  I've spent a lot more than I intended on this house,
and I want the position to be clear."

Old Jolyon ran his eyes unwillingly over the letter: "What he
says is clear enough," he said.

"He talks about 'a free hand,'" replied Soames.

Old Jolyon looked at him.  The long-suppressed irritation and
antagonism towards this young fellow, whose affairs were
beginning to intrude upon his own, burst from him.

"Well, if you don't trust him, why do you employ him?"

Soames stole a sideway look: "It's much too late to go into
that," he said, "I only want it to be quite understood that if I
give him a free hand, he doesn't let me in.  I thought if you
were to speak to him, it would carry more weight!"

"No," said old Jolyon abruptly; "I'll have nothing to do with
it!"

The words of both uncle and nephew gave the impression of
unspoken meanings, far more important, behind.  And the look they
interchanged was like a revelation of this consciousness.

"Well," said Soames; "I thought, for June's sake, I'd tell you,
that's all; I thought you'd better know I shan't stand any
nonsense!"

"What is that to me?" old Jolyon took him up.

"Oh! I don't know," said Soames, and flurried by that sharp look
he was unable to say more.  "Don't say I didn't tell you," he
added sulkily, recovering his composure.

"Tell me!" said old Jolyon; "I don't know what you mean.  You
come worrying me about a thing like this.  I don't want to hear
about your affairs; you must manage them yourself!"

"Very well," said Soames immovably, "I will!"

"Good-morning, then," said old Jolyon, and they parted.

Soames retraced his steps, and going into a celebrated eating-
house, asked for a plate of smoked salmon and a glass of
Chablis; he seldom ate much in the middle of the day, and
generally ate standing, finding the position beneficial to his
liver, which was very sound, but to which he desired to put down
all his troubles.

When he had finished he went slowly back to his office, with bent
head, taking no notice of the swarming thousands on the
pavements, who in their turn took no notice of him.

The evening post carried the following reply to Bosinney:


'FORSYTE, BUSTARD AND FORSYTE,
'Commissioners for Oaths,
'92001, BRANCH LANE, POULTRY, E.C.,

'May 17, 1887.

'DEAR BOSINNEY,

'I have, received your letter, the terms of which not a little
surprise me.  I was under the impression that you had, and have
had all along, a "free hand"; for I do not recollect that any
suggestions I have been so unfortunate as to make have met with
your approval.  In giving you, in accordance with your request,
this "free hand," I wish you to clearly understand that the total
cost of the house as handed over to me completely decorated,
inclusive of your fee (as arranged between us), must not exceed
twelve thousand pounds--L12,000.  This gives you an ample margin,
and, as you know, is far more than I originally contemplated.

'I am,
'Yours truly,

'SOAMES FORSYTE.'


On the following day he received a note from Bosinney:


'PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY,
'Architect,
'309D, SLOANE STREET, S.W.,
'May 18.

'DEAR FORSYTE,

'If you think that in such a delicate matter as decoration I can
bind myself to the exact pound, I am afraid you are mistaken.  I
can see that you are tired of the arrangement, and of me, and I
had better, therefore, resign.

'Yours faithfully,

'PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY.'


Soames pondered long and painfully over his answer, and late at
night in the dining-room, when Irene had gone to bed, he composed
the following:


'62, MONTPELLIER SQUARE, S.W.,
'May 19, 1887.

'DEAR BOSINNEY,

'I think that in both our interests it would be extremely
undesirable that matters should be so left at this stage.  I did
not mean to say that if you should exceed the sum named in my
letter to you by ten or twenty or even fifty pounds, there would
be any difficulty between us.  This being so, I should like you
to reconsider your answer.  You have a "free hand" in the terms
of this correspondence, and I hope you will see your way to
completing the decorations, in the matter of which I know it is
difficult to be absolutely exact.

'Yours truly,

'SOAMES FORSYTE.'


Bosinney's answer, which came in the course of the next day, was:


'May 20.

'DEAR FORSYTE,

'Very well.

'PH.  BOSINNEY.'




CHAPTER VI

OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO


Old Jolyon disposed of his second Meeting--an ordinary Board--
summarily.  He was so dictatorial that his fellow directors were
left in cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old Forsyte,
which they were far from intending to stand much longer, they
said.

He went out by Undergound to Portland Road Station, whence he
took a cab and drove to the Zoo.

He had an assignation there, one of those assignations that had
lately been growing more frequent, to which his increasing
uneasiness about June and the 'change in her,' as he expressed
it, was driving him.

She buried herself away, and was growing thin; if he spoke to her
he got no answer, or had his head snapped off, or she looked as
if she would burst into tears.  She was as changed as she could
be, all through this Bosinney.  As for telling him about
anything, not a bit of it!

And he would sit for long spells brooding, his paper unread
before him, a cigar extinct between his lips.  She had been such
a companion to him ever since she was three years old!  And he
loved her so!

Forces regardless of family or class or custom were beating down
his guard; impending events over which he had no control threw
their shadows on his head.  The irritation of one accustomed to
have his way was roused against he knew not what.

Chafing at the slowness of his cab, he reached the Zoo door; but,
with his sunny instinct for seizing the good of each moment, he
forgot his vexation as he walked towards the tryst.

From the stone terrace above the bear-pit his son and his two
grandchildren came hastening down when they saw old Jolyon
coming, and led him away towards the lion-house.  They supported
him on either side, holding one to each of his hands,--whilst
Jolly, perverse like his father, carried his grandfather's
umbrella in such a way as to catch people's legs with the crutch
of the handle.

Young Jolyon followed.

It was as good as a play to see his father with the children, but
such a play as brings smiles with tears behind.  An old man and
two small children walking together can be seen at any hour of
the day; but the sight of old Jolyon, with Jolly and Holly seemed
to young Jolyon a special peep-show of the things that lie at the
bottom of our hearts.  The complete surrender of that erect old
figure to those little figures on either hand was too poignantly
tender, and, being a man of an habitual reflex action, young
Jolyon swore softly under his breath.  The show affected him in a
way unbecoming to a Forsyte, who is nothing if not undemonstrative.

Thus they reached the lion-house.

There had been a morning fete at the Botanical Gardens, and a
large number of Forsy...'--that is, of well-dressed people who
kept carriages had brought them on to the Zoo, so as to have
more, if possible, for their money, before going back to Rutland
Gate or Bryanston Square.

"Let's go on to the Zoo," they had said to each other; "it'll be
great fun!"  It was a shilling day; and there would not be all
those horrid common people.

In front of the long line of cages they were collected in rows,
watching the tawny, ravenous beasts behind the bars await their
only pleasure of the four-and-twenty hours.  The hungrier the
beast, the greater the fascination.  But whether because the
spectators envied his appetite, or, more humanely, because it
was so soon to be satisfied, young Jolyon could not tell.
Remarks kept falling on his ears: "That's a nasty-looking brute,
that tiger!"  "Oh, what a love!  Look at his little mouth!"
"Yes, he's rather nice!  Don't go too near, mother."

And frequently, with little pats, one or another would clap their
hands to their pockets behind and look round, as though expecting
young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking person to relieve them
of the contents.

A well-fed man in a white waistcoat said slowly through his
teeth: "It's all greed; they can't be hungry.  Why, they take no
exercise."  At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding
liver, and the fat man laughed.  His wife, in a Paris model frock
and gold nose-nippers, reproved him: "How can you laugh, Harry?
Such a horrid sight!"

Young Jolyon frowned.

The circumstances of his life, though he had ceased to take a too
personal view of them, had left him subject to an intermittent
contempt; and the class to which he had belonged--the carriage
class--especially excited his sarcasm.

To shut up a lion or tiger in confinement was surely a horrible
barbarity.  But no cultivated person would admit this.

The idea of its being barbarous to confine wild animals had
probably never even occurred to his father for instance; he
belonged to the old school, who considered it at once humanizing
and educational to confine baboons and panthers, holding the
view, no doubt, that in course of time they might induce these
creatures not so unreasonably to die of misery and heart-
sickness against the bars of their cages, and put the society
to the expense of getting others!  In his eyes, as in the eyes
of all Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful
creatures in a state of captivity far outweighed the
inconvenience of imprisonment to beasts whom God had so
improvidently placed in a state of freedom!  It was for the
animals good, removing them at once from the countless dangers
of open air and exercise, and enabling them to exercise their
functions in the guaranteed seclusion of a private compartment!
Indeed, it was doubtful what wild animals were made for but to be
shut up in cages!

But as young Jolyon had in his constitution the elements of
impartiality, he reflected that to stigmatize as barbarity that
which was merely lack of imagination must be wrong; for none who
held these views had been placed in a similar position to the
animals they caged, and could not, therefore, be expected to
enter into their sensations.  It was not until they were leaving
the gardens--Jolly and Holly in a state of blissful delirium--
that old Jolyon found an opportunity of speaking to his son on
the matter next his heart.  "I don't know what to make of it," he
said; "if she's to go on as she's going on now, I can't tell
what's  to come.  I wanted her to see the doctor, but she  won't.
She's not a bit like me.  She's your mother  all over.  Obstinate
as a mule!  If she doesn't want  to do a thing, she won't, and
there's an end of it!"

Young Jolyon smiled; his eyes had wandered  to his father's chin.
'A pair of you,' he thought,  but he said nothing.

"And then," went on old Jolyon, "there's this  Bosinney.  I
should like to punch the fellow's head, but I can't, I suppose,
though--I don't see  why you shouldn't," he added doubtfully.

"What has he done?  Far better that it should come to an end, if
they don't hit it off!"

Old Jolyon looked at his son.  Now they had actually come to
discuss a subject connected with the relations between the sexes
he felt distrustful.  Jo would be sure to hold some loose view or
other.

"Well, I don't know what you think," he said; "I dare say your
sympathy's with him--shouldn't be surprised; but I think he's
behaving precious badly, and if he comes my way I shall tell him
so."  He dropped the subject.

It was impossible to discuss with his son the true nature and
meaning of Bosinney's defection.  Had not his son done the very
same thing (worse, if possible) fifteen years ago?  There seemed
no end to the consequences of that piece of folly.

Young Jolyon also was silent; he had quickly penetrated his
father's thought, for, dethroned from the high seat of an obvious
and uncomplicated view of things, he had become both perceptive
and subtle.

The attitude he had adopted towards sexual matters fifteen years
before, however, was too different from his father's.  There was
no bridging the gulf.

He said coolly: "I suppose he's fallen in love with some other
woman?"

Old Jolyon gave him a dubious look: "I can't tell," he said;
"they say so!"

"Then, it's probably true," remarked young Jolyon unexpectedly;
"and I suppose they've told you who she is?"

"Yes," said old Jolyon, "Soames's wife!"

Young Jolyon did not whistle: The circumstances of his own life
had rendered him incapable of whistling on such a subject, but he
looked at his father, while the ghost of a smile hovered over his
face.

If old Jolyon saw, he took no notice.

"She and June were bosom friends!" he muttered.

"Poor little June!" said young Jolyon softly.  He thought of his
daughter still as a babe of three.

Old Jolyon came to a sudden halt.

"I don't believe a word of it," he said, "it's some old woman's
tale.  Get me a cab, Jo, I'm tired to death!"

They stood at a corner to see if an empty cab would come along,
while carriage after carriage drove past, bearing Forsytes of all
descriptions from the Zoo.  The harness, the liveries, the gloss
on the horses' coats, shone and glittered in the May sunlight,
and each equipage, landau, sociable, barouche, Victoria, or
brougham, seemed to roll out proudly from its wheels:


'I and my horses and my men you know,'
Indeed the whole turn-out have cost a pot.
But we were worth it every penny.  Look
At Master and at Missis now, the dawgs!
Ease with security--ah! that's the ticket!


And such, as everyone knows, is fit accompaniment for a
perambulating Forsyte.

Amongst these carriages was a barouche coming at a greater pace
than the others, drawn by a pair of bright bay horses.  It swung
on its high springs, and the four people who filled it seemed
rocked as in a cradle.

This chariot attracted young Jolyon's attention; and suddenly, on
the back seat, he recognised his Uncle James, unmistakable in
spite of the increased whiteness of his whiskers; opposite, their
backs defended by sunshades, Rachel Forsyte and her elder but
married sister, Winifred Dartie, in irreproachable toilettes, had
posed their heads haughtily, like two of the birds they had been
seeing at the Zoo; while by James' side reclined Dartie, in a
brand-new frock-coat buttoned tight and square, with a large
expanse of carefully shot linen protruding below each wristband.

An extra, if subdued, sparkle, an added touch of the best gloss
or varnish characterized this vehicle, and seemed to distinguish
it from all the others, as though by some happy extravagance--
like that which marks out the real 'work of art' from the
ordinary 'picture'--it were designated as the typical car, the
very throne of Forsytedom.

Old Jolyon did not see them pass; he was petting poor Holly who
was tired, but those in the carriage had taken in the little
group; the ladies' heads tilted suddenly, there was a spasmodic
screening movement of parasols; James' face protruded naively,
like the head of a long bird, his mouth slowly opening.  The
shield-like rounds of the parasols grew smaller and smaller, and
vanished.

Young Jolyon saw that he had been recognised, even by Winifred,
who could not have been more than fifteen when he had forfeited
the right to be considered a Forsyte.

There was not much change in them!  He remembered the exact look
of their turn-out all that time ago: Horses, men, carriage--all
different now, no doubt--but of the precise stamp of fifteen
years before; the same neat display, the same nicely calculated
arrogance ease with security!  The swing exact, the pose of the
sunshades exact, exact the spirit of the whole thing.

And in the sunlight, defended by the haughty shields of parasols,
carriage after carriage went by.

"Uncle James has just passed, with his female folk," said young
Jolyon.

His father looked black.  "Did your uncle see us?  Yes?  Hmph!
What's he want, coming down into these parts?"

An empty cab drove up at this moment, and old Jolyon stopped it.

"I shall see you again before long, my boy!" he said.  "Don't you
go paying any attention to what I've been saying about young
Bosinney--I don't believe a word of it!"

Kissing the children, who tried to detain him, he stepped in and
was borne away.

Young Jolyon, who had taken Holly up in his arms, stood
motionless at the corner, looking after the cab.




CHAPTER VII

AFTERNOON AT TIMOTHY'S


If old Jolyon, as he got into his cab, had said: 'I won't believe
a word of it!' he would more truthfully have expressed his
sentiments.

The notion that James and his womankind had seen him in the
company of his son had awakened in him not only the impatience he
always felt when crossed, but that secret hostility natural
between brothers, the roots of which--little nursery rivalries--
sometimes toughen and deepen as life goes on, and, all hidden,
support a plant capable of producing in season the bitterest
fruits.

Hitherto there had been between these six brothers no more
unfriendly feeling than that caused by the secret and natural
doubt that the others might be richer than themselves; a feeling
increased to the pitch of curiosity by the approach of death--
that end of all handicaps--and the great 'closeness' of their man
of business, who, with some sagacity, would profess to Nicholas
ignorance of James' income, to James ignorance of old Jolyon's,
to Jolyon ignorance of Roger's, to Roger ignorance of Swithin's,
while to Swithin he would say most irritatingly that Nicholas
must be a rich man.  Timothy alone was exempt, being in
gilt-edged securities.

But now, between two of them at least, had arisen a very
different sense of injury.  From the moment when James had the
impertinence to pry into his affairs--as he put it--old Jolyon no
longer chose to credit this story about Bosinney.  His grand-
daughter slighted through a member of 'that fellow's' family!
He made up his mind that Bosinney was maligned.  There must be
some other reason for his defection.

June had flown out at him, or something; she was as touchy as she
could be!

He would, however, let Timothy have a bit of his mind, and see if
he would go on dropping hints!  And he would not let the grass
grow under his feet either, he would go there at once, and take
very good care that he didn't have to go again on the same
errand.

He saw James' carriage blocking the pavement in front of 'The
Bower.' So they had got there before him--cackling about having
seen him, he dared say!  And further on, Swithin's greys were
turning their noses towards the noses of James' bays, as though
in conclave over the family, while their coachmen were in
conclave above.

Old Jolyon, depositing his hat on the chair in the narrow hall,
where that hat of Bosinney's had so long ago been mistaken for a
cat, passed his thin hand grimly over his face with its great
drooping white moustaches, as though to remove all traces of
expression, and made his way upstairs.

He found the front drawing-room full.  It was full enough at the
best of times--without visitors--without any one in it--for
Timothy and his sisters, following the tradition of their
generation, considered that a room was not quite 'nice' unless it
was 'properly' furnished.  It held, therefore, eleven chairs, a
sofa, three tables, two cabinets, innumerable knicknacks, and
part of a large grand piano.  And now, occupied by Mrs. Small,
Aunt Hester, by Swithin, James, Rachel, Winifred, Euphemia, who
had come in again to return 'Passion and Paregoric' which she had
read at lunch, and her chum Frances, Roger's daughter (the
musical Forsyte, the one who composed songs), there was only one
chair left unoccupied, except, of course, the two that nobody
ever sat on--and the only standing room was occupied by the cat,
on whom old Jolyon promptly stepped.

In these days it was by no means unusual for Timothy to have so
many visitors.  The family had always, one and all, had a real
respect for Aunt Ann, and now that she was gone, they were coming
far more frequently to The Bower, and staying longer.

Swithin had been the first to arrive, and seated torpid in a red
satin chair with a gilt back, he gave every appearance of lasting
the others out.  And symbolizing Bosinney's name 'the big one,'
with his great stature and bulk, his thick white hair, his puffy
immovable shaven face, he looked more primeval than ever in the
highly upholstered room.

His conversation, as usual of late, had turned at once upon
Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester
his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about.
No--as he said--she might want a bit of flirtation--a pretty
woman must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe.
Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper
appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family!
No sc...,  he was going to say 'scandal' but the very idea was so
preposterous that he waved his hand as though to say--'but let
that pass!'

Granted that Swithin took a bachelor's view of the situation--
still what indeed was not due to that family in which so many had
done so well for themselves, had attained a certain position?  If
he had heard in dark, pessimistic moments the words 'yeomen' and
'very small beer' used in connection with his origin, did he
believe them?

No! he cherished, hugging it pathetically to his bosom the
secret theory that there was something distinguished somewhere in
his ancestry.

"Must be," he once said to young Jolyon, before the latter went
to the bad.  "Look at us, we've got on!  There must be good blood
in us somewhere."

He had been fond of young Jolyon: the boy had been in a good set
at College, had known that old ruffian Sir Charles Fiste's
sons--a pretty rascal one of them had turned out, too; and there
was style about him--it was a thousand pities he had run off with
that half-foreign governess!  If he must go off like that why
couldn't he have chosen someone who would have done them credit!
And what was he now?--an underwriter at Lloyd's; they said he
even painted pictures--pictures!  Damme! he might have ended as
Sir Jolyon Forsyte, Bart., with a seat in Parliament, and a place
in the country!

It was Swithin who, following the impulse which sooner or later
urges thereto some member of every great family, went to the
Heralds' Office, where they assured him that he was undoubtedly
of the same family as the well-known Forsites with an 'i,' whose
arms were 'three dexter buckles on a sable ground gules,' hoping
no doubt to get him to take them up.

Swithin, however, did not do this, but having ascertained that
the crest was a 'pheasant proper,' and the motto 'For Forsite,'
he had the pheasant proper placed upon his carriage and the
buttons of his coachman, and both crest and motto on his
writing-paper.  The arms he hugged to himself, partly because,
not having paid for them, he thought it would look ostentatious
to put them on his carriage, and he hated ostentation, and partly
because he, like any practical man all over the country, had a
secret dislike and contempt for things he could not understand he
found it hard, as anyone might, to swallow 'three dexter buckles
on a sable ground gules.'

He never forgot, however, their having told him that if he paid
for them he would be entitled to use them, and it strengthened
his conviction that he was a gentleman.  Imperceptibly the rest
of the family absorbed the 'pheasant proper,' and some, more
serious than others, adopted the motto; old Jolyon, however,
refused to use the latter, saying that it was humbug meaning
nothing, so far as he could see.

Among the older generation it was perhaps known at bottom from
what great historical event they derived their crest; and if
pressed on the subject, sooner than tell a lie--they did not like
telling lies, having an impression that only Frenchmen and
Russians told them--they would confess hurriedly that Swithin had
got hold of it somehow.

Among the younger generation the matter was wrapped in a
discretion proper.  They did not want to hurt the feelings of
their elders, nor to feel ridiculous themselves; they simply used
the crest....

"No," said Swithin, "he had had an opportunity of seeing for
himself, and what he should say was, that there was nothing in
her manner to that young Buccaneer or Bosinney or whatever his
name was, different from her manner to himself; in fact, he
should rather say...." But here the entrance of Frances
and Euphemia put an unfortunate stop to the conversation, for
this was not a subject which could be discussed before young
people.

And though Swithin was somewhat upset at being stopped like this
on the point of saying something important, he soon recovered his
affability.  He was rather fond of Frances--Francie, as she was
called in the family.  She was so smart, and they told him she
made a pretty little pot of pin-money by her songs; he called it
very clever of her.

He rather prided himself indeed on a liberal attitude towards
women, not seeing any reason why they shouldn't paint pictures,
or write tunes, or books even, for the matter of that, especially
if they could turn a useful penny by it; not at all--kept them
out of mischief.  It was not as if they were men!

'Little Francie,' as she was usually called with good-natured
contempt, was an important personage, if only as a standing
illustration of the attitude of Forsytes towards the Arts.  She
was not really 'little,' but rather tall, with dark hair for a
Forsyte, which, together with a grey eye, gave her what was
called 'a Celtic appearance.' She wrote songs with titles like
'Breathing Sighs,' or 'Kiss me, Mother, ere I die,' with a
refrain like an anthem:


'Kiss me, Mother, ere I die;
Kiss me-kiss me, Mother, ah!
Kiss, ah! kiss me e-ere I-
Kiss me, Mother, ere I d-d-die!'


She wrote the words to them herself, and other poems.  In lighter
moments she wrote waltzes, one of which, the 'Kensington Coil,'
was almost national to Kensington, having a sweet dip in it.

It was very original.  Then there were her 'Songs for Little
People,' at once educational and witty, especially 'Gran'ma's
Porgie,' and that ditty, almost prophetically imbued with the
coming Imperial spirit, entitled 'Black Him In His Little Eye.'

Any publisher would take these, and reviews like 'High Living,'
and the 'Ladies' Genteel Guide' went into raptures over: 'Another
of Miss Francie Forsyte's spirited ditties, sparkling and
pathetic.  We ourselves were moved to tears and laughter.  Miss
Forsyte should go far.'

With the true instinct of her breed, Francie had made a point of
knowing the right people--people who would write about her, and
talk about her, and people in Society, too--keeping a mental
register of just where to exert her fascinations, and an eye on
that steady scale of rising prices, which in her mind's eye
represented the future.  In this way she caused herself to be
universally respected.

Once, at a time when her emotions were whipped by an attachment--
for the tenor of Roger's life, with its whole-hearted collection
of house property, had induced in his only daughter a tendency
towards passion--she turned to great and sincere work, choosing
the sonata form, for the violin.  This was the only one of her
productions that troubled the Forsytes.  They felt at once that
it would not sell.

Roger, who liked having a clever daughter well enough, and often
alluded to the amount of pocket-money she made for herself, was
upset by this violin sonata.

"Rubbish like that!" he called it.  Francie had borrowed young
Flageoletti from Euphemia, to play it in the drawing-room at
Prince's Gardens.

As a matter of fact Roger was right.  It was rubbish, but--
annoying! the sort of rubbish that wouldn't sell.  As every
Forsyte knows, rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all--far from
it.

And yet, in spite of the sound common sense which fixed the worth
of art at what it would fetch, some of the Forsytes--Aunt
Hester, for instance, who had always been musical--could not help
regretting that Francie's music was not 'classical'; the same
with her poems.  But then, as Aunt Hester said, they didn't see
any poetry nowadays, all the poems were 'little light things.'

There was nobody who could write a poem like 'Paradise Lost,' or
'Childe Harold'; either of which made you feel that you really
had read something.  Still, it was nice for Francie to have
something to occupy her; while other girls were spending money
shopping she was making it!

And both Aunt Hester and Aunt Juley were always ready to listen
to the latest story of how Francie had got her price increased.

They listened now, together with Swithin, who sat pretending not
to, for these young people talked so fast and mumbled so, he
never could catch what they said.

"And I can't think," said Mrs. Septimus, "how you do it.  I
should never have the audacity!"

Francie smiled lightly.  "I'd much rather deal with a man than a
woman.  Women are so sharp!"

"My dear," cried Mrs. Small, "I'm sure we're not."

Euphemia went off into her silent laugh, and, ending with the
squeak, said, as though being strangled: "Oh, you'll kill me some
day, auntie."

Swithin saw no necessity to laugh; he detested people laughing
when he himself perceived no joke.  Indeed, he detested Euphemia
altogether, to whom he always alluded as 'Nick's daughter, what's
she called--the pale one?'  He had just missed being her god-
father--indeed, would have been, had he not taken a firm stand
against her outlandish name.  He hated becoming a godfather.
Swithin then said to Francie with dignity: "It's a fine day--
er--for the time of year." But Euphemia, who knew perfectly well
that he had refused to be her godfather, turned to Aunt Hester,
and began telling her how she had seen Irene--Mrs. Soames--at the
Church and Commercial Stores.

"And Soames was with her?" said Aunt Hester, to whom Mrs. Small
had as yet had no opportunity of relating the incident.

"Soames with her?  Of course not!"

"But was she all alone in London?"

"Oh, no; there was Mr. Bosinney with her.  She was perfectly
dressed."

But Swithin, hearing the name Irene, looked severely at Euphemia,
who, it is true, never did look well in a dress, whatever she may
have done on other occasions, and said:

"Dressed like a lady, I've no doubt.  It's a pleasure to see
her."

At this moment James and his daughters were announced.  Dartie,
feeling badly in want of a drink, had pleaded an appointment with
his dentist, and, being put down at the Marble Arch, had got into
a hansom, and was already seated in the window of his club in
Piccadilly.

His wife, he told his cronies, had wanted to take him to pay some
calls.  It was not in his line--not exactly.  Haw!

Hailing the waiter, he sent him out to the hall to see what had
won the 4.30 race.  He was dog-tired, he said, and that was a
fact; had been drivin' about with his wife to 'shows' all the
afternoon.  Had put his foot down at last.  A fellow must live
his own life.

At this moment, glancing out of the bay window--for he loved this
seat whence he could see everybody pass--his eye unfortunately,
or perhaps fortunately, chanced to light on the figure of Soames,
who was mousing across the road from the Green Park-side, with
the evident intention of coming in, for he, too, belonged to 'The
Iseeum.'

Dartie sprang to his feet; grasping his glass, he muttered
something about 'that 4.30 race,' and swiftly withdrew to the
card-room, where Soames never came.  Here, in complete isolation
and a dim light, he lived his own life till half past seven, by
which hour he knew Soames must certainly have left the club.

It would not do, as he kept repeating to himself whenever he felt
the impulse to join the gossips in the bay-window getting too
strong for him--it absolutely would not do, with finances as low
as his, and the 'old man' (James) rusty ever since that business
over the oil shares, which was no fault of his, to risk a row
with Winifred.

If Soames were to see him in the club it would be sure to come
round to her that he wasn't at the dentist's at all.  He never
knew a family where things 'came round' so.  Uneasily, amongst
the green baize card-tables, a frown on his olive coloured face,
his check trousers crossed, and patent-leather boots shining
through the gloom, he sat biting his forefinger, and wondering
where the deuce he was to get the money if Erotic failed to win
the Lancashire Cup.

His thoughts turned gloomily to the Forsytes.  What a set they
were!  There was no getting anything out of them--at least, it
was a matter of extreme difficulty.  They were so d---d
particular about money matters; not a sportsman amongst the lot,
unless it were George.  That fellow Soames, for instance, would
have a ft if you tried to borrow a tenner from him, or, if he
didn't have a fit, he looked at you with his cursed supercilious
smile, as if you were a lost soul because you were in want of
money.

And that wife of his (Dartie's mouth watered involuntarily), he
had tried to be on good terms with her, as one naturally would
with any pretty sister-in-law, but he would be cursed if the (he
mentally used a coarse word)--would have anything to say to him--
she looked at him, indeed, as if he were dirt--and yet she could
go far enough, he wouldn't mind betting.  He knew women; they
weren't made with soft eyes and figures like that for nothing, as
that fellow Soames would jolly soon find out, if there were
anything in what he had heard about this Buccaneer Johnny.

Rising from his chair, Dartie took a turn across the room, ending
in front of the looking-glass over the marble chimney-piece; and
there he stood for a long time contemplating in the glass the
reflection of his face.  It had that look, peculiar to some men,
of having been steeped in linseed oil, with its waxed dark
moustaches and the little distinguished commencements of side
whiskers; and concernedly he felt the promise of a pimple on the
side of his slightly curved and fattish nose.

In the meantime old Jolyon had found the remaining chair in
Timothy's commodious drawing-room.  His advent had obviously put
a stop to the conversation, decided awkwardness having set in.
Aunt Juley, with her well-known kindheartedness, hastened to set
people at their ease again.

"Yes, Jolyon," she said, "we were just saying that you haven't
been here for a long time; but we mustn't be surprised.  You're
busy, of course?  James was just saying what a busy time of
year...."

"Was he?" said old Jolyon, looking hard at James.  "It wouldn't
be half so busy if everybody minded their own business."

James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees ran uphill,
shifted his feet uneasily, and put one of them down on the cat,
which had unwisely taken refuge from old Jolyon beside him.

"Here, you've got a cat here," he said in an injured voice,
withdrawing his foot nervously as he felt it squeezing into the
soft, furry body.

"Several," said old Jolyon, looking at one face and another; "I
trod on one just now."

A silence followed.

Then Mrs. Small, twisting her fingers and gazing round with
'pathetic calm', asked: "And how is dear June?"

A twinkle of humour shot through the sternness of old Jolyon's
eyes.  Extraordinary old woman, Juley!  No one quite like her for
saying the wrong thing!

"Bad!" he said; "London don't agree with her--too many people
about, too much clatter and chatter by half."  He laid emphasis on
the words, and again looked James in the face.

Nobody spoke.

A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step in any
direction, or hazard any remark, had fallen on them all.
Something of the sense of the impending, that comes over the
spectator of a Greek tragedy, had entered that upholstered room,
filled with those white-haired, frockcoated old men, and
fashionably attired women, who were all of the same blood,
between all of whom existed an unseizable resemblance.

Not that they were conscious of it--the visits of such fateful,
bitter spirits are only felt.

Then Swithin rose.  He would not sit there, feeling like that--he
was not to be put down by anyone!  And, manoeuvring round the
room with added pomp, he shook hands with each separately.

"You tell Timothy from me," he said, "that he coddles himself too
much!"  Then, turning to Francie, whom he considered 'smart,' he
added: "You come with me for a drive one of these days."  But this
conjured up the vision of that other eventful drive which had
been so much talked about, and he stood quite still for a second,
with glassy eyes, as though waiting to catch up with the
significance of what he himself had said; then, suddenly
recollecting that he didn't care a damn, he turned to old Jolyon:
"Well, good-bye, Jolyon!  You shouldn't go about without an
overcoat; you'll be getting sciatica or something!"  And, kicking
the cat slightly with the pointed tip of his patent leather boot,
he took his huge form away.

When he had gone everyone looked secretly at the others, to see
how they had taken the mention of the word 'drive'--the word
which had become famous, and acquired an overwhelming importance,
as the only official--so to speak--news in connection with the
vague and sinister rumour clinging to the family tongue.

Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short laugh: "I'm
glad Uncle Swithin doesn't ask me to go for drives."

Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little
awkwardness the subject might have, replied: "My dear, he likes
to take somebody well dressed, who will do him a little credit.
I shall never forget the drive he took me.  It was an
experience!"  And her chubby round old face was spread for a
moment with a strange contentment; then broke into pouts, and
tears came into her eyes.  She was thinking of that long ago
driving tour she had once taken with Septimus Small.

James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little
chair, suddenly roused himself: "He's a funny fellow, Swithin,"
he said, but in a half-hearted way.

Old Jolyon's silence, his stern eyes, held them all in a kind of
paralysis.  He was disconcerted himself by the effect of his own
words--an effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the
very rumour he had come to scotch; but he was still angry.

He had not done with them yet--No, no--he would give them another
rub or two.

He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel with them--a
young and presentable female always appealed to old Jolyon's
clemency--but that fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps,
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 English-
man, were irresponsible, charming, suave; they bounded, twirling
their partners at great pace, without pedantic attentionto 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 June'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' 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 quit 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, arid 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:


'DEAR IRENE,
'June 30.

'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 byeways 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 farmwork
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' 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' 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 too 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' 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 June'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 June'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 June'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 June'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 a 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 fiancee.  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 June'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 question's--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.

"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 some-
thing 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 upstairs that night 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 light 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' 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' 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
years before, told him that in his opinion it was rather a nice
point; he would like counsel's opinion on it.

Soames told him to go to a good man, and they went to Waterbuck,
Q.C., marking him ten and one, who kept the papers six weeks and
then wrote as follows

'In my opinion the true interpretation of this correspondence
depends very much on the intention of the parties, and will turn
upon the evidence given at the trial.  I am of opinion that an
attempt should be made to secure from the architect an admission
that he understood he was not to spend at the outside more than
twelve thousand and fifty pounds.  With regard to the expression,
"a free hand in the terms of this correspondence," to which my
attention is directed, the point is a nice one; but I am of
opinion that upon the whole the ruling in "Boileau v. The
Blasted Cement Co., Ltd.," will apply.'

Upon this opinion they acted, administering interrogatories, but
to their annoyance Messrs.  Freak and Able answered these in so
masterly a fashion that nothing whatever was admitted and that
without prejudice.

It was on October 1 that Soames read Waterbuck's opinion, in the
dining-room before dinner.

It made him nervous; not so much because of the case of 'Boileau
v. The Blasted Cement Co., Ltd.,' as that the point had lately
begun to seem to him, too, a nice one; there was about it just
that pleasant flavour of subtlety so attractive to the best legal
appetites.  To have his own impression confirmed by Waterbuck,
Q.C., would have disturbed any man.

He sat thinking it over, and staring at the empty grate, for
though autumn had come, the weather kept as gloriously fine that
jubilee year as if it were still high August.  It was not
pleasant to be disturbed; he desired too passionately to set his
foot on Bosinney's neck.

Though he had not seen the architect since the last afternoon at
Robin Hill, he was never free from the sense of his presence--
never free from the memory of his worn face with its high cheek
bones and enthusiastic eyes.  It would not be too much to say
that he had never got rid of the feeling of that night when he
heard the peacock's cry at dawn--the feeling that Bosinney
haunted the house.  And every man's shape that he saw in the dark
evenings walking past, seemed that of him whom George had so
appropriately named the Buccaneer.

Irene still met him, he was certain; where, or how, he neither
knew, nor asked; deterred by a vague and secret dread of too much
knowledge.  It all seemed subterranean nowadays.

Sometimes when he questioned his wife as to where she had been,
which he still made a point of doing, as every Forsyte should,
she looked very strange.  Her self-possession was wonderful, but
there were moments when, behind the mask of her face, inscrutable
as it had always been to him, lurked an expression he had never
been used to see there.

She had taken to lunching out too; when he asked Bilson if her
mistress had been in to lunch, as often as not she would answer:
"No, sir."

He strongly disapproved of her gadding about by herself, and told
her so.  But she took no notice.  There was something that
angered, amazed, yet almost amused him about the calm way in
which she disregarded his wishes.  It was really as if she were
hugging to herself the thought of a triumph over him.

He rose from the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.'s opinion, and, going
upstairs, entered her room, for she did not lock her doors till
bed-time--she had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of
the servants.  She was brushing her hair, and turned to him with
strange fierceness.

"What do you want?" she said.  "Please leave my room!"

He answered: "I want to know how long this state of things
between us is to last?  I have put up with it long enough."

"Will you please leave my room?"

"Will you treat me as your husband?"

"No."

"Then, I shall take steps to make you."

"Do!"

He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer.  Her lips were
compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her
bare shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark
eyes--those eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt,
and odd, haunting triumph.

"Now, please, will you leave my room?" He turned round, and went
sulkily out.

He knew very well that he had no intention of taking steps, and
he saw that she knew too--knew that he was afraid to.

It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of his day: how
such and such clients had called; how he had arranged a mortgage
for Parkes; how that long-standing suit of Fryer v. Forsyte was
getting on, which, arising in the preternaturally careful
disposition of his property by his great uncle Nicholas, who had
tied it up so that no one could get at it at all, seemed likely
to remain a source of income for several solicitors till the Day
of Judgment.

And how he had called in at Jobson's, and seen a Boucher sold,
which he had just missed buying of Talleyrand and Sons in Pall
Mall.

He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all that school.
It was a habit with him to tell her all these matters, and he
continued to do it even now, talking for long spells at dinner,
as though by the volubility of words he could conceal from
himself the ache in his heart.

Often, if they were alone, he made an attempt to kiss her when
she said good-night.  He may have had some vague notion that some
night she would let him; or perhaps only the feeling that a
husband ought to kiss his wife.  Even if she hated him, he at all
events ought not to put himself in the wrong by neglecting this
ancient rite.

And why did she hate him?  Even now he could not altogether
believe it.  It was strange to be hated!--the emotion was too
extreme; yet he hated Bosinney, that Buccaneer, that prowling
vagabond, that night-wanderer.  For in his thoughts Soames always
saw him lying in wait--wandering.  Ah, but he must be in very low
water!  Young Burkitt, the architect, had seen him coming out of
a third-rate restaurant, looking terribly down in the mouth!

During all the hours he lay awake, thinking over the situation,
which seemed to have no end--unless she should suddenly come to
her senses--never once did the thought of separating from his
wife seriously enter his head....

And the Forsytes!  What part did they play in this stage of
Soames' subterranean tragedy?

Truth to say, little or none, for they were at the sea.

From hotels, hydropathics, or lodging-houses, they were bathing
daily; laying in a stock of ozone to last them through the
winter.

Each section, in the vineyard of its own choosing, grew and
culled and pressed and bottled the grapes of a pet sea-air.

The end of September began to witness their several returns.

In rude health and small omnibuses, with considerable colour in
their cheeks, they arrived daily from the various termini.  The
following morning saw them back at their vocations.

On the next Sunday Timothy's was thronged from lunch till dinner.

Amongst other gossip, too numerous and interesting to relate,
Mrs. Septimus Small mentioned that Soames and Irene had not been
away.

It remained for a comparative outsider to supply the next
evidence of interest.

It chanced that one afternoon late in September, Mrs. MacAnder,
Winifred Dartie's greatest friend, taking a constitutional, with
young Augustus Flippard, on her bicycle in Richmond Park, passed
Irene and Bosinney walking from the bracken towards the Sheen
Gate.

Perhaps the poor little woman was thirsty, for she had ridden
long on a hard, dry road, and, as all London knows, to ride a
bicycle and talk to young Flippard will try the toughest
constitution; or perhaps the sight of the cool bracken grove,
whence 'those two' were coming down, excited her envy.  The cool
bracken grove on the top of the hill, with the oak boughs for
roof, where the pigeons were raising an endless wedding hymn, and
the autumn, humming, whispered to the ears of lovers in the fern,
while the deer stole by.  The bracken grove of irretrievable
delights, of golden minutes in the long marriage of heaven and
earth!  The bracken grove, sacred to stags, to strange tree-stump
fauns leaping around the silver whiteness of a birch-tree nymph
at summer dusk

This lady knew all the Forsytes, and having been at June's 'at
home,' was not at a loss to see with whom she had to deal.  Her
own marriage, poor thing, had not been successful, but having
had the good sense and ability to force her husband into
pronounced error, she herself had passed through the necessary
divorce proceedings without incurring censure.

She was therefore a judge of all that sort of thing, and lived in
one of those large buildings, where in small sets of apartments,
are gathered incredible quantities of Forsytes, whose chief
recreation out of business hours is the discussion of each
other's affairs.

Poor little woman, perhaps she was thirsty, certainly she was
bored, for Flippard was a wit.  To see 'those two' in so unlikely
a spot was quite a merciful 'pick-me-up.'

At the MacAnder, like all London, Time pauses.

This small but remarkable woman merits attention; her all-seeing
eye and shrewd tongue were inscrutably the means of furthering
the ends of Providence.

With an air of being in at the death, she had an almost
distressing power of taking care of herself.  She had done more,
perhaps, in her way than any woman about town to destroy the
sense of chivalry which still clogs the wheel of civilization.
So smart she was, and spoken of endearingly as 'the little
MacAnder!'

Dressing tightly and well, she belonged to a Woman's Club, but
was by no means the neurotic and dismal type of member who was
always thinking of her rights.  She took her rights unconsciously,
they came natural to her, and she knew exactly how to make the
most of them without exciting anything but admiration amongst
that great class to whom she was affiliated, not precisely
perhaps by manner, but by birth, breeding, and the true, the
secret gauge, a sense of property.

The daughter of a Bedfordshire solicitor, by the daughter of a
clergyman, she had never, through all the painful experience of
being married to a very mild painter with a cranky love of
Nature, who had deserted her for an actress, lost touch with the
requirements, beliefs, and inner feeling of Society; and, on
attaining her liberty, she placed herself without effort in the
very van of Forsyteism.

Always in good spirits, and 'full of information,' she was
universally welcomed.  She excited neither surprise nor
disapprobation when encountered on the Rhine or at Zermatt,
either alone, or travelling with a lady and two gentlemen; it was
felt that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself;
and the hearts of all Forsytes warmed to that wonderful instinct,
which enabled her to enjoy everything without giving anything
away.  It was generally felt that to such women as Mrs. MacAnder
should we look for the perpetuation and increase of our best type
of woman.  She had never had any children.

If there was one thing more than another that she could not stand
it was one of those soft women with what men called 'charm' about
them, and for Mrs. Soames she always had an especial dislike.

Obscurely, no doubt, she felt that if charm were once admitted as
the criterion, smartness and capability must go to the wall; and
she hated--with a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called
charm seemed to disturb all calculations--the subtle seductiveness
which she could not altogether overlook in Irene.

She said, however, that she could see nothing in the woman--there
was no 'go' about her--she would never be able to stand up for
herself--anyone could take advantage of her, that was plain--she
could not see in fact what men found to admire!

She was not really ill-natured, but, in maintaining her position
after the trying circumstances of her married life, she had found
it so necessary to be 'full of information,' that the idea of
holding her tongue about 'those two' in the Park never occurred
to her.

And it so happened that she was dining that very evening at
Timothy's, where she went sometimes to 'cheer the old things up,'
as she was wont to put it.  The same people were always asked to
meet her: Winifred Dartie and her husband; Francie, because she
belonged to the artistic circles, for Mrs. MacAnder was known to
contribute articles on dress to 'The Ladies Kingdom Come'; and
for her to flirt with, provided they could be obtained, two of
the Hayman boys, who, though they never said anything, were
believed to be fast and thoroughly intimate with all that was
latest in smart Society.

At twenty-five minutes past seven she turned out the electric
light in her little hall, and wrapped in her opera cloak with the
chinchilla collar, came out into the corridor, pausing a moment
to make sure she had her latch-key.  These little self-contained
flats were convenient; to be sure, she had no light and no air,
but she could shut it up whenever she liked and go away.  There
was no bother with servants, and she never felt tied as she used
to when poor, dear Fred was always about, in his mooney way.  She
retained no rancour against poor, dear Fred, he was such a fool;
but the thought of that actress drew from her, even now, a
little, bitter, derisive smile.

Firmly snapping the door to, she crossed the corridor, with its
gloomy, yellow-ochre walls, and its infinite vista of brown,
numbered doors.  The lift was going down; and wrapped to the ears
in the high cloak, with every one of her auburn hairs in its
place, she waited motionless for it to stop at her floor.  The
iron gates clanked open; she entered.  There were already three
occupants, a man in a great white waistcoat, with a large, smooth
face like a baby's, and two old ladies in black, with mittened
hands.

Mrs. MacAnder smiled at them; she knew everybody; and all these
three, who had been admirably silent before, began to talk at
once.  This was Mrs. MacAnder's successful secret.  She provoked
conversation.

Throughout a descent of five stories the conversation continued,
the lift boy standing with his back turned, his cynical face
protruding through the bars.

At the bottom they separated, the man in the white waistcoat
sentimentally to the billiard room, the old ladies to dine and
say to each other: "A dear little woman!"  "Such a rattle!" and
Mrs. MacAnder to her cab.

When Mrs. MacAnder dined at Timothy's, the conversation (although
Timothy himself could never be induced to be present) took that
wider, man-of-the-world tone current among Forsytes at large, and
this, no doubt, was what put her at a premium there.

Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester found it an exhilarating change.  "If
only," they said, "Timothy would meet her!"  It was felt that she
would do him good.  She could tell you, for instance, the latest
story of Sir Charles Fiste's son at Monte Carlo; who was the real
heroine of Tynemouth Eddy's fashionable novel that everyone was
holding up their hands over, and what they were doing in Paris
about wearing bloomers.  She was so sensible, too, knowing all
about that vexed question, whether to send young Nicholas' eldest
into the navy as his mother wished, or make him an accountant as
his father thought would be safer.  She strongly deprecated the
navy.  If you were not exceptionally brilliant or exceptionally
well connected, they passed you over so disgracefully, and what
was it after all to look forward to, even if you became an
admiral--a pittance!  An accountant had many more chances, but
let him be put with a good firm, where there was no risk at
starting!

Sometimes she would give them a tip on the Stock Exchange; not
that Mrs. Small or Aunt Hester ever took it.  They had indeed no
money to invest; but it seemed to bring them into such exciting
touch with the realities of life.  It was an event.  They would
ask Timothy, they said.  But they never did, knowing in advance
that it would upset him.  Surreptitiously, however, for weeks
after they would look in that paper, which they took with respect
on account of its really fashionable proclivities, to see whether
'Bright's Rubies' or 'The Woollen Mackintosh Company' were up or
down.  Sometimes they could not find the name of the company at
all; and they would wait until James or Roger or even Swithin
came in, and ask them in voices trembling with curiosity how that
'Bolivia Lime and Speltrate' was doing--they could not find it in
the paper.

And Roger would answer: "What do you want to know for?  Some
trash!  You'll go burning your fingers--investing your money in
lime, and things you know nothing about!  Who told you?" and
ascertaining what they had been told, he would go away, and,
making inquiries in the City, would perhaps invest some of his
own money in the concern.

It was about the middle of dinner, just in fact as the saddle of
mutton had been brought in by Smither, that Mrs. MacAnder,
looking airily round, said: "Oh! and whom do you think I passed
to-day in Richmond Park?  You'll never guess--Mrs. Soames and--
Mr. Bosinney.  They must have been down to look at the house!"

Winifred Dartie coughed, and no one said a word.  It was the
piece of evidence they had all unconsciously been waiting for.

To do Mrs. MacAnder justice, she had been to Switzerland and the
Italian lakes with a party of three, and had not heard of Soames'
rupture with his architect.  She could not tell, therefore, the
profound impression her words would make.

Upright and a little flushed, she moved her small, shrewd eyes
from face to face, trying to gauge the effect of her words.  On
either side of her a Hayman boy, his lean, taciturn, hungry face
turned towards his plate, ate his mutton steadily.

These two, Giles and Jesse, were so alike and so inseparable that
they were known as the Dromios.  They never talked, and seemed
always completely occupied in doing nothing.  It was popularly
supposed that they were cramming for an important examination.
They walked without hats for long hours in the Gardens attached
to their house, books in their hands, a fox-terrier at their
heels, never saying a word, and smoking all the time.  Every
morning, about fifty yards apart, they trotted down Campden Hill
on two lean hacks, with legs as long as their own, and every
morning about an hour later, still fifty yards apart, they
cantered up again.  Every evening, wherever they had dined, they
might be observed about half-past ten, leaning over the
balustrade of the Alhambra promenade.

They were never seen otherwise than together; in this way passing
their lives, apparently perfectly content.

Inspired by some dumb stirring within them of the feelings of
gentlemen, they turned at this painful moment to Mrs. MacAnder,
and said in precisely the same voice: "Have you seen the...?"

Such was her surprise at being thus addressed that she put down
her fork; and Smither, who was passing, promptly removed her
plate.  Mrs. MacAnder, however, with presence of mind, said
instantly: "I must have a little more of that nice mutton."

But afterwards in the drawing--room she sat down by Mrs. Small,
determined to get to the bottom of the matter.  And she began:

"What a charming woman, Mrs. Soames; such a sympathetic
temperament!  Soames is a really lucky man!"

Her anxiety for information had not made sufficient allowance for
that inner Forsyte skin which refuses to share its troubles with
outsiders.

Mrs. Septimus Small, drawing herself up with a creak and rustle
of her whole person, said, shivering in her dignity:

"My dear, it is a subject we do not talk about!"




CHAPTER II

NIGHT IN THE PARK


Although with her infallible instinct Mrs. Small had said the
very thing to make her guest 'more intriguee than ever,' it is
difficult to see how else she could truthfully have spoken.

It was not a subject which the Forsytes could talk about even
among themselves--to use the word Soames had invented to
characterize to himself the situation, it was 'subterranean.'

Yet, within a week of Mrs. MacAnder's encounter in Richmond Park,
to all of them--save Timothy, from whom it was carefully kept--to
James on his domestic beat from the Poultry to Park Lane, to
George the wild one, on his daily adventure from the bow window
at the Haversnake to the billiard room at the 'Red Pottle,' was
it known that 'those two' had gone to extremes.

George (it was he who invented many of those striking expressions
still current in fashionable circles) voiced the sentiment more
accurately than any one when he said to his brother Eustace that
'the Buccaneer' was 'going it'; he expected Soames was about 'fed
up.'

It was felt that he must be, and yet, what could be done?  He
ought perhaps to take steps; but to take steps would be
deplorable.

Without an open scandal which they could not see their way to
recommending, it was difficult to see what steps could be taken.
In this impasse, the only thing was to say nothing to Soames, and
nothing to each other; in fact, to pass it over.

By displaying towards Irene a dignified coldness, some impression
might be made upon her; but she was seldom now to be seen, and
there seemed a slight difficulty in seeking her out on purpose to
show her coldness.  Sometimes in the privacy of his bedroom James
would reveal to Emily the real suffering that his son's
misfortune caused him.

"I can't tell," he would say; "it worries me out of my life.
There'll be a scandal, and that'll do him no good.  I shan't say
anything to him.  There might be nothing in it.  What do you
think?  She's very artistic, they tell me.  What?  Oh, you're a
'regular Juley!  Well, I don't know; I expect the worst.  This is
what comes of having no children.  I knew how it would be from
the first.  They never told me they didn't mean to have any
children--nobody tells me anything!"

On his knees by the side of the bed, his eyes open and fixed with
worry, he would breathe into the counterpane.  Clad in his
nightshirt, his neck poked forward, his back rounded, he
resembled some long white bird.

"Our Father-," he repeated, turning over and over again the
thought of this possible scandal.

Like old Jolyon, he, too, at the bottom of his heart set the
blame of the tragedy down to family interference.  What business
had that lot--he began to think of the Stanhope Gate branch,
including young Jolyon and his daughter, as 'that lot'--to
introduce a person like this Bosinney into the family?  (He had
heard George's soubriquet, 'The Buccaneer,' but he could make
nothing of that--the young man was an architect.)

He began to feel that his brother Jolyon, to whom he had always
looked up and on whose opinion he had relied, was not quite what
he had expected.

Not having his eldest brother's force of character, he was more
sad than angry.  His great comfort was to go to Winifred's, and
take the little Darties in his carriage over to Kensington
Gardens, and there, by the Round Pond, he could often be seen
walking with his eyes fixed anxiously on little Publius Dartie's
sailing-boat, which he had himself freighted with a penny, as
though convinced that it would never again come to shore; while
little Publius--who, James delighted to say, was not a bit like
his father skipping along under his lee, would try to get him to
bet another that it never would, having found that it always did.
And James would make the bet; he always paid--sometimes as many
as three or four pennies in the afternoon, for the game seemed
never to pall on little Publius--and always in paying he said:
"Now, that's for your money-box.  Why, you're getting quite a
rich man!"  The thought of his little grandson's growing wealth
was a real pleasure to him.  But little Publius knew a
sweet-shop, and a trick worth two of that.

And they would walk home across the Park, James' figure, with
high shoulders and absorbed and worried face, exercising its
tall, lean protectorship, pathetically unregarded, over the
robust child-figures of Imogen and little Publius.

But those Gardens and that Park were not sacred to James.
Forsytes and tramps, children and lovers, rested and wandered day
after day, night after night, seeking one and all some freedom
from labour, from the reek and turmoil of the streets.

The leaves browned slowly, lingering with the sun and summer-like
warmth of the nights.

On Saturday, October 5, the sky that had been blue all day
deepened after sunset to the bloom of purple grapes.  There was
no moon, and a clear dark, like some velvety garment, was wrapped
around the trees, whose thinned branches, resembling plumes,
stirred not in the still, warm air.  All London had poured into
the Park, draining the cup of summer to its dregs.

Couple after couple, from every gate, they streamed along the
paths and over the burnt grass, and one after another, silently
out of the lighted spaces, stole into the shelter of the feathery
trees, where, blotted against some trunk, or under the shadow of
shrubs, they were lost to all but themselves in the heart of the
soft darkness.

To fresh-comers along the paths, these forerunners formed but
part of that passionate dusk, whence only a strange murmur, like
the confused beating of hearts, came forth.  But when that murmur
reached each couple in the lamp-light their voices wavered, and
ceased; their arms enlaced, their eyes began seeking, searching,
probing the blackness.  Suddenly, as though drawn by invisible
hands, they, too, stepped over the railing, and, silent as
shadows, were gone from the light.

The stillness, enclosed in the far, inexorable roar of the town,
was alive with the myriad passions, hopes, and loves of
multitudes of struggling human atoms; for in spite of the
disapproval of that great body of Forsytes, the Municipal
Council--to whom Love had long been considered, next to the
Sewage Question, the gravest danger to the community--a process
was going on that night in the Park, and in a hundred other
parks, without which the thousand factories, churches, shops,
taxes, and drains, of which they were custodians, were as
arteries without blood, a man without a heart.

The instincts of self-forgetfulness, of passion, and of love,
hiding under the trees, away from the trustees of their
remorseless enemy, the 'sense of property,' were holding a
stealthy revel, and Soames, returning from Bayswater for he had
been alone to dine at Timothy's walking home along the water,
with his mind upon that coming lawsuit, had the blood driven from
his heart by a low laugh and the sound of kisses.  He thought of
writing to the Times the next morning, to draw the attention of
the Editor to the condition of our parks.  He did not, however,
for he had a horror of seeing his name in print.

But starved as he was, the whispered sounds in the stillness, the
half-seen forms in the dark, acted on him like some morbid
stimulant.  He left the path along the water and stole under the
trees, along the deep shadow of little plantations, where the
boughs of chestnut trees hung their great leaves low, and there
was blacker refuge, shaping his course in circles which had for
their object a stealthy inspection of chairs side by side,
against tree-trunks, of enlaced lovers, who stirred at his
approach.

Now he stood still on the rise overlooking the Serpentine, where,
in full lamp-light, black against the silver water, sat a couple
who never moved, the woman's face buried on the man's neck--a
single form, like a carved emblem of passion, silent and
unashamed.

And, stung by the sight, Soames hurried on deeper into the shadow
of the trees.

In this search, who knows what he thought and what he sought?
Bread for hunger--light in darkness?  Who knows what he expected
to find--impersonal knowledge of the human heart--the end of his
private subterranean tragedy--for, again, who knew, but that each
dark couple, unnamed, unnameable, might not be he and she?

But it could not be such knowledge as this that he was seeking--
the wife of Soames Forsyte sitting in the Park like a common
wench!  Such thoughts were inconceivable; and from tree to tree,
with his noiseless step, he passed.

Once he was sworn at; once the whisper, "If only it could always
be like this!" sent the blood flying again from his heart, and he
waited there, patient and dogged, for the two to move.  But it
was only a poor thin slip of a shop-girl in her draggled blouse
who passed him, clinging to her lover's arm.

A hundred other lovers too whispered that hope in the stillness
of the trees, a hundred other lovers clung to each other.

But shaking himself with sudden disgust, Soames returned to the
path, and left that seeking for he knew not what.




CHAPTER III

MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL


Young Jolyon, whose circumstances were not those of a Forsyte,
found at times a difficulty in sparing the money needful for
those country jaunts and researches into Nature, without having
prosecuted which no watercolour artist ever puts brush to paper.

He was frequently, in fact, obliged to take his colour-box into
the Botanical Gardens, and there, on his stool, in the shade of a
monkey-puzzler or in the lee of some India-rubber plant, he would
spend long hours sketching.

An Art critic who had recently been looking at his work had
delivered himself as follows

"In a way your drawings are very good; tone and colour, in some
of them certainly quite a feeling for Nature.  But, you see,
they're so scattered; you'll never get the public to look at
them.  Now, if you'd taken a definite subject, such as 'London by
Night,' or 'The Crystal Palace in the Spring,' and made a regular
series, the public would have known at once what they were
looking at.  I can't lay too much stress upon that.  All the men
who are making great names in Art, like Crum Stone or Bleeder,
are making them by avoiding the unexpected; by specializing and
putting their works all in the same pigeon-hole, so that the
public know pat once where to go.  And this stands to reason, for
if a man's a collector he doesn't want people to smell at the
canvas to find out whom his pictures are by; he wants them to be
able to say at once, 'A capital Forsyte!'  It is all the more
important for you to be careful to choose a subject that they can
lay hold of on the spot, since there's no very marked originality
in your style."

Young Jolyon, standing by the little piano, where a bowl of dried
rose leaves, the only produce of the garden, was deposited on a
bit of faded damask, listened with his dim smile.

Turning to his wife, who was looking at the speaker with an angry
expression on her thin face, he said:

"You see, dear?"

"I do not," she answered in her staccato voice, that still had a
little foreign accent; "your style has originality."

The critic looked at her, smiled' deferentially, and said no
more.  Like everyone else, he knew their history.

The words bore good fruit with young Jolyon; they were contrary
to all that he believed in, to all that he theoretically held
good in his Art, but some strange, deep instinct moved him
against his will to turn them to profit.

He discovered therefore one morning that an idea had come to him
for making a series of watercolour drawings of London.  How the
idea had arisen he could not tell; and it was not till the
following year, when he had completed and sold them at a very
fair price, that in one of his impersonal moods, he found himself
able to recollect the Art critic, and to discover in his own
achievement another proof that he was a Forsyte.

He decided to commence with the Botanical Gardens, where he had
already made so many studies, and chose the little artificial
pond, sprinkled now with an autumn shower of red and yellow
leaves, for though the gardeners longed to sweep them off, they
could not reach them with their brooms.  The rest of the gardens
they swept bare enough, removing every morning Nature's rain of
leaves; piling them in heaps, whence from slow fires rose the
sweet, acrid smoke that, like the cuckoo's note for spring, the
scent of lime trees for the summer, is the true emblem of the
fall.  The gardeners' tidy souls could not abide the gold and
green and russet pattern on the grass.  The gravel paths must lie
unstained, ordered, methodical, without knowledge of the
realities of life, nor of that slow and beautiful decay which
flings crowns underfoot to star the earth with fallen glories,
whence, as the cycle rolls, will leap again wild spring.

Thus each leaf that fell was marked from the moment when it
fluttered a good-bye and dropped, slow turning, from its twig.

But on that little pond the leaves floated in peace, and praised
Heaven with their hues, the sunlight haunting over them.

And so young Jolyon found them.

Coming there one morning in the middle of October, he was
disconcerted to find a bench about twenty paces from his stand
occupied, for he had a proper horror of anyone seeing him at
work.

A lady in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with her eyes fixed
on the ground.  A flowering laurel, however, stood between, and,
taking shelter behind this, young Jolyon prepared his easel.

His preparations were leisurely; he caught, as every true artist
should, at anything that might delay for a moment the effort of
his work, and he found himself looking furtively at this unknown
dame.

Like his father before him, he had an eye for a face.  This face
was charming!

He saw a rounded chin nestling in a cream ruffle, a delicate face
with large dark eyes and soft lips.  A black 'picture' hat
concealed the hair; her figure was lightly poised against the
back of the bench, her knees were crossed; the tip of a
patent-leather shoe emerged beneath her skirt.  There was
something, indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the person of this
lady, but young Jolyon's attention was chiefly riveted by the
look on her face, which reminded him of his wife.  It was as
though its owner had come into contact with forces too strong for
her.  It troubled him, arousing vague feelings of attraction and
chivalry.  Who was she?  And what doing there, alone?

Two young gentlemen of that peculiar breed, at once forward and
shy, found in the Regent's Park, came by on their way to lawn
tennis, and he noted with disapproval their furtive stares of
admiration.  A loitering gardener halted to do something
unnecessary to a clump of pampas grass; he, too, wanted an excuse
for peeping.  A gentleman, old, and, by his hat, a professor of
horticulture, passed three times to scrutinize her long and
stealthily, a queer expression about his lips.

With all these men young Jolyon felt the same vague irritation.
She looked at none of them, yet was he certain that every man who
passed would look at her like that.

Her face was not the face of a sorceress, who in every look holds
out to men the offer of pleasure; it had none of the 'devil's
beauty' so highly prized among the first Forsytes of the land;
neither was it of that type, no less adorable, associated with
the box of chocolate; it was not of the spiritually passionate,
or passionately spiritual order, peculiar to house-decoration and
modern poetry; nor did it seem to promise to the playwright
material for the production of the interesting and neurasthenic
figure, who commits suicide in the last act.

In shape and colouring, in its soft persuasive passivity, its
sensuous purity, this woman's face reminded him of Titian's
'Heavenly Love,' a reproduction of which hung over the sideboard
in his dining-room.  And her attraction seemed to be in this soft
passivity, in the feeling she gave that to pressure she must
yield.

For what or whom was she waiting, in the silence, with the trees
dropping here and there a leaf, and the thrushes strutting close
on grass, touched with the sparkle of the autumn rime?  Then her
charming face grew eager, and, glancing round, with almost a
lover's jealousy, young Jolyon saw Bosinney striding across the
grass.

Curiously he watched the meeting, the look in their eyes, the
long clasp of their hands.  They sat down close together, linked
for all their outward discretion.  He heard the rapid murmur of
their talk; but what they said he could not catch.

He had rowed in the galley himself!  He knew the long hours of
waiting and the lean minutes of a half-public meeting; the
tortures of suspense that haunt the unhallowed lover.

It required, however, but a glance at their two faces to see that
this was none of those affairs of a season that distract men and
women about town; none of those sudden appetites that wake up
ravening, and are surfeited and asleep again in six weeks.  This
was the real thing!  This was what had happened to himself!  Out
of this anything might come!

Bosinney was pleading, and she so quiet, so soft, yet immovable
in her passivity, sat looking over the grass.

Was he the man to carry her off, that tender, passive being, who
would never stir a step for herself?  Who had given him all
herself, and would die for him, but perhaps would never run away
with him!

It seemed to young Jolyon that he could hear her saying: "But,
darling, it would ruin you!"  For he himself had experienced to
the full the gnawing fear at the bottom of each woman's heart
that she is a drag on the man she loves.

And he peeped at them no more; but their soft, rapid talk came to
his ears, with the stuttering song of some bird who seemed trying
to remember the notes of spring: Joy--tragedy?  Which--which?

And gradually their talk ceased; long silence followed.

'And where does Soames come in?' young Jolyon thought.  'People
think she is concerned about the sin of deceiving her husband!
Little they know of women!  She's eating, after starvation--
taking her revenge!  And Heaven help her--for he'll take his.'

He heard the swish of silk, and, spying round the laurel, saw
them walking away, their hands stealthily joined....

At the end of July old Jolyon had taken his grand-daughter to the
mountains; and on that visit (the last they ever paid) June
recovered to a great extent her health and spirits.  In the
hotels, filled with British Forsytes--for old Jolyon could not
bear a 'set of Germans,' as he called all foreigners--she was
looked upon with respect--the only grand-daughter of that fine-
looking, and evidently wealthy, old Mr. Forsyte.  She did not mix
freely with people--to mix freely with people was not June's
habit--but she formed some friendships, and notably one in the
Rhone Valley, with a French girl who was dying of consumption.

Determining at once that her friend should not die, she forgot,
in the institution of a campaign against Death, much of her own
trouble.

Old Jolyon watched the new intimacy with relief and disapproval;
for this additional proof that her life was to be passed amongst
'lame ducks' worried him.  Would she never make a friendship or
take an interest in something that would be of real benefit to
her?

'Taking up with a parcel of foreigners,' he called it.  He often,
however, brought home  grapes or roses, and presented them to
'Mam'zelle' with an ingratiating twinkle.

Towards the end of September, in spite of June's disapproval,
Mademoiselle Vigor breathed her last in the little hotel at St.
Luc, to which they had moved her; and June took her defeat so
deeply to heart that old Jolyon carried her away to Paris.  Here,
in contemplation of the 'Venus de Milo' and the 'Madeleine,' she
shook off her depression, and when, towards the middle of
October, they returned to town, her grandfather believed that he
had effected a cure.

No sooner, however, had they established themselves in Stanhope
Gate than he perceived to his dismay a return of her old absorbed
and brooding manner.  She would sit, staring in front of her, her
chin on her hand, like a little Norse spirit, grim and intent,
while all around in the electric light, then just installed,
shone the great, drawing-room brocaded up to the frieze, full of
furniture from Baple and Pullbred's.  And in the huge gilt mirror
were reflected those Dresden china groups of young men in tight
knee breeches, at the feet of full-bosomed ladies nursing on
their laps pet lambs, which old Jolyon had bought when he was a
bachelor and thought so highly of in these days of degenerate
taste.  He was a man of most open mind, who, more than any
Forsyte of them all, had moved with the times, but he could never
forget that he had bought these groups at Jobson's, and given a
lot of money for them.  He often said to June, with a sort of
disillusioned contempt:

"You don't care about them!  They're not the gimcrack things you
and your friends like, but they cost me seventy pounds!"  He was
not a man who allowed his taste to be warped when he knew for
solid reasons that it was sound.

One of the first things that June did on getting home was to go
round to Timothy's.  She persuaded herself that it was her duty
to call there, and cheer him with an account of all her travels;
but in reality she went because she knew of no other place where,
by some random speech, or roundabout question, she could glean
news of Bosinney.

They received her most cordially: And how was her dear grand-
father?  He had not been to see them since May.  Her Uncle
Timothy was very poorly, he had had a lot of trouble with the
chimney-sweep in his bedroom; the stupid man had let the soot
down the chimney!  It had quite upset her uncle.

June sat there a long time, dreading, yet passionately hoping,
that they would speak of Bosinney.

But paralyzed by unaccountable discretion, Mrs. Septimus Small
let fall no word, neither did she question June about him.  In
desperation the girl asked at last whether Soames and Irene were
in town--she had not yet been to see anyone.

It was Aunt Hester who replied: Oh, yes, they were in town, they
had not been away at all.  There was some little difficulty about
the house, she believed.  June had heard, no doubt!  She had
better ask her Aunt Juley!

June turned to Mrs. Small, who sat upright in her chair, her
hands clasped, her face covered with innumerable pouts.  In
answer to the girl's look she maintained a strange silence, and
when she spoke it was to ask June whether she had worn night-
socks up in those high hotels where it must be so cold of a
night.

June answered that she had not, she hated the stuffy things; and
rose to leave.

Mrs. Small's infallibly chosen silence was far more ominous to
her than anything that could have been said.

Before half an hour was over she had dragged the truth from Mrs.
Baynes in Lowndes Square, that Soames was bringing an action
against Bosinney over the decoration of the house.

Instead of disturbing her, the news had a strangely calming
effect; as though she saw in the prospect of this struggle new
hope for herself.  She learnt that the case was expected to come
on in about a month, and there seemed little or no prospect of
Bosinney's success.

"And whatever he'll do I can't think," said Mrs. Baynes; "it's
very dreadful for him, you know--he's got no money--he's very
hard up.  And we can't help him, I'm sure.  I'm told the
money-lenders won't lend if you have no security, and he has
none--none at all."

Her embonpoint had increased of late; she was in the full swing
of autumn organization, her writing-table literally strewn with
the menus of charity functions.  She looked meaningly at June,
with her round eyes of parrot-grey.

The sudden flush that rose on the girl's intent young face--she
must have seen spring up before her a great hope--the sudden
sweetness of her smile, often came back to Lady Baynes in after
years (Baynes was knighted when he built that public Museum of
Art which has given so much employment to officials, and so
little pleasure to those working classes for whom it was
designed).

The memory of that change, vivid and touching, like the breaking
open of a flower, or the first sun after long winter, the memory,
too, of all that came after, often intruded itself, unaccountably,
inopportunely on Lady Baynes, when her mind was set upon the most
important things.

This was the very afternoon of the day that young Jolyon
witnessed the meeting in the Botanical Gardens, and on this day,
too, old Jolyon paid a visit to his solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard,
and Forsyte, in the Poultry.  Soames was not in, he had gone down
to Somerset House; Bustard was buried up to the hilt in papers
and that inaccessible apartment, where he was judiciously placed,
in order that he might do as much work as possible; but James was
in the front office, biting a finger, and lugubriously turning
over the pleadings in Forsyte v. Bosinney.

This sound lawyer had only a sort of luxurious dread of the 'nice
point,' enough to set up a pleasurable feeling of fuss; for his
good practical sense told him that if he himself were on the
Bench he would not pay much attention to it.  But he was afraid
that this Bosinney would go bankrupt and Soames would have to
find the money after all, and costs into the bargain.  And behind
this tangible dread there was always that intangible trouble,
lurking in the background, intricate, dim, scandalous, like a bad
dream, and of which this action was but an outward and visible
sign.

He raised his head as old Jolyon came in, and muttered: "How are
you, Jolyon?  Haven't seen you for an age.  You've been to
Switzerland, they tell me.  This young Bosinney, he's got himself
into a mess.  I knew how it would be!"  He held out the papers,
regarding his elder brother with nervous gloom.

Old Jolyon read them in silence, and while he read them James
looked at the floor, biting his fingers the while.

Old Jolyon pitched them down at last, and they fell with a thump
amongst a mass of affidavits in 're Buncombe, deceased,' one of
the many branches of that parent and profitable tree, 'Fryer v.
Forsyte.'

"I don't know what Soames is about," he said, "to make a fuss
over a few hundred pounds.  I thought he was a man of property."

James'long upper lip twitched angrily; he could not bear his son
to be attacked in such a spot.

"It's not the money "he began, but meeting his brother's glance,
direct, shrewd, judicial, he stopped.

There was a silence.

"I've come in for my Will," said old Jolyon at last, tugging at
his moustache.

James' curiosity was roused at once.  Perhaps nothing in this
life was more stimulating to him than a Will; it was the supreme
deal with property, the final inventory of a man's belongings,
the last word on what he was worth.  He sounded the bell.

"Bring in Mr. Jolyon's Will," he said to an anxious, dark-haired
clerk.

"You going to make some alterations?" And through his mind there
flashed the thought: 'Now, am I worth as much as he?'

Old Jolyon put the Will in his breast pocket, and James twisted
his long legs regretfully.

"You've made some nice purchases lately, they tell me," he said.

"I don't know where you get your information from," answered old
Jolyon sharply.  "When's this action coming on?  Next month?  I
can't tell what you've got in your minds.  You must manage your
own affairs; but if you take my advice, you'll settle it out of
Court.  Good-bye!"  With a cold handshake he was gone.

James, his fixed grey-blue eye corkscrewing round some secret
anxious image, began again to bite his finger.

Old Jolyon took his Will to the offices of the New Colliery
Company, and sat down in the empty Board Room to read it through.
He answered 'Down-by-the-starn' Hemmings so tartly when the
latter, seeing his Chairman seated there, entered with the new
Superintendent's first report, that the Secretary withdrew with
regretful dignity; and sending for the transfer clerk, blew him
up till the poor youth knew not where to look.

It was not--by George--as he (Down-by-the-starn) would have him
know, for a whippersnapper of a young fellow like him, to come
down to that office, and think that he was God Almighty.  He
(Down-by-the-starn) had been head of that office for more years
than a boy like him could count, and if he thought that when he
had finished all his work, he could sit there doing nothing, he
did not know him, Hemmings (Down-by-the-starn), and so forth.

On the other side of the green baize door old Jolyon sat at the
long, mahogany-and-leather board table, his thick, loose-jointed,
tortoiseshell eye-glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, his
gold pencil moving down the clauses of his Will.

It was a simple affair, for there were none of those vexatious
little legacies and donations to charities, which fritter away a
man's possessions, and damage the majestic effect of that little
paragraph in the morning papers accorded to Forsytes who die with
a hundred thousand pounds.

A simple affair.  Just a bequest to his son of twenty thousand,
and 'as to the residue of my property of whatsoever kind whether
realty or personalty, or partaking of the nature of either--upon
trust to pay the proceeds rents annual produce dividends or
interest thereof and thereon to my said grand-daughter June
Forsyte or her assigns during her life to be for her sole use and
benefit and without, etc... and from and after her death or
decease upon trust to convey assign transfer or make over the
said last-mentioned lands hereditaments premises trust moneys
stocks funds investments and securities or such as shall then
stand for and represent the same unto such person or persons
whether one or more for such intents purposes and uses and
generally in such manner way and form in all respects as the said
June Forsyte notwithstanding coverture shall by her last Will and
Testament or any writing or writings in the nature of a Will
testament or testamentary disposition to be by her duly made
signed and published direct appoint or make over give and dispose
of the same And in default etc....  Provided always...' and so on,
in seven folios of brief and simple phraseology.

The Will had been drawn by James in his palmy days.  He had
foreseen almost every contingency.

Old Jolyon sat a long time reading this Will; at last he took
half a sheet of paper from the rack, and made a prolonged pencil
note; then buttoning up the Will, he caused a cab to be called
and drove to the offices of Paramor and Herring, in Lincoln's Inn
Fields.  Jack Herring was dead, but his nephew was still in the
firm, and old Jolyon was closeted with him for half an hour.

He had kept the hansom, and on coming out, gave the driver the
address--3, Wistaria Avenue.

He felt a strange, slow satisfaction, as though he had scored a
victory over James and the man of property.  They should not poke
their noses into his affairs any more; he had just cancelled
their trusteeships of his Will; he would take the whole of his
business out of their hands, and put it into the hands of young
Herring, and he would move the business of his Companies too.  If
that young Soames were such a man of property, he would never
miss a thousand a year or so; and under his great white moustache
old Jolyon grimly smiled.  He felt that what he was doing was in
the nature of retributive justice, richly deserved.

Slowly, surely, with the secret inner process that works the
destruction of an old tree, the poison of the wounds to his
happiness, his will, his pride, had corroded the comely edifice
of his philosophy.  Life had worn him down on one side, till,
like that family of which he was the head, he had lost balance.

To him, borne northwards towards his son's house, the thought of
the new disposition of property, which he had just set in motion,
appeared vaguely in the light of a stroke of punishment, levelled
at that family and that Society, of which James and his son
seemed to him the representatives.  He had made a restitution to
young Jolyon, and restitution to young Jolyon satisfied his
secret craving for revenge-revenge against Time, sorrow, and
interference, against all that incalculable sum of disapproval
that had been bestowed by the world for fifteen years on his only
son.  It presented itself as the one possible way of asserting
once more the domination of his will; of forcing James, and
Soames, and the family, and all those hidden masses of Forsytes--
a great stream rolling against the single dam of his obstinacy--
to recognise once and for all that be would be master.  It was
sweet to think that at last he was going to make the boy a richer
man by far than that son of James, that 'man of property.' And it
was sweet to give to Jo, for he loved his son.

Neither young Jolyon nor his wife were in (young Jolyon indeed
was not back from the Botanical), but the little maid told him
that she expected the master at any moment:

"He's always at 'ome to tea, sir, to play with the children."

Old Jolyon said he would wait; and sat down patiently enough in
the faded, shabby drawing room, where, now that the summer
chintzes were removed, the old chairs and sofas revealed all
their threadbare deficiencies.  He longed to send for the
children; to have them there beside him, their supple bodies
against his knees; to hear Jolly's: "Hallo, Gran!" and see his
rush; and feel Holly's soft little hand stealing up against his
cheek.  But he would not.  There was solemnity in what he had
come to do, and until it was over he would not play.  He amused
himself by thinking how with two strokes of his pen he was going
to restore the look of caste so conspicuously absent from
everything in that little house; how he could fill these rooms,
or others in some larger mansion, with triumphs of art from Baple
and Pullbred's; how he could send little Jolly to Harrow and
Oxford (he no longer had faith in Eton and Cambridge, for his son
had been there); how he could procure little Holly the best
musical instruction, the child had a remarkable aptitude.

As these visions crowded before him, causing emotion to swell his
heart, he rose, and stood at the window, looking down into the
little walled strip of garden, where the pear-tree, bare of
leaves before its time, stood with gaunt branches in the
slow-gathering mist of the autumn afternoon.  The dog Balthasar,
his tail curled tightly over a piebald, furry back, was walking
at the farther end, sniffing at the plants, and at intervals
placing his leg for support against the wall.

And old Jolyon mused.

What pleasure was there left but to give?  It was pleasant to
give, when you could find one who would be thankful for what you
gave--one of your own flesh and blood!  There was no such
satisfaction to be had out of giving to those who did not belong
to you, to those who had no claim on you!  Such giving as that
was a betrayal of the individualistic convictions and actions of
his life, of all his enterprise, his labour, and his moderation,
of the great and proud fact that, like tens of thousands of
Forsytes before him, tens of thousands in the present, tens of
thousands in the future, he had always made his own, and held his
own, in the world.

And, while he stood there looking down on the smut-covered
foliage of the laurels, the blackstained grass-plot, the progress
of the dog Balthasar, all the suffering of the fifteen years
during which he had been baulked of legitimate enjoyment mingled
its gall with the sweetness of the approaching moment.

Young Jolyon came at last, pleased with his work, and fresh from
long hours in the open air.  On hearing that his father was in
the drawing room, he inquired hurriedly whether Mrs. Forsyte was
at home, and being informed that she was not, heaved a sigh of
relief.  Then putting his painting materials carefully in the
little coat-closet out of sight, he went in.

With characteristic decision old Jolyon came at once to the
point.  "I've been altering my arrangements, Jo," he said.  "You
can cut your coat a bit longer in the future--I'm settling a
thousand a year on you at once.  June will have fifty thousand at
my death; and you the rest.  That dog of yours is spoiling the
garden.  I shouldn't keep a dog, if I were you!"

The dog Balthasar, seated in the centre of the lawn, was
examining his tail.

Young Jolyon looked at the animal, but saw him dimly, for his
eyes were misty.

"Yours won't come short of a hundred thousand, my boy," said old
Jolyon; "I thought you'd better know.  I haven't much longer to
live at my age.  I shan't allude to it again.  How's your wife?
And--give her my love."

Young Jolyon put his hand on his father's shoulder, and, as
neither spoke, the episode closed.

Having seen his father into a hansom, young Jolyon came back to
the drawing-room and stood, where old Jolyon had stood, looking
down on the little garden.  He tried to realize all that this
meant to him, and, Forsyte that he was, vistas of property were
opened out in his brain; the years of half rations through which
he had passed had not sapped his natural instincts.  In extremely
practical form, he thought of travel, of his wife's costume, the
children's education, a pony for Jolly, a thousand things; but in
the midst of all he thought, too, of Bosinney and his mistress,
and the broken song of the thrush.  Joy--tragedy!  Which?  Which?

The old past--the poignant, suffering, passionate, wonderful
past, that no money could buy, that nothing could restore in all
its burning sweetness--had come back before him.

When his wife came in he went straight up to her and took her in
his arms; and for a long time he stood without speaking, his eyes
closed, pressing her to him, while she looked at him with a
wondering, adoring, doubting look in her eyes.




CHAPTER IV

VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO


The morning after a certain night on which Soames at last
asserted his rights and acted like a man, he breakfasted alone.

He breakfasted by gaslight, the fog of late November wrapping the
town as in some monstrous blanket till the trees of the Square
even were barely visible from the diningroom window.

He ate steadily, but at times a sensation as though he could not
swallow attacked him.  Had he been right to yield to his
overmastering hunger of the night before, and break down the
resistance which he had suffered now too long from this woman who
was his lawful and solemnly constituted helpmate?

He was strangely haunted by the recollection of her face, from
before which, to soothe her, he had tried to pull her hands--of
her terrible smothered sobbing, the like of which he had never
heard, and still seemed to hear; and he was still haunted by the
odd, intolerable feeling of remorse and shame he had felt, as he
stood looking at her by the flame of the single candle, before
silently slinking away.

And somehow, now that he had acted like this, he was surprised at
himself.

Two nights before, at Winifred Dartie's, he had taken Mrs.
MacAnder into dinner.  She had said to him, looking in his face
with her sharp, greenish eyes: "And so your wife is a great
friend of that Mr. Bosinney's?"

Not deigning to ask what she meant, he had brooded over her
words.

They had roused in him a fierce jealousy, which, with the
peculiar perversion of this instinct, had turned to fiercer
desire.

Without the incentive of Mrs. MacAnder's words he might never
have done what he had done.  Without their incentive and the
accident of finding his wife's door for once unlocked, which had
enabled him to steal upon her asleep.

Slumber had removed his doubts, but the morning brought them
again.  One thought comforted him: No one would know--it was not
the sort of thing that she would speak about.

And, indeed, when the vehicle of his daily business life, which
needed so imperatively the grease of clear and practical thought,
started rolling once more with the reading of his letters, those
nightmare-like doubts began to assume less extravagant importance
at the back of his mind.  The incident was really not of great
moment; women made a fuss about it in books; but in the cool
judgment of right-thinking men, of men of the world, of such as
he recollected often received praise in the Divorce Court, he had
but done his best to sustain the sanctity of marriage, to prevent
her from abandoning her duty, possibly, if she were still seeing
Bosinney, from....

No, he did not regret it.

Now that the first step towards reconciliation had been taken,
the rest would be comparatively--comparatively....

He, rose and walked to the window.  His nerve had been shaken.
The sound of smothered sobbing was in his ears again.  He could
not get rid of it.

He put on his fur coat, and went out into the fog; having to go
into the City, he took the underground railway from Sloane Square
station.

In his corner of the first-class compartment filled with City men
the smothered sobbing still haunted him, so he opened the Times
with the rich crackle that drowns all lesser sounds, and,
barricaded behind it, set himself steadily to con the news.

He read that a Recorder had charged a grand jury on the previous
day with a more than usually long list of offences.  He read of
three murders, five manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as
eleven rapes--a surprisingly high number--in addition to many
less conspicuous crimes, to be tried during a coming Sessions;
and from one piece of news he went on to another, keeping the
paper well before his face.

And still, inseparable from his reading, was the memory of
Irene's tear-stained face, and the sounds from her broken heart.

The day was a busy one, including, in addition to the ordinary
affairs of his practice, a visit to his brokers, Messrs. Grin
and Grinning, to give them instructions to sell his shares in the
New Colliery Co., Ltd., whose business he suspected, rather than
knew, was stagnating (this enterprise afterwards slowly declined,
and was ultimately sold for a song to an American syndicate); and
a long conference at Waterbuck, Q.C.'s chambers, attended by
Boulter, by Fiske, the junior counsel, and Waterbuck, Q.C.,
himself.

The case of Forsyte v. Bosinney was expected to be reached on
the morrow, before Mr. Justice Bentham.

Mr. Justice Bentham, a man of common-sense rather than too great
legal knowledge, was considered to be about the best man they
could have to try the action.  He was a 'strong' Judge.

Waterbuck, Q.C., in pleasing conjunction with an almost rude
neglect of Boulter and Fiske paid to Soames a good deal of
attention, by instinct or the sounder evidence of rumour, feeling
him to be a man of property.

He held with remarkable consistency to the opinion he had already
expressed in writing, that the issue would depend to a great
extent on the evidence given at the trial, and in a few well
directed remarks he advised Soames not to be too careful in
giving that evidence.  "A little bluffness, Mr. Forsyte," he said,
"a little bluffness," and after he had spoken he laughed firmly,
closed his lips tight, and scratched his head just below where he
had pushed his wig back, for all the world like the gentleman-
farmer for whom he loved to be taken.  He was considered perhaps
the leading man in breach of promise cases.

Soames used the underground again in going home.

The fog was worse than ever at Sloane Square station.  Through
the still, thick blur, men groped in and out; women, very few,
grasped their reticules to their bosoms and handkerchiefs to
their mouths; crowned with the weird excrescence of the driver,
haloed by a vague glow of lamp-light that seemed to drown in
vapour before it reached the pavement, cabs loomed dimshaped ever
and again, and discharged citizens, bolting like rabbits to their
burrows.

And these shadowy figures, wrapped each in his own little shroud
of fog, took no notice of each other.  In the great warren, each
rabbit for himself, especially those clothed in the more
expensive fur, who, afraid of carriages on foggy days, are driven
underground.

One figure, however, not far from Soames, waited at the station
door.

Some buccaneer or lover, of whom each Forsyte thought: 'Poor
devil! looks as if he were having a bad time!'  Their kind hearts
beat a stroke faster for that poor, waiting, anxious lover in the
fog; but they hurried by, well knowing that they had neither time
nor money to spare for any suffering but their own.

Only a policeman, patrolling slowly and at intervals, took an
interest in that waiting figure, the brim of whose slouch hat
half hid a face reddened by the cold, all thin, and haggard, over
which a hand stole now and again to smooth away anxiety, or renew
the resolution that kept him waiting there.  But the waiting
lover (if lover he were) was used to policemen's scrutiny, or too
absorbed in his anxiety, for he never flinched.  A hardened case,
accustomed to long trysts, to anxiety, and fog, and cold, if only
his mistress came at last.  Foolish lover!  Fogs last until the
spring; there is also snow and rain, no comfort anywhere; gnawing
fear if you bring her out, gnawing fear if you bid her stay at
home!

"Serve him right; he should arrange his affairs better!"

So any respectable Forsyte.  Yet, if that sounder citizen could
have listened at the waiting lover's heart, out there in the fog
and the cold, he would have said again: "Yes, poor devil he's
having a bad time!"

Soames got into his cab, and, with the glass down, crept along
Sloane Street, and so along the Brompton Road, and home.  He
reached his house at five.

His wife was not in.  She had gone out a quarter of an hour
before.  Out at such a time of night, into this terrible fog!
What was the meaning of that?

He sat by the dining-room fire, with the door open, disturbed to
the soul, trying to read the evening paper.  A book was no good--
in daily papers alone was any narcotic to such worry as his.
From the customary events recorded in the journal he drew some
comfort.  'Suicide of an actress'--'Grave indisposition of a
Statesman' (that chronic sufferer)--'Divorce of an army officer'
--'Fire in a colliery'--he read them all.  They helped him a
little--prescribed by the greatest of all doctors, our natural
taste.

It was nearly seven when he heard her come in.

The incident of the night before had long lost its importance
under stress of anxiety at her strange sortie into the fog.  But
now that Irene was home, the memory of her broken-hearted sobbing
came back to him, and he felt nervous at the thought of facing
her.

She was already on the stairs; her grey fur coat hung to her
knees, its high collar almost hid her face, she wore a thick
veil.

She neither turned to look at him nor spoke.  No ghost or
stranger could have passed more silently.

Bilson came to lay dinner, and told him that Mrs. Forsyte was not
coming down; she was having the soup in her room.

For once Soames did not 'change'; it was, perhaps, the first time
in his life that he had sat down to dinner with soiled cuffs,
and, not even noticing them, he brooded long over his wine.  He
sent Bilson to light a fire in his picture-room, and presently
went up there himself.

Turning on the gas, he heaved a deep sigh, as though amongst
these treasures, the backs of which confronted him in stacks,
around the little room, he had found at length his peace of mind.
He went straight up to the greatest treasure of them all, an
undoubted Turner, and, carrying it to the easel, turned its face
to the light.  There had been a movement in Turners, but he had
not been able to make up his mind to part with it.  He stood for
a long time, his pale, clean-shaven face poked forward above his
stand-up collar, looking at the picture as though he were adding
it up; a wistful expression came into his eyes; he found,
perhaps, that it came to too little.  He took it down from the
easel to put it back against the wall; but, in crossing the room,
stopped, for he seemed to hear sobbing.

It was nothing--only the sort of thing that had been bothering
him in the morning.  And soon after, putting the high guard
before the blazing fire, he stole downstairs.

Fresh for the morrow! was his thought.  It was long before he
went to sleep....

It is now to George Forsyte that the mind must turn for light on
the events of that fog-engulfed afternoon.

The wittiest and most sportsmanlike of the Forsytes had passed
the day reading a novel in the paternal mansion at Princes'
Gardens.  Since a recent crisis in his financial affairs he had
been kept on parole by Roger, and compelled to reside 'at home.'

Towards five o'clock he went out, and took train at South
Kensington Station (for everyone to-day went Underground).  His
intention was to dine, and pass the evening playing billiards at
the Red Pottle--that unique hostel, neither club, hotel, nor good
gilt restaurant.

He got out at Charing Cross, choosing it in preference to his
more usual St.  James's Park, that he might reach Jermyn Street
by better lighted ways.

On the platform his eyes--for in combination with a composed and
fashionable appearance, George had sharp eyes, and was always on
the look-out for fillips to his sardonic humour--his eyes were
attracted by a man, who, leaping from a first-class compartment,
staggered rather than walked towards the exit.

'So ho, my bird!' said George to himself; 'why, it's "the
Buccaneer!"' and he put his big figure on the trail.  Nothing
afforded him greater amusement than a drunken man.

Bosinney, who wore a slouch hat, stopped in front of him, spun
around, and rushed back towards the carriage he had just left.
He was too late.  A porter caught him by the coat; the train was
already moving on.

George's practised glance caught sight of the face of a lady clad
in a grey fur coat at the carriage window.  It was Mrs. Soames--
and George felt that this was interesting!

And now he followed Bosinney more closely than ever--up the
stairs, past the ticket collector into the street.  In that
progress, however, his feelings underwent a change; no longer
merely curious and amused, he felt sorry for the poor fellow he
was shadowing.  'The Buccaneer' was not drunk, but seemed to be
acting under the stress of violent emotion; he was talking to
himself, and all that George could catch were the words "Oh,
God!"  Nor did he appear to know what he was doing, or where
going; but stared, hesitated, moved like a man out of his mind;
and from being merely a joker in search of amusement, George felt
that he must see the poor chap through.

He had 'taken the knock'--'taken the knock!'  And he wondered what
on earth Mrs. Soames had been saying, what on earth she had been
telling him in the railway carriage.  She had looked bad enough
herself!  It made George sorry to think of her travelling on with
her trouble all alone.

He followed close behind Bosinney's elbow--tall, burly figure,
saying nothing, dodging warily--and shadowed him out into the
fog.

There was something here beyond a jest!  He kept his head
admirably, in spite of some excitement, for in addition to
compassion, the instincts of the chase were roused within him.

Bosinney walked right out into the thoroughfare--a vast muffled
blackness, where a man could not see six paces before him; where,
all around, voices or whistles mocked the sense of direction; and
sudden shapes came rolling slow upon them; and now and then a
light showed like a dim island in an infinite dark sea.

And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney, and
fast after him walked George.  If the fellow meant to put his
'twopenny' under a 'bus, he would stop it if he could!  Across
the street and back the hunted creature strode, not groping as
other men were groping in that gloom, but driven forward as
though the faithful George behind wielded a knout; and this chase
after a haunted man began to have for George the strangest
fascination.

But it was now that the affair developed in a way which ever
afterwards caused it to remain green in his mind.  Brought to a
stand-still in the fog, he heard words which threw a sudden light
on these proceedings.  What Mrs. Soames had said to Bosinney in
the train was now no longer dark.  George understood from those
mutterings that Soames had exercised his rights over an estranged
and unwilling wife in the greatest--the supreme act of property.

His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation; it impressed
him; he guessed something of the anguish, the sexual confusion
and horror in Bosinney's heart.  And he thought: 'Yes, it's a bit
thick!  I don't wonder the poor fellow is halfcracked!'

He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions
in Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in
that gulf of darkness.  Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and
George, in whose patience was a touch of strange brotherliness,
took his stand behind.  He was not lacking in a certain delicacy-
-a sense of form--that did not permit him to intrude upon this
tragedy, and he waited, quiet as the lion above, his fur collar
hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy redness of his
cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their sardonic,
compassionate stare.  And men kept passing back from business on
the way to their clubs--men whose figures shrouded in cocoons of
fog came into view like spectres, and like spectres vanished.
Then even in his compassion George's Quilpish humour broke forth
in a sudden longing to pluck these spectres by the sleeve, and
say:

"Hi, you Johnnies!  You don't often see a show like this!  Here's
a poor devil whose mistress has just been telling him a pretty
little story of her husband; walk up, walk up!  He's taken the
knock, you see."

In fancy he saw them gaping round the tortured lover; and grinned
as he thought of some respectable, newly-married spectre enabled
by the state of his own affections to catch an inkling of what
was going on within Bosinney; he fancied he could see his mouth
getting wider and wider, and the fog going down and down.  For in
George was all that contempt of the of the married middle-class--
peculiar to the wild and sportsmanlike spirits in its ranks.

But he began to be bored.  Waiting was not what he had bargained
for.

'After all,' he thought, 'the poor chap will get over it; not the
first time such a thing has happened in this little city!' But
now his quarry again began muttering words of violent hate and
anger.  And following a sudden impulse George touched him on the
shoulder.

Bosinney spun round.

"Who are you?  What do you want?"

George could have stood it well enough in the light of the gas
lamps, in the light of that everyday world of which he was so
hardy a connoisseur; but in this fog, where all was gloomy and
unreal, where nothing had that matter-of-fact value associated by
Forsytes with earth, he was a victim to strange qualms, and as he
tried to stare back into the eyes of this maniac, he thought:

'If I see a bobby, I'll hand him over; he's not fit to be at
large.'

But waiting for no answer, Bosinney strode off into the fog, and
George followed, keeping perhaps a little further off, yet more
than ever set on tracking him down.

'He can't go on long like this,' he thought.  'It's God's own
miracle he's not been run over already.' He brooded no more on
policemen, a sportsman's sacred fire alive again within him.

Into a denser gloom than ever Bosinney held on at a furious pace;
but his pursuer perceived more method in his madness--he was
clearly making his way westwards.

'He's really going for Soames!' thought George.  The idea was
attractive.  It would be a sporting end to such a chase.  He had
always disliked his cousin.

The shaft of a passing cab brushed against his shoulder and made
him leap aside.  He did not intend to be killed for the Buccaneer,
or anyone.  Yet, with hereditary tenacity, he stuck to the trail
through vapour that blotted out everything but the shadow of the
hunted man and the dim moon of the nearest lamp.

Then suddenly, with the instinct of a town-stroller, George knew
himself to be in Piccadilly.  Here he could find his way blindfold;
and freed from the strain of geographical uncertainty, his mind
returned to Bosinney's trouble.

Down the long avenue of his man-about-town experience, bursting,
as it were, through a smirch of doubtful amours, there stalked to
him a memory of his youth.  A memory, poignant still, that brought
the scent of hay, the gleam of moonlight, a summer magic, into
the reek and blackness of this London fog--the memory of a night
when in the darkest shadow of a lawn he had overheard from a
woman's lips that he was not her sole possessor.  And for a moment
George walked no longer in black Piccadilly, but lay again, with
hell in his heart, and his face to the sweet-smelling, dewy grass,
in the long shadow of poplars that hid the moon.

A longing seized him to throw his arm round the Buccaneer, and
say, "Come, old boy.  Time cures all.  Let's go and drink it off!"

But a voice yelled at him, and he started back.  A cab rolled out
of blackness, and into blackness disappeared.  And suddenly
George perceived that he had lost Bosinney.  He ran forward and
back, felt his heart clutched by a sickening fear, the dark fear
which lives in the wings of the fog.  Perspiration started out on
his brow.  He stood quite still, listening with all his might.

"And then," as he confided to Dartie the same evening in the
course of a game of billiards at the Red Pottle, "I lost him."

Dartie twirled complacently at his dark moustache.  He had just
put together a neat break of twenty-three,--failing at a 'Jenny.'
"And who was she?" he asked.

George looked slowly at the 'man of the world's' fattish, sallow
face, and a little grim smile lurked about the curves of his
cheeks and his heavy-lidded eyes.

'No, no, my fine fellow,' he thought, 'I'm not going to tell
you.' For though he mixed with Dartie a good deal, he thought him
a bit of a cad.

"Oh, some little love-lady or other," he said, and chalked his
cue.

"A love-lady!" exclaimed Dartie--he used a more figurative
expression.  "I made sure it was our friend Soa...."

"Did you?" said George curtly.  "Then damme you've made an
error."

He missed his shot.  He was careful not to allude to the subject
again till, towards eleven o'clock, having, in his poetic
phraseology, 'looked upon the drink when it was yellow,' he drew
aside the blind, and gazed out into the street.  The murky
blackness of the fog was but faintly broken by the lamps of the
'Red Pottle,' and no shape of mortal man or thing was in sight.

"I can't help thinking of that poor Buccaneer," he said.  "He may
be wandering out there now in that fog.  If he's not a corpse,"
he added with strange dejection.

"Corpse!" said Dartie, in whom the recollection of his defeat at
Richmond flared up.  "He's all right.  Ten to one if he wasn't
tight!"

George turned on him, looking really formidable, with a sort of
savage gloom on his big face.

"Dry up!" he said.  "Don't I tell you he's 'taken the knock!"'




CHAPTER V

THE TRIAL


In the morning of his case, which was second in the list, Soames
was again obliged to start without seeing Irene, and it was just
as well, for he had not as yet made up his mind what attitude to
adopt towards her.

He had been requested to be in court by half-past ten, to provide
against the event of the first action (a breach of promise)
collapsing, which however it did not, both sides showing a
courage that afforded Waterbuck, Q.C., an opportunity for
improving his already great reputation in this class of case.  He
was opposed by Ram, the other celebrated breach of promise man.
It was a battle of giants.

The court delivered judgment just before the luncheon interval.
The jury left the box for good, and Soames went out to get
something to eat.  He met James standing at the little luncheon-
bar, like a pelican in the wilderness of the galleries, bent over
a sandwich with a glass of sherry before him.  The spacious
emptiness of the great central hall, over which father and son
brooded as they stood together, was marred now and then for a
fleeting moment by barristers in wig and gown hurriedly bolting
across, by an occasional old lady or rusty-coated man, looking up
in a frightened way, and by two persons, bolder than their
generation, seated in an embrasure arguing.  The sound of their
voices arose, together with a scent as of neglected wells, which,
mingling with the odour of the galleries, combined to form the
savour, like nothing but the emanation of a refined cheese, so
indissolubly connected with the administration of British
Justice.

It was not long before James addressed his son.

"When's your case coming on?  I suppose it'll be on directly.  I
shouldn't wonder if this Bosinney'd say anything; I should think
he'd have to.  He'll go bankrupt if it goes against him." He took
a large bite at his sandwich and a mouthful of sherry.  "Your
mother," he said, "wants you and Irene to come and dine
to-night."

A chill smile played round Soames' lips; he looked back at his
father.  Anyone who had seen the look, cold and furtive, thus
interchanged, might have been pardoned for not appreciating the
real understanding between them.  James finished his sherry at a
draught.

"How much?" he asked.

On returning to the court Soames took at once his rightful seat
on the front bench beside his solicitor.  He ascertained where
his father was seated with a glance so sidelong as to commit
nobody.

James, sitting back with his hands clasped over the handle of his
umbrella, was brooding on the end of the bench immediately behind
counsel, whence he could get away at once when the case was over.
He considered Bosinney's conduct in every way outrageous, but he
did not wish to run up against him, feeling that the meeting
would be awkward.

Next to the Divorce Court, this court was, perhaps, the favourite
emporium of justice, libel, breach of promise, and other
commercial actions being frequently decided there.  Quite a
sprinkling of persons unconnected with the law occupied the back
benches, and the hat of a woman or two could be seen in the
gallery.

The two rows of seats immediately in front of James were
gradually filled by barristers in wigs, who sat down to make
pencil notes, chat, and attend to their teeth; but his interest
was soon diverted from these lesser lights of justice by the
entrance of Waterbuck, Q.C., with the wings of his silk gown
rustling, and his red, capable face supported by two short, brown
whiskers.  The famous Q.C. looked, as James freely admitted, the
very picture of a man who could heckle a witness.

For all his experience, it so happened that he had never seen
Waterbuck, Q.C., before, and, like many Forsytes in the lower
branch of the profession, he had an extreme admiration for a good
cross-examiner.  The long, lugubrious folds in his cheeks relaxed
somewhat after seeing him, especially as he now perceived that
Soames alone was represented by silk.

Waterbuck, Q.C., had barely screwed round on his elbow to chat
with his Junior before Mr. Justice Bentham himself appeared--a
thin, rather hen-like man, with a little stoop, clean-shaven
under his snowy wig.  Like all the rest of the court, Waterbuck
rose, and remained on his feet until the judge was seated.  James
rose but slightly; he was already comfortable, and had no opinion
of Bentham, having sat next but one to him at dinner twice at the
Bumley Tomms'.  Bumley Tomm was rather a poor thing, though he
had been so successful.  James himself had given him his first
brief.  He was excited, too, for he had just found out that
Bosinney was not in court.

'Now, what's he mean by that?' he kept on thinking.

The case having been called on, Waterbuck, Q.C., pushing back his
papers, hitched his gown on his shoulder, and, with a
semi-circular look around him, like a man who is going to bat,
arose and addressed the Court.

The facts, he said, were not in dispute, and all that his
Lordship would be asked was to interpret the correspondence which
had taken place between his client and the defendant, an
architect, with reference to the decoration of a house.  He
would, however, submit that this correspondence could only mean
one very plain thing.  After briefly reciting the history of the
house at Robin Hill, which he described as a mansion, and the
actual facts of expenditure, he went on as follows:

"My client, Mr. Soames Forsyte, is a gentleman, a man of
property, who would be the last to dispute any legitimate claim
that might be made against him, but he has met with such
treatment from his architect in the matter of this house, over
which he has, as your lordship has heard, already spent some
twelve--some twelve thousand pounds, a sum considerably in
advance of the amount he had originally contemplated, that as a
matter of principle--and this I cannot too strongly emphasize--as
a matter of principle, and in the interests of others, he has
felt himself compelled to bring this action.  The point put
forward in defence by the architect I will suggest to your
lordship is not worthy of a moment's serious consideration."  He
then read the correspondence.

His client, "a man of recognised position," was prepared to go
into the box, and to swear that he never did authorize, that it
was never in his mind to authorize, the expenditure of any money
beyond the extreme limit of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
which he had clearly fixed; and not further to waste the time of
the court, he would at once call Mr. Forsyte.

Soames then went into the box.  His whole appearance was striking
in its composure.  His face, just supercilious enough, pale and
clean-shaven, with a little line between the eyes, and compressed
lips; his dress in unostentatious order, one hand neatly gloved,
the other bare.  He answered the questions put to him in a
somewhat low, but distinct voice.  His evidence under cross-
examination savoured of taciturnity.

Had he not used the expression, "a free hand"?  No.

"Come, come!"

The expression he had used was 'a free hand in the terms of this
correspondence.'

"Would you tell the Court that that was English?"

"Yes!"

"What do you say it means?"

"What it says!"

"Are you prepared to deny that it is a contradiction in terms?"

"Yes."

"You are not an Irishman?"

"No."

"Are you a well-educated man?"

"Yes."

"And yet you persist in that statement?"

"Yes."

Throughout this and much more cross-examination, which turned
again and again around the 'nice point,' James sat with his hand
behind his ear, his eyes fixed upon his son.

He was proud of him!  He could not but feel that in similar
circumstances he himself would have been tempted to enlarge his
replies, but his instinct told him that this taciturnity was the
very thing.  He sighed with relief, however, when Soames, slowly
turning, and without any change of expression, descended from the
box.

When it came to the turn of Bosinney's Counsel to address the
Judge, James redoubled his attention, and he searched the Court
again and again to see if Bosinney were not somewhere concealed.

Young Chankery began nervously; he was placed by Bosinney's
absence in an awkward position.  He therefore did his best to
turn that absence to account.

He could not but fear--he said--that his client had met with an
accident.  He had fully expected him there to give evidence; they
had sent round that morning both to Mr. Bosinney's office and to
his rooms (though he knew they were one and the same, he thought
it was as well not to say so), but it was not known where he was,
and this he considered to be ominous, knowing how anxious Mr.
Bosinney had been to give his evidence.  He had not, however,
been instructed to apply for an adjournment, and in default of
such instruction he conceived it his duty to go on.  The plea on
which he somewhat confidently relied, and which his client, had
he not unfortunately been prevented in some way from attending,
would have supported by his evidence, was that such an expression
as a 'free hand' could not be limited, fettered, and rendered
unmeaning, by any verbiage which might follow it.  He would go
further and say that the correspondence showed that whatever he
might have said in his evidence, Mr. Forsyte had in fact never
contemplated repudiating liability on any of the work ordered or
executed by his architect.  The defendant had certainly never
contemplated such a contingency, or, as was demonstrated by his
letters, he would never have proceeded with the work--a work of
extreme delicacy, carried out with great care and efficiency, to
meet and satisfy the fastidious taste of a connoisseur, a rich
man, a man of property.  He felt strongly on this point, and
feeling strongly he used, perhaps, rather strong words when he
said that this action was of a most unjustifiable, unexpected,
indeed--unprecedented character.  If his Lordship had had the
opportunity that he himself had made it his duty to take, to go
over this very fine house and see the great delicacy and beauty
of the decorations executed by his client--an artist in his most
honourable profession--he felt convinced that not for one moment
would his Lordship tolerate this, he would use no stronger word
than daring attempt to evade legitimate responsibility.

Taking the text of Soames' letters, he lightly touched on
'Boileau v. The Blasted Cement Company, Limited.'  "It is
doubtful," he said, "what that authority has decided; in any case
I would submit that it is just as much in my favour as in my
friend's."  He then argued the 'nice point' closely.  With all
due deference he submitted that Mr. Forsyte's expression
nullified itself.  His client not being a rich man, the matter
was a serious one for him; he was a very talented architect,
whose professional reputation was undoubtedly somewhat at stake.
He concluded with a perhaps too personal appeal to the Judge, as
a lover of the arts, to show himself the protector of artists,
from what was occasionally--he said occasionally--the too iron
hand of capital.  "What," he said, "will be the position of the
artistic professions, if men of property like this Mr. Forsyte
refuse, and are allowed to refuse, to carry out the obligations
of the commissions which they have given."  He would now call
his client, in case he should at the last moment have found
himself able to be present.

The name Philip Baynes Bosinney was called three times by the
Ushers, and the sound of the calling echoed with strange
melancholy throughout the Court and Galleries.

The crying of this name, to which no answer was returned, had
upon James a curious effect: it was like calling for your lost
dog about the streets.  And the creepy feeling that it gave him,
of a man missing, grated on his sense of comfort and security-on
his cosiness.  Though he could not have said why, it made him
feel uneasy.

He looked now at the clock--a quarter to three!  It would be all
over in a quarter of an hour.  Where could the young fellow be?

It was only when Mr. Justice Bentham delivered judgment that he
got over the turn he had received.

Behind the wooden erection, by which he was fenced from more
ordinary mortals, the learned Judge leaned forward.  The electric
light, just turned on above his head, fell on his face, and
mellowed it to an orange hue beneath the snowy crown of his wig;
the amplitude of his robes grew before the eye; his whole figure,
facing the comparative dusk of the Court, radiated like some
majestic and sacred body.  He cleared his throat, took a sip of
water, broke the nib of a quill against the desk, and, folding
his bony hands before him, began.

To James he suddenly loomed much larger than he had ever thought
Bentham would loom.  It was the majesty of the law; and a person
endowed with a nature far less matter-of-fact than that of James
might have been excused for failing to pierce this halo, and
disinter therefrom the somewhat ordinary Forsyte, who walked and
talked in every-day life under the name of Sir Walter Bentham.

He delivered judgment in the following words:

"The facts in this case are not in dispute.  On May 15 last the
defendant wrote to the plaintiff, requesting to be allowed to
withdraw from his professional position in regard to the
decoration of the plaintiff's house, unless he were given 'a free
hand.'  The plaintiff, on May 17, wrote back as follows: 'In
giving you, in accordance with your request, this free hand, I
wish you to clearly understand that the total cost of the house
as handed over to me completely decorated, inclusive of your fee
(as arranged between us) must not exceed twelve thousand pounds.'
To this letter the defendant replied on May 18: 'If you think
that in such a delicate matter as decoration I can bind myself to
the exact pound, I am afraid you are mistaken.'  On May 19 the
plaintiff wrote as follows: 'I did not mean to say that if you
should exceed the sum named in my letter to you by ten or twenty
or even fifty pounds there would be any difficulty between us.
You have a free hand in the terms of this correspondence, and I
hope you will see your way to completing the decorations.'  On
May 20 the defendant replied thus shortly: 'Very well.'

"In completing these decorations, the defendant incurred
liabilities and expenses which brought the total cost of this
house up to the sum of twelve thousand four hundred pounds, all
of which expenditure has been defrayed by the plaintiff.  This
action has been brought by the plaintiff to recover from the
defendant the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds expended by
him in excess of a sum of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
alleged by the plaintiff to have been fixed by this
correspondence as the maximum sum that the defendant had
authority to expend.

"The question for me to decide is whether or no the defendant is
liable to refund to the plaintiff this sum.  In my judgment he is
so liable.

"What in effect the plaintiff has said is this 'I give you a free
hand to complete these decorations, provided that you keep within
a total cost to me of twelve thousand pounds.  If you exceed that
sum by as much as fifty pounds, I will not hold you responsible;
beyond that point you are no agent of mine, and I shall repudiate
liability.' It is not quite clear to me whether, had the
plaintiff in fact repudiated liability under his agent's
contracts, he would, under all the circumstances, have been
successful in so doing; but he has not adopted this course.  He
has accepted liability, and fallen back upon his rights against
the defendant under the terms of the latter's engagement.

"In my judgment the plaintiff is entitled to recover this sum
from the defendant.

"It has been sought, on behalf of the defendant, to show that no
limit of expenditure was fixed or intended to be fixed by this
correspondence.  If this were so, I can find no reason for the
plaintiff's importation into the correspondence of the figures of
twelve thousand pounds and subsequently of fifty pounds.  The
defendant's contention would render these figures meaningless.
It is manifest to me that by his letter of May 20 he assented to
a very clear proposition, by the terms of which he must be held
to be bound.

"For these reasons there will be judgment for the plaintiff for
the amount claimed with costs."

James sighed, and stooping, picked up his umbrella which had
fallen with a rattle at the words 'importation into this
correspondence.'

Untangling his legs, he rapidly left the Court; without waiting
for his son, he snapped up a hansom cab (it was a clear, grey
afternoon) and drove straight to Timothy's where he found
Swithin; and to him, Mrs. Septimus Small, and Aunt Hester, he
recounted the whole proceedings, eating two muffins not
altogether in the intervals of speech.

"Soames did very well," he ended; "he's got his head screwed on
the right way.  This won't please Jolyon.  It's a bad business
for that young Bosinney; he'll go bankrupt, I shouldn't wonder,"
and then after a long pause, during which he had stared
disquietly into the fire, he added

"He wasn't there--now why?"

There was a sound of footsteps.  The figure of a thick-set man,
with the ruddy brown face of robust health, was seen in the back
drawing-room.  The forefinger of his upraised hand was outlined
against the black of his frock coat.  He spoke in a grudging
voice.

"Well, James," he said, "I can't--I can't stop," and turning
round, he walked out.

It was Timothy.

James rose from his chair.  "There!" he said, "there!  I knew
there was something wro...."  He checked himself, and was silent,
staring before him, as though he had seen a portent.




CHAPTER VI

SOAMES BREAKS THE NEWS


In leaving the Court Soames did not go straight home.  He felt
disinclined for the City, and drawn by need for sympathy in his
triumph, he, too, made his way, but slowly and on foot, to
Timothy's in the Bayswater Road.

His father had just left; Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester, in
possession of the whole story, greeted him warmly.  They were
sure he was hungry after all that evidence.  Smither should toast
him some more muffins, his dear father had eaten them all.  He
must put his legs up on the sofa; and he must have a glass of
prune brandy too.  It was so strengthening.

Swithin was still present, having lingered later than his wont,
for he felt in want of exercise.  On hearing this suggestion, he
'pished.' A pretty pass young men were coming to!  His own liver
was out of order, and he could not bear the thought of anyone
else drinking prune brandy.

He went away almost immediately, saying to Soames: "And how's
your wife?  You tell her from me that if she's dull, and likes to
come and dine with me quietly, I'll give her such a bottle of
champagne as she doesn't get every day."  Staring down from his
height on Soames he contracted his thick, puffy, yellow hand as
though squeezing within it all this small fry, and throwing out
his chest he waddled slowly away.

Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester were left horrified.  Swithin was so
droll!

They themselves were longing to ask Soames how Irene would take
the result, yet knew that they must not; he would perhaps say
something of his own accord, to throw some light on this, the
present burning question in their lives, the question that from
necessity of silence tortured them almost beyond bearing; for
even Timothy had now been told, and the effect on his health was
little short of alarming.  And what, too, would June do?  This,
also, was a most exciting, if dangerous speculation!

They had never forgotten old Jolyon's visit, since when he had
not once been to see them; they had never forgotten the feeling
it gave all who were present, that the family was no longer what
it had been--that the family was breaking up.

But Soames gave them no help, sitting with his knees crossed,
talking of the Barbizon school of painters, whom he had just
discovered.  These were the coming men, he said; he should not
wonder if a lot of money were made over them; he had his eye on
two pictures by a man called Corot, charming things; if he could
get them at a reasonable price he was going to buy them--they
would, he thought, fetch a big price some day.

Interested as they could not but be, neither Mrs. Septimus Small
nor Aunt Hester could entirely acquiesce in being thus put off.

It was interesting--most interesting--and then Soames was so
clever that they were sure he would do something with those
pictures if anybody could; but what was his plan now that he had
won his case; was he going to leave London at once, and live in
the country, or what was he going to do?

Soames answered that he did not know, he thought they should be
moving soon.  He rose and kissed his aunts.

No sooner had Aunt Juley received this emblem of departure than a
change came over her, as though she were being visited by
dreadful courage; every little roll of flesh on her face seemed
trying to escape from an invisible, confining mask.

She rose to the full extent of her more than medium height, and
said: "It has been on my mind a long time, dear, and if nobody
else will tell you, I have made up my mind that...."

Aunt Hester interrupted her: "Mind, Julia, you do it...." she
gasped--"on your own responsibility!"

Mrs. Small went on as though she had not heard: "I think you
ought to know, dear, that Mrs. MacAnder saw Irene walking in
Richmond Park with Mr. Bosinney."

Aunt Hester, who had also risen, sank back in her chair, and
turned her face away.  Really Juley was too--she should not do
such things when she--Aunt Hester, was in the room; and,
breathless with anticipation, she waited for what Soames would
answer.

He had flushed the peculiar flush which always centred between
his eyes; lifting his hand, and, as it were, selecting a finger,
he bit a nail delicately; then, drawling it out between set lips,
he said: "Mrs. MacAnder is a cat!"

Without waiting for any reply, he left the room.

When he went into Timothy's he had made up his mind what course
to pursue on getting home.  He would go up to Irene and say:

"Well, I've won my case, and there's an end of it!  I don't want
to be hard on Bosinney; I'll see if we can't come to some
arrangement; he shan't be pressed.  And now let's turn over a
new leaf!  We'll let the house, and get out of these fogs.  We'll
go down to Robin Hill at once.  I--I never meant to be rough with
you!  Let's shake hands--and--"  Perhaps she would let him kiss
her, and forget!

When he came out of Timothy's his intentions were no longer so
simple.  The smouldering jealousy and suspicion of months blazed
up within him.  He would put an end to that sort of thing once
and for all; he would not have her drag his name in the dirt!  If
she could not or would not love him, as was her duty and his
right--she should not play him tricks with anyone else!  He would
tax her with it; threaten to divorce her!  That would make her
behave; she would never face that.  But--but--what if she did?
He was staggered; this had not occurred to him.

What if she did?  What if she made him a confession?  How would
he stand then?  He would have to bring a divorce!

A divorce!  Thus close, the word was paralyzing, so utterly at
variance with all the principles that had hitherto guided his
life.  Its lack of compromise appalled him; he felt--like the
captain of a ship, going to the side of his vessel, and, with his
own hands throwing over the most precious of his bales.  This
jettisoning of his property with his own hand seemed uncanny to
Soames.  It would injure him in his profession: He would have to
get rid of the house at Robin Hill, on which he had spent so much
money, so much anticipation--and at a sacrifice.  And she!  She
would no longer belong to him, not even in name!  She would pass
out of his life, and he--he should never see her again!

He traversed in the cab the length of a street without getting
beyond the thought that he should never see her again!

But perhaps there was nothing to confess, even now very likely
there was nothing to confess.  Was it wise to push things so far?
Was it wise to put himself into a position where he might have to
eat his words?  The result of this case would ruin Bosinney; a
ruined man was desperate, but--what could he do?  He might go
abroad, ruined men always went abroad.  What could they do--if
indeed it was 'they'--without money?  It would be better to wait
and see how things turned out.  If necessary, he could have her
watched.  The agony of his jealousy (for all the world like the
crisis of an aching tooth) came on again; and he almost cried
out.  But he must decide, fix on some course of action before he
got home.  When the cab drew up at the door, he had decided
nothing.

He entered, pale, his hands moist with perspiration, dreading to
meet her, burning to meet her, ignorant of what he was to say or
do.

The maid Bilson was in the hall, and in answer to his question:
"Where is your mistress?" told him that Mrs. Forsyte had left the
house about noon, taking with her a trunk and bag.

Snatching the sleeve of his fur coat away from her grasp, he
confronted her:

"What?" he exclaimed; "what's that you said?" Suddenly
recollecting that he must not betray emotion, he added: "What
message did she leave?" and noticed with secret terror the
startled look of the maid's eyes.

"Mrs. Forsyte left no message, sir."

"No message; very well, thank you, that will do.  I shall be
dining out."

The maid went downstairs, leaving him still in his fur coat, idly
turning over the visiting cards in the porcelain bowl that stood
on the carved oak rug chest in the hall.

Mr. and Mrs. Bareham Culcher.
Mrs. Septimus Small.
Mrs. Baynes.
Mr. Solomon Thornworthy.
Lady Bellis.
Miss Hermione Bellis.
Miss Winifred Bellis.
Miss Ella Bellis.

Who the devil were all these people?  He seemed to have forgotten
all familiar things.  The words 'no message--a trunk, and a bag,'
played a hide-and-seek in his brain.  It was incredible that she
had left no message, and, still in his fur coat, he ran upstairs
two steps at a time, as a young married man when he comes home
will run up to his wife's room.

Everything was dainty, fresh, sweet-smelling; everything in
perfect order.  On the great bed with its lilac silk quilt, was
the bag she had made and embroidered with her own hands to hold
her sleeping things; her slippers ready at the foot; the sheets
even turned over at the head as though expecting her.

On the table stood the silver-mounted brushes and bottles from
her dressing bag, his own present.  There must, then, be some
mistake.  What bag had she taken?  He went to the bell to summon
Bilson, but remembered in time that he must assume knowledge of
where Irene had gone, take it all as a matter of course, and
grope out the meaning for himself.

He locked the doors, and tried to think, but felt his brain going
round; and suddenly tears forced themselves into his eyes.

Hurriedly pulling off his coat, he looked at himself in the
mirror.

He was too pale, a greyish tinge all over his face; he poured out
water, and began feverishly washing.

Her silver-mounted brushes smelt faintly of the perfumed lotion
she used for her hair; and at this scent the burning sickness of
his jealousy seized him again.

Struggling into his fur, he ran downstairs and out into the
street.

He had not lost all command of himself, however, and as he went
down Sloane Street he framed a story for use, in case he should
not find her at Bosinney's.  But if he should?  His power of
decision again failed; he reached the house without knowing what
he should do if he did find her there.

It was after office hours, and the street door was closed; the
woman who opened it could not say whether Mr. Bosinney were in or
no; she had not seen him that day, not for two or three days; she
did not attend to him now, nobody attended to him, he....

Soames interrupted her, he would go up and see for himself.  He
went up with a dogged, white face.

The top floor was unlighted, the door closed, no one answered his
ringing, he could hear no sound.  He was obliged to descend,
shivering under his fur, a chill at his heart.  Hailing a cab, he
told the man to drive to Park Lane.

On the way he tried to recollect when he had last given her a
cheque; she could not have more than three or four pounds, but
there were her jewels; and with exquisite torture he remembered
how much money she could raise on these; enough to take them
abroad; enough for them to live on for months!  He tried to
calculate; the cab stopped, and he got out with the calculation
unmade.

The butler asked whether Mrs. Soames was in the cab, the master
had told him they were both expected to dinner.

Soames answered: "No.  Mrs. Forsyte has a cold."

The butler was sorry.

Soames thought he was looking at him inquisitively, and
remembering that he was not in dress clothes, asked: "Anybody
here to dinner, Warmson?"

"Nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Dartie, sir."

Again it seemed to Soames that the butler was looking curiously
at him.  His composure gave way.

"What are you looking at?" he said.  "What's the matter with me,
eh?"

The butler blushed, hung up the fur coat, murmured something that
sounded like: "Nothing, sir, I'm sure, sir," and stealthily
withdrew.

Soames walked upstairs.  Passing the drawing-room without a look,
he went straight up to his mother's and father's bedroom.

James, standing sideways, the concave lines of his tall, lean
figure displayed to advantage in shirt-sleeves and evening
waistcoat, his head bent, the end of his white tie peeping askew
from underneath one white Dundreary whisker, his eyes peering
with intense concentration, his lips pouting, was hooking the top
hooks of his wife's bodice.  Soames stopped; he felt half-choked,
whether because he had come upstairs too fast, or for some other
reason.  He--he himself had never--never been asked to....

He heard his father's voice, as though there were a pin in his
mouth, saying: "Who's that?  Who's there?  What d'you want?" His
mother's: "Here, Felice, come and hook this; your master'll never
get done."

He put his hand up to his throat, and said hoarsely:

"It's I--Soames!"

He noticed gratefully the affectionate surprise in Emily's:
"Well, my dear boy?" and James', as he dropped the hook: "What,
Soames!  What's brought you up?  Aren't you well?"

He answered mechanically: "I'm all right," and looked at them,
and it seemed impossible to bring out his news.

James, quick to take alarm, began: "You don't look well.  I
expect you've taken a chill--it's liver, I shouldn't wonder.
Your mother'll give you...."

But Emily broke in quietly: "Have you brought Irene?"

Soames shook his head.

"No," he stammered, "she--she's left me!"

Emily deserted the mirror before which she was standing.  Her
tall, full figure lost its majesty and became very human as she
came running over to Soames.

"My dear boy!  My dear boy!"

She put her lips to his forehead, and stroked his hand.

James, too, had turned full towards his son; his face looked
older.

"Left you?" he said.  "What d'you mean--left you?  You never told
me she was going to leave you."

Soames answered surlily: "How could I tell?  What's to be done?"

James began walking up and down; he looked strange and stork-like
without a coat.  "What's to be done!" he muttered.  "How should I
know what's to be done?  What's the good of asking me?  Nobody
tells me anything, and then they come and ask me what's to be
done; and I should like to know how I'm to tell them!  Here's
your mother, there she stands; she doesn't say anything.  What I
should say you've got to do is to follow her.."

Soames smiled; his peculiar, supercilious smile had never before
looked pitiable.

"I don't know where she's gone," he said.

"Don't know where she's gone!" said James.  "How d'you mean,
don't know where she's gone?  Where d'you suppose she's gone?
She's gone after that young Bosinney, that's where she's gone.  I
knew how it would be."

Soames, in the long silence that followed, felt his mother
pressing his hand.  And all that passed seemed to pass as though
his own power of thinking or doing had gone to sleep.

His father's face, dusky red, twitching as if he were going to
cry, and words breaking out that seemed rent from him by some
spasm in his soul.

"There'll be a scandal; I always said so."  Then, no one saying
anything: "And there you stand, you and your mother!"

And Emily's voice, calm, rather contemptuous: "Come, now, James!
Soames will do all that he can."

And James, staring at the floor, a little brokenly: "Well, I
can't help you; I'm getting old.  Don't you be in too great a
hurry, my boy."

And his mother's voice again: "Soames will do all he can to get
her back.  We won't talk of it.  It'll all come right, I dare
say."

And James: "Well, I can't see how it can come right.  And if she
hasn't gone off with that young Bosinney, my advice to you is not
to listen to her, but to follow her and get her back."

Once more Soames felt his mother stroking his hand, in token of
her approval, and as though repeating some form of sacred oath,
he muttered between his teeth: "I will!"

All three went down to the drawing-room together.  There, were
gathered the three girls and Dartie; had Irene been present, the
family circle would have been complete.

James sank into his armchair, and except for a word of cold
greeting to Dartie, whom he both despised and dreaded, as a man
likely to be always in want of money, he said nothing till dinner
was announced.  Soames, too, was silent; Emily alone, a woman of
cool courage, maintained a conversation with Winifred on trivial
subjects.  She was never more composed in her manner and
conversation than that evening.

A decision having been come to not to speak of Irene's flight, no
view was expressed by any other member of the family as to the
right course to be pursued; there can be little doubt, from the
general tone adopted in relation to events as they afterwards
turned out, that James's advice: "Don't you listen to her,
follow-her and get her back!" would, with here and there an
exception, have been regarded as sound, not only in Park Lane,
but amongst the Nicholases, the Rogers, and at Timothy's.  Just
as it would surely have been endorsed by that wider body of
Forsytes all over London, who were merely excluded from judgment
by ignorance of the story.

In spite then of Emily's efforts, the dinner was served by
Warmson and the footman almost in silence.  Dartie was sulky, and
drank all he could get; the girls seldom talked to each other at
any time.  James asked once where June was, and what she was
doing with herself in these days.  No one could tell him.  He
sank back into gloom.  Only when Winifred recounted how little
Publius had given his bad penny to a beggar, did he brighten up.

"Ah!" he said, "that's a clever little chap.  I don't know
what'll become of him, if he goes on like this.  An intelligent
little chap, I call him!" But it was only a flash.

The courses succeeded one another solemnly, under the electric
light, which glared down onto the table, but barely reached the
principal ornament of the walls, a so-called 'Sea Piece by
Turner,' almost entirely composed of cordage and drowning men.

Champagne was handed, and then a bottle of James' prehistoric
port, but as by the chill hand of some skeleton.

At ten o'clock Soames left; twice in reply to questions, he had
said that Irene was not well; he felt he could no longer trust
himself.  His mother kissed him with her large soft kiss, and he
pressed her hand, a flush of warmth in his cheeks.  He walked
away in the cold wind, which whistled desolately round the
corners of the streets, under a sky of clear steel-blue, alive
with stars; he noticed neither their frosty greeting, nor the
crackle of the curled-up plane-leaves, nor the night-women
hurrying in their shabby furs, nor the pinched faces of vagabonds
at street corners.  Winter was come!  But Soames hastened home,
oblivious; his hands trembled as he took the late letters from
the gilt wire cage into which they had been thrust through the
slit in the door.'

None from Irene!

He went into the dining-room; the fire was bright there, his
chair drawn up to it, slippers ready, spirit case, and carven
cigarette box on the table; but after staring at it all for a
minute or two, he turned out the light and went upstairs.
There was a fire too in his dressing-room, but her room was
dark and cold.  It was into this room that Soames went.

He made a great illumination with candles, and for a long time
continued pacing up and down between the bed and the door.  He
could not get used to the thought that she had really left him,
and as though still searching for some message, some reason, some
reading of all the mystery of his married life, he began opening
every recess and drawer.

There were her dresses; he had always liked, indeed insisted,
that she should be well-dressed--she had taken very few; two or
three at most, and drawer after drawer; full of linen and silk
things, was untouched.

Perhaps after all it was only a freak, and she had gone to the
seaside for a few days' change.  If only that were so, and she
were really coming back, he would never again do as he had done
that fatal night before last, never again run that risk--though
it was her duty, her duty as a wife; though she did belong to
him--he would never again run that risk; she was evidently not
quite right in her head!

He stooped over the drawer where she kept her jewels; it was not
locked, and came open as he pulled; the jewel box had the key in
it.  This surprised him until he remembered that it was sure to
be empty.  He opened it.

It was far from empty.  Divided, in little green velvet
compartments, were all the things he had given her, even her
watch, and stuck into the recess that contained--the watch was a
three-cornered note addressed 'Soames Forsyte,' in Irene's
handwriting:

'I think I have taken nothing that you or your people have given
me.'  And that was all.

He looked at the clasps and bracelets of diamonds and pearls, at
the little flat gold watch with a great diamond set in sapphires,
at the chains and rings, each in its nest, and the tears rushed
up in his eyes and dropped upon them.

Nothing that she could have done, nothing that she had done,
brought home to him like this the inner significance of her act.
For the moment, perhaps, he understood nearly all there was to
understand--understood that she loathed him, that she had loathed
him for years, that for all intents and purposes they were like
people living in different worlds, that there was no hope for
him, never had been; even, that she had suffered--that she was to
be pitied.

In that moment of emotion he betrayed the Forsyte in him--forgot
himself, his interests, his property--was capable of almost
anything; was lifted into the pure ether of the selfless and
unpractical.

Such moments pass quickly.

And as though with the tears he had purged himself of weakness,
he got up, locked the box, and slowly, almost trembling, carried
it with him into the other room.




CHAPTER VII

JUNE'S VICTORY


June had waited for her chance, scanning the duller columns of
the journals, morning and evening with an assiduity which at
first puzzled old Jolyon; and when her chance came, she took it
with all the promptitude and resolute tenacity of her character.

She will always remember best in her life that morning when at
last she saw amongst the reliable Cause List of the Times
newspaper, under the heading of Court XIII, Mr. Justice Bentham,
the case of Forsyte v. Bosinney.

Like a gambler who stakes his last piece of money, she had
prepared to hazard her all upon this throw; it was not her nature
to contemplate defeat.  How, unless with the instinct of a woman
in love, she knew that Bosinney's discomfiture in this action was
assured, cannot be told--on this assumption, however, she laid
her plans, as upon a certainty.

Half past eleven found her at watch in the gallery of Court
XIII., and there she remained till the case of Forsyte v.
Bosinney was over.  Bosinney's absence did not disquiet her; she
had felt instinctively that he would not defend himself.  At the
end of the judgment she hastened down, and took a cab to his
rooms.

She passed the open street-door and the offices on the three
lower floors without attracting notice; not till she reached the
top did her difficulties begin.

Her ring was not answered; she had now to make up her mind
whether she would go down and ask the caretaker in the basement
to let her in to await Mr. Bosinney's return, or remain patiently
outside the door, trusting that no one would, come up.  She
decided on the latter course.

A quarter of an hour had passed in freezing vigil on the landing,
before it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave
the key of his rooms under the door-mat.  She looked and found it
there.  For some minutes she could not decide to make use of it;
at last she let herself in and left the door open that anyone who
came might see she was there on business.

This was not the same June who had paid the trembling visit five
months ago; those months of suffering and restraint had made her
less sensitive; she had dwelt on this visit so long, with such
minuteness, that its terrors were discounted beforehand.  She was
not there to fail this time, for if she failed no one could help
her.

Like some mother beast on the watch over her young, her little
quick figure never stood still in that room, but wandered from
wall to wall, from window to door, fingering now one thing, now
another.  There was dust everywhere, the room could not have been
cleaned for weeks, and June, quick to catch at anything that
should buoy up her hope, saw in it a sign that he had been
obliged, for economy's sake, to give up his servant.

She looked into the bedroom; the bed was roughly made, as though
by the hand of man.  Listening intently, she darted in, and
peered into his cupboards.  A few shirts and collars, a pair of
muddy boots--the room was bare even of garments.

She stole back to the sitting-room, and now she noticed the
absence of all the little things he had set store by.  The clock
that had been his mother's, the field-glasses that had hung over
the sofa; two really valuable old prints of Harrow, where his
father had been at school, and last, not least, the piece of
Japanese pottery she herself had given him.  All were gone; and
in spite of the rage roused within her championing soul at the
thought that the world should treat him thus, their disappearance
augured happily for the success of her plan.

It was while looking at the spot where the piece of Japanese
pottery had stood that she felt a strange certainty of being
watched, and, turning, saw Irene in the open doorway.

The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in silence; then
June walked forward and held out her hand.  Irene did not take
it.

When her hand was refused, June put it behind her.  Her eyes grew
steady with anger; she waited for Irene to speak; and thus
waiting, took in, with who-knows-what rage of jealousy,
suspicion, and curiosity, every detail of her friend's face and
dress and figure.

Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling cap on her
head left a wave of gold hair visible above her forehead.  The
soft fullness of the coat made her face as small as a child's.

Unlike June's cheeks, her cheeks had no colour in them, but were
ivory white and pinched as if with cold.  Dark circles lay round
her eyes.  In one hand she held a bunch of violets.

She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and with those
great dark eyes fastened on her, the girl, for all her startled
anger, felt something of the old spell.

She spoke first, after all.

"What have you come for?"  But the feeling that she herself was
being asked the same question, made her add: "This horrible case.
I came to tell him--he has lost it."

Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from June's face, and
the girl cried:

"Don't stand there as if you were made of stone!"

Irene laughed: "I wish to God I were!"

But June turned away: "Stop!" she cried, "don't tell me!  I don't
want to hear!  I don't want to hear what you've come for.  I
don't want to hear!" And like some uneasy spirit, she began
swiftly walking to and fro.  Suddenly she broke out:

"I was here first.  We can't both stay here together!"

On Irene's face a smile wandered up, and died out like a flicker
of firelight.  She did not move.  And then it was that June
perceived under the softness arid immobility of this figure
something desperate and resolved; something not to be turned
away, something dangerous.  She tore off her hat, and, putting
both hands to her brow, pressed back the bronze mass of her hair.

"You have no right here!" she cried defiantly.

Irene answered: "I have no right anywhere!

"What do you mean?"

"I have left Soames.  You always wanted me to!"

June put her hands over her ears.

"Don't!  I don't want to hear anything--I don't want to know
anything.  It's impossible to fight with you!  What makes you
stand like that?  Why don't you go?"

Irene's lips moved; she seemed to be saying: "Where should I go?"

June turned to the window.  She could see the face of a clock
down in the street.  It was nearly four.  At any moment he might
come!  She looked back across her shoulder, and her face was
distorted with anger.

But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly
turned and twisted the little bunch of violets.

The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down June's cheeks.

"How could you come?" she said.  "You have been a false friend to
me!"

Again Irene laughed.  June saw that she had played a wrong card,
and broke down.

"Why have you come?" she sobbed.  "You've ruined my life, and now
you want to ruin his!"

Irene's mouth quivered; her eyes met June's with a look so
mournful that the girl cried out in the midst of her sobbing,
"No, no!"

But Irene's head bent till it touched her breast.  She turned,
and went quickly out, hiding her lips with the little bunch of
violets.

June ran to the door.  She heard the footsteps going down and
down.  She called out: "Come back, Irene!  Come back!"

The footsteps died away....

Bewildered and torn, the girl stood at the top of the stairs.
Why had Irene gone, leaving her mistress of the field?  What did
it mean?  Had she really given him up to her?  Or had she...?
And she was the prey of a gnawing uncertainty....  Bosinney did
not come....

About six o'clock that afternoon old Jolyon returned from
Wistaria Avenue, where now almost every day he spent some hours,
and asked if his grand-daughter were upstairs.  On being told
that she had just come in, he sent up to her room to request her
to come down and speak to him.

He had made up his mind to tell her that he was reconciled with
her father.  In future bygones must be bygones.  He would no
longer live alone, or practically alone, in this great house; he
was going to give it up, and take one in the country for his son,
where they could all go and live together.  If June did not like
this, she could have an allowance and live by herself.  It
wouldn't make much difference to her, for it was a long time
since she had shown him any affection.

But when June came down, her face was pinched and piteous; there
was a strained, pathetic look in her eyes.  She snuggled up in
her old attitude on the arm of his chair, and what he said
compared but poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured
statement he had thought out with much care.  His heart felt
sore, as the great heart of a mother-bird feels sore when its
youngling flies and bruises its wing.  His words halted, as
though he were apologizing for having at last deviated from the
path of virtue, and succumbed, in defiance of sounder principles,
to his more natural instincts.

He seemed nervous lest, in thus announcing his intentions, he
should be setting his granddaughter a bad example; and now that
he came to the point, his way of putting the suggestion that, if
she didn't like it, she could live by herself and lump it, was
delicate in the extreme.'

"And if, by any chance, my darling," he said, "you found you
didn't get on--with them, why, I could make that all right.  You
could have what you liked.  We could find a little flat in London
where you could set up, and I could be running to continually.
But the children," he added, "are dear little things!"

Then, in the midst of this grave, rather transparent, explanation
of changed policy, his eyes twinkled.  "This'll astonish
Timothy's weak nerves.  That precious young thing will have
something to say about this, or I'm a Dutchman!"

June had not yet spoken.  Perched thus on the arm of his chair,
with her head above him, her face was invisible.  But presently
he felt her warm cheek against his own, and knew that, at all
events, there was nothing very alarming in her attitude towards
his news.  He began to take courage.

"You'll like your father," he said--"an amiable chap.  Never was
much push about him, but easy to get on with.  You'll find him
artistic and all that."

And old Jolyon bethought him of the dozen or so water-colour
drawings all carefully locked up in his bedroom; for now that his
son was going to become a man of property he did not think them
quite such poor things as heretofore.

"As to your--your stepmother," he said, using the word with some
little difficulty, "I call her a refined woman--a bit of a Mrs.
Gummidge, I shouldn't wonder--but very fond of Jo.  And the
children," he repeated--indeed, this sentence ran like music
through all his solemn self-justification--"are sweet little
things!"

If June had known, those words but reincarnated that tender love
for little children, for the young and weak, which in the past
had made him desert his son for her tiny self, and now, as the
cycle rolled, was taking him from her.

But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked
impatiently: "Well, what do you say?"

June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began her tale.
She thought it would all go splendidly; she did not see any
difficulty, and she did not care a bit what people thought.

Old Jolyon wriggled.  H'm! then people would think!  He had
thought that after all these years perhaps they wouldn't!  Well,
he couldn't help it!  Nevertheless, he could not approve of his
granddaughter's way of putting it--she ought to mind what people
thought!

Yet he said nothing.  His feelings were too mixed, too
inconsistent for expression.

No--went on June he did not care; what business was it of theirs?
There was only one thing--and with her cheek pressing against his
knee, old Jolyon knew at once that this something was no trifle:
As he was going to buy a house in the country, would he not--to
please her--buy that splendid house of Soames' at Robin Hill?  It
was finished, it was perfectly beautiful, and no one would live
in it now.  They would all be so happy there.

Old Jolyon was on the alert at once.  Wasn't the 'man of
property' going to live in his new house, then?  He never alluded
to Soames now but under this title.

"No"--June said--"he was not; she knew that he was not!"

How did she know?

She could not tell him, but she knew.  She knew nearly for
certain!  It was most unlikely; circumstances had changed!
Irene's words still rang in her head: "I have left Soames.
Where should I go?"

But she kept silence about that.

If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that wretched
claim that ought never to have been made on Phil!  It would be
the very best thing for everybody, and everything--everything
might come straight

And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed them close.

But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his face wore the
judicial look which came upon it when he dealt with affairs.  He
asked: What did she mean?  There was something behind all this--
had she been seeing Bosinney?

June answered: "No; but I have been to his rooms."

"Been to his rooms?  Who took you there?"

June faced him steadily.  "I went alone.  He has lost that case.
I don't care whether it was right or wrong.  I want to help him;
and I will!"

Old Jolyon asked again: "Have you seen him?" His glance seemed to
pierce right through the girl's eyes into her soul.

Again June answered: "No; he was not there.  I waited, but he did
not come."

Old Jolyon made a movement of relief.  She had risen and looked
down at him; so slight, and light, and young, but so fixed, and
so determined; and disturbed, vexed, as he was, he could not
frown away that fixed look.  The feeling of being beaten, of the
reins having slipped, of being old and tired, mastered him.

"Ah!" he said at last, "you'll get yourself into a mess one of
these days, I can see.  You want your own way in everything."

Visited by one of his strange bursts of philosophy, he added:
"Like that you were born; and like that you'll stay until you
die!"

And he, who in his dealings with men of business, with Boards,
with Forsytes of all descriptions, with such as were not
Forsytes, had always had his own way, looked at his indomitable
grandchild sadly--for he felt in her that quality which above all
others he unconsciously admired.

"Do you know what they say is going on?" he said slowly.

June crimsoned.

"Yes--no!  I know--and I don't know--I don't care!" and she
stamped her foot.

"I believe," said old Jolyon, dropping his eyes, "that you'd have
him if he were dead!"

There was a long silence before he spoke again.

"But as to buying this house--you don't know what you're talking
about!"

June said that she did.  She knew that he could get it if he
wanted.  He would only have to give what it cost.

"What it cost!  You know nothing about it.  I won't go to Soames-
--I'll have nothing more to do with that young man."

"But you needn't; you can go to Uncle James.  If you can't buy
the house, will you pay his lawsuit claim?  I know he is terribly
hard up--I've seen it.  You can stop it out of my money!"

A twinkle came into old Jolyon's eyes.

"Stop it out of your money!  A pretty way.  And what will you do,
pray, without your money?"

But secretly, the idea of wresting the house from James and his
son had begun to take hold of him.  He had heard on Forsyte
'Change much comment, much rather doubtful praise of this house.
It was 'too artistic,' but a fine place.  To take from the 'man
of property' that on which he had set his heart, would be a
crowning triumph over James, practical proof that he was going to
make a man of property of Jo, to put him back in his proper
position, and there to keep him secure.  Justice once for all on
those who had chosen to regard his son as a poor, penniless
outcast.

He would see, he would see!  It might be out of the question; he
was not going to pay a fancy price, but if it could be done, why,
perhaps he would do it!

And still more secretly he knew that he could not refuse her.

But he did not commit himself.  He would think it over--he said
to June.




CHAPTER VIII

BOSINNEY'S DEPARTURE


Old Jolyon  was not given to hasty decisions; it is probable that
he would have continued to think over the purchase of the house
at Robin Hill, had not June's face told him that he would have no
peace until he acted.

At breakfast next morning she asked him what time she should
order the carriage.

"Carriage!" he said, with some appearance of innocence; "what
for?  I'm not going out!"

She answered: "If you don't go early, you won't catch Uncle James
before he goes into the City."

"James! what about your Uncle James?"

"The house," she replied, in such a voice that he no longer
pretended ignorance.

"I've not made up my mind," he said.

"You must!  You must!  Oh! Gran--think of me!"

Old Jolyon grumbled out: "Think of you--I'm always thinking of
you, but you don't think of yourself; you don't think what you're
letting yourself in for.  Well, order the carriage at ten!"

At a quarter past he was placing his umbrella in the stand at
Park Lane--he did not choose to relinquish his hat and coat;
telling Warmson that he wanted to see his master, he went,
without being announced, into the study, and sat down.

James was still in the dining-room talking to Soames, who had
come round again before breakfast.  On hearing who his visitor
was, he muttered nervously: "Now, what's be want, I wonder?"

He then got up.

"Well," he said to Soames, "don't you go doing anything in a
hurry.  The first thing is to find out where she is--I should go
to Stainer's about it; they're the best men, if they can't find
her, nobody can." And suddenly moved to strange softness, he
muttered to himself, "Poor little thing, I can't tell what she
was thinking about!" and went out blowing his nose.

Old Jolyon did not rise on seeing his brother, but held out his
hand, and exchanged with him the clasp of a Forsyte.

James took another chair by the table, and leaned his head on his
hand.

"Well," he said, "how are you?  We don't see much of you
nowadays!"

Old Jolyon paid no attention to the remark.

"How's Emily?" he asked; and waiting for no reply, went on
"I've come to see you about this affair of young Bosinney's.  I'm
told that new house of his is a white elephant."

"I don't know anything about a white elephant," said James, "I
know he's lost his case, and I should say he'll go bankrupt."

Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this gave him.

"I shouldn't wonder a bit!" he agreed; "and if he goes bankrupt,
the 'man of property'--that is, Soames'll be out of pocket.  Now,
what I was thinking was this: If he's not going to live there...."

Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James' eye, he quickly went
on: "I don't want to know anything; I suppose Irene's put her
foot down--it's not material to me.  But I'm thinking of a house
in the country myself, not too far from London, and if it suited
me I don't say that I mightn't look at it, at a price."

James listened to this statement with a strange mixture of doubt,
suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread of something behind,
and tinged with the remains of his old undoubted reliance upon
his elder brother's good faith and judgment.  There was anxiety,
too, as to what old Jolyon could have heard and how he had heard
it; and a sort of hopefulness arising from the thought that if
June's connection with Bosinney were completely at an end, her
grandfather would hardly seem anxious to help the young fellow.
Altogether he was puzzled; as he did not like either to show
this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:

"They tell me you're altering your Will in favour of your son."

He had not been told this; he had merely added the fact of having
seen old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren to the fact that
he had taken his Will away from Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte.
The shot went home.

"Who told you that?" asked old Jolyon.

"I'm sure I don't know," said James; "I can't remember names--I
know somebody told me Soames spent a lot of money on this house;
he's not likely to part with it except at a good price."

"Well," said old Jolyon, "if, he thinks I'm going to pay a fancy
price, he's mistaken.  I've not got the money to throw away that
he seems to have.  Let him try and sell it at a forced sale, and
see what he'll get.  It's not every man's house, I hear!"

James, who was secretly also of this opinion, answered: "It's a
gentleman's house.  Soames is here now if you'd like to see him."

"No," said old Jolyon, "I haven't got as far as that; and I'm not
likely to, I can see that very well if I'm met in this manner!"

James was a little cowed; when it came to the actual figures of a
commercial transaction he was sure of himself, for then he was
dealing with facts, not with men; but preliminary negotiations
such as these made him nervous--he never knew quite how far he
could go.

"Well," he said, "I know nothing about it.  Soames, he tells me
nothing; I should think he'd entertain it--it's a question of
price."

"Oh!" said old Jolyon, "don't let him make a favour of it!" He
placed his hat on his head in dudgeon.

The door was opened and Soames came in.

"There's a policeman out here," he said with his half smile, "for
Uncle Jolyon."

Old Jolyon looked at him angrily, and James said: "A policeman?
I don't know anything about a policeman.  But I suppose you know
something about him," he added to old Jolyon with a look of
suspicion: "I suppose you'd better see him!"

In the hall an Inspector of Police stood stolidly regarding with
heavy-lidded pale-blue eyes the fine old English furniture picked
up by James at the famous Mavrojano sale in Portman Square.
"You'll find my brother in there," said James.

The Inspector raised his fingers respectfully to his peaked cap,
and entered the study.

James saw him go in with a strange sensation.

"Well," he said to Soames, "I suppose we must wait and see what
he wants.  Your uncle's been here about the house!"

He returned with Soames into the dining-room, but could not rest.

"Now what does he want?" he murmured again.

"Who?" replied Soames: "the Inspector?  They sent him round from
Stanhope Gate, that's all I know.  That 'nonconformist' of Uncle
Jolyon's has been pilfering, I shouldn't wonder!"

But in spite of his calmness, he too was ill at ease.

At the end of ten minutes old Jolyon came in.  He walked up to
the table, and stood there perfectly silent pulling at his long
white moustaches.  James gazed up at him with opening mouth; he
had never seen his brother look like this.

Old Jolyon raised his hand, and said slowly:

"Young Bosinney has been run over in the fog and killed."

Then standing above his brother and his nephew, and looking down
at him with his deep eyes:

"There's--some--talk--of--suicide," he said.

James' jaw dropped.  "Suicide!  What should he do that for?"

Old Jolyon answered sternly: "God knows, if you and your son
don't!"

But James did not reply.

For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life has had
bitter experiences.  The passer-by, who sees them wrapped in
cloaks of custom, wealth, and comfort, would never suspect that
such black shadows had fallen on their roads.  To every man of
great age--to Sir Walter Bentham himself--the idea of suicide has
once at least been present in the ante-room of his soul; on the
threshold, waiting to enter, held out from the inmost chamber by
some chance reality, some vague fear, some painful hope.  To
Forsytes that final renunciation of property is hard.  Oh! it is
hard!  Seldom--perhaps never--can they achieve, it; and yet, how
near have they not sometimes been!

So even with James!  Then in the medley of his thoughts, he broke
out: "Why I saw it in the paper yesterday: 'Run over in the fog!'
They didn't know his name!" He turned from one face to the other
in his confusion of soul; but instinctively all the time he was
rejecting that rumour of suicide.  He dared not entertain this
thought, so against his interest, against the interest of his
son, of every Forsyte.  He strove against it; and as his nature
ever unconsciously rejected that which it could not with safety
accept, so gradually he overcame this fear.  It was an accident!
It must have been!

Old Jolyon broke in on his reverie.

"Death was instantaneous.  He lay all day yesterday at the
hospital.  There was nothing to tell them who he was.  I am going
there now; you and your son had better come too."

No one opposing this command he led the way from the room.

The day was still and clear and bright, and driving over to Park
Lane from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had had the carriage open.
Sitting back on the padded cushions, finishing his cigar, he had
noticed with pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle
of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian, alacrity
that the first fine day will bring into London streets after a
spell of fog or rain.  And he had felt so happy; he had not felt
like it for months.  His confession to June was off his mind; he
had the prospect of his son's, above all, of his grandchildren's
company in the future--(he had appointed to meet young Jolyon at
the Hotch Potch that very manning to--discuss it again); and
there was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter, a
coming victory, over James and the 'man of property' in the
matter of the house.

He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to look on
gaiety; nor was it right that Forsytes should be seen driving
with an Inspector of Police.

In that carriage the Inspector spoke again of the death:

"It was not so very thick--Just there.  The driver says the
gentleman must have had time to see what he was about, he seemed
to walk right into it.  It appears that he was very hard up, we
found several pawn tickets at his rooms, his account at the bank
is overdrawn, and there's this case in to-day's papers;" his cold
blue eyes travelled from one to another of the three Forsytes in
the carriage.

Old Jolyon watching from his corner saw his brother's face
change, and the brooding, worried, look deepen on it.  At the
Inspector's words, indeed, all James' doubts and fears revived.
Hard-up--pawn-tickets--an overdrawn account!  These words that
had all his life been a far-off nightmare to him, seemed to make
uncannily real that suspicion of suicide which must on no account
be entertained.  He sought his son's eye; but lynx-eyed,
taciturn, immovable, Soames gave no answering look.  And to old
Jolyon watching, divining the league of mutual defence between
them, there came an overmastering desire to have his own son at
his side, as though this visit to the dead man's body was a
battle in which otherwise he must single-handed meet those two.
And the thought of how to keep June's name out of the business
kept whirring in his brain.  James had his son to support him!
Why should he not send for Jo?

Taking out his card-case, he pencilled the following message:

'Come round at once.  I've sent the carriage for you.'

On getting out he gave this card to his coachman, telling him to
drive--as fast as possible to the Hotch Potch Club, and if Mr.
Jolyon Forsyte were there to give him the card and bring him at
once.  If not there yet, he was to wait till he came.

He followed the others slowly up the steps, leaning on his
umbrella, and stood a moment to get his breath.  The Inspector
said: "This is the mortuary, sir.  But take your time."

In the bare, white-walled room, empty of all but a streak of
sunshine smeared along the dustless floor, lay a form covered by
a sheet.  With a huge steady hand the Inspector took the hem and
turned it back.  A sightless face gazed up at them, and on either
side of that sightless defiant face the three Forsytes gazed
down; in each one of them the secret emotions, fears, and pity of
his own nature rose and fell like the rising, falling waves of
life, whose wish those white walls barred out now for ever from
Bosinney.  And in each one of them the trend of his nature, the
odd essential spring, which moved him in fashions minutely,
unalterably different from those of every other human being,
forced him to a different attitude of thought.  Far from the
others, yet inscrutably close, each stood thus, alone with death,
silent, his eyes lowered.

The Inspector asked softly:

"You identify the gentleman, sir?"

Old Jolyon raised his head and nodded.  He looked at his brother
opposite, at that long lean figure brooding over the dead man,
with face dusky red, and strained grey eyes; and at the figure of
Soames white and still by his father's side.  And all that he had
felt against those two was gone like smoke in the long white
presence of Death.  Whence comes it, how comes it--Death?  Sudden
reverse of all that goes before; blind setting forth on a path
that leads to where?  Dark quenching of the fire!  The heavy,
brutal crushing--out that all men must go through, keeping their
eyes clear and brave unto the end!  Small and of no import,
insects though they are!  And across old Jolyon's face there
flitted a gleam, for Soames, murmuring to the Inspector, crept
noiselessly away.

Then suddenly James raised his eyes.  There was a queer appeal in
that suspicious troubled look: "I know I'm no match for you," it
seemed to say.  And, hunting for handkerchief he wiped his brow;
then, bending sorrowful and lank over the dead man, he too turned
and hurried out.

Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body.
Who shall tell of what he was thinking?  Of himself, when his
hair was brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before
him?  Of himself, with his battle just beginning, the long, long
battle he had loved; the battle that was over for this young man
almost before it had begun?  Of his grand-daughter, with her
broken hopes?  Of that other woman?  Of the strangeness, and the
pity of it?  And the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end?
Justice!  There was no justice for men, for they were ever in the
dark!

Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better to be out of, it
all!  Better to have done with it, like this poor youth....

Some one touched him on the arm.

A tear started up and wetted his eyelash.  "Well," he said, "I'm
no good here.  I'd better be going.  You'll come to me as soon as
you can, Jo," and with his head bowed he went away.

It was young Jolyon's turn to take his stand beside the dead man,
round whose fallen body he seemed to see all the Forsytes
breathless, and prostrated.  The stroke had fallen too swiftly.

The forces underlying every tragedy--forces that take no denial,
working through cross currents to their ironical end, had met and
fused with a thunder-clap, flung out the victim, and flattened to
the ground all those that stood around.

Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them, lying around
Bosinney's body.

He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened, and the
latter, like a man who does not every day get such a chance,
again detailed such facts as were known.

"There's more here, sir, however," he said, "than meets the eye.
I don't believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself.  It's
more likely I think that he was suffering under great stress
of mind, and took no notice of things about him.  Perhaps you can
throw some light on these."

He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it on the table.
Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady's handkerchief, pinned
through the folds with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the
stone of which had fallen from the socket.  A scent of dried
violets rose to young Jolyon's nostrils.

"Found in his breast pocket," said the Inspector; "the name has
been cut away!"

Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: "I'm afraid I cannot help
you!"  But vividly there rose before him the face he had seen
light up, so tremulous and glad, at Bosinney's coming!  Of her he
thought more than of his own daughter, more than of them all--of
her with the dark, soft glance, the delicate passive face,
waiting for the dead man, waiting even at that moment, perhaps,
still and patient in the sunlight.

He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards his father's
house, reflecting that this death would break up the Forsyte
family.  The stroke had indeed slipped past their defences into
the very wood of their tree.  They might flourish to all
appearance as before, preserving a brave show before the eyes of
London, but the trunk was dead, withered by the same flash that
had stricken down Bosinney.  And now the saplings would take its
place, each one a new custodian of the sense of property.

Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon--soundest timber
of our land!

Concerning the cause of this death--his family would doubtless
reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so
compromising!  They would take it as an accident, a stroke of
fate.  In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of
Providence, a retribution--had not Bosinney endangered their two
most priceless possessions, the pocket and the hearth?  And they
would talk of 'that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney's,'
but perhaps they would not talk--silence might be better!

As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver's account of the
accident as of very little value.  For no one so madly in love
committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort of
fellow to set much store by a financial crisis.  And so he too
rejected this theory of suicide, the dead man's face rose too
clearly before him.  Gone in the heyday of his summer--and to
believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off in the full
sweep of his passion was more than ever pitiful to young Jolyon.

Then came a vision of Soames' home as it now was, and must be
hereafter.  The streak of lightning had flashed its clear uncanny
gleam on bare bones with grinning spaces between, the disguising
flesh was gone....

In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone
when his son came in.  He looked very wan in his great armchair.
And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of
still life, and the masterpiece 'Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset'
seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes,
its gains, its achievements.

"Ah! Jo!" he said, "is that you?  I've told poor little June.
But that's not all of it.  Are you going to Soames'?  She's
brought it on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can't bear to
think of her, shut up there--and all alone." And holding up his
thin, veined hand, he clenched it.




CHAPTER IX

IRENE'S RETURN


After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.

The tragic event of Bosinney's death altered the complexion of
everything.  There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a
minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the
fact of his wife's flight to anyone till the inquest was over.

That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had
taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though
there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of
telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would
probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone
unturned to find her.

But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney's death--that
strange death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to
his heart, like lifting a great weight from it--he did not know
how to pass his day; and he wandered here and there through the
streets, looking at every face he met, devoured by a hundred
anxieties.

And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his
wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.

Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the
identity of the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they
said.  He would stop their mouths if he could, and he went into
the City, and was closeted with Boulter for a long time.

On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson's about half past
four, he met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to
Soames, saying:

"Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?"

Soames answered stonily: "Yes."

George stared at him.  He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney's death.  Soames had done for him--done
for him by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to
run amok that fatal afternoon.

'The poor fellow,' he was thinking, 'was so cracked with
jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of
the omnibus in that infernal fog.'

Soames had done for him!  And this judgment was in George's eyes.

"They talk of suicide here," he said at last.  "That cat won't
jump."

Soames shook his head.  "An accident," he muttered.

Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his
pocket.  He could not resist a parting shot.

"H'mm!  All flourishing at home?  Any little Soameses yet?"

With a face as white as the steps of Jobson's, and a lip raised
as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his
latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife's
gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest.  Flinging off his
fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of
cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene
sitting in her usual corner on the sofa.  He shut the door
softly, and went towards her.  She did not move, and did not seem
to see him.

"So you've come back?" he said.  "Why are you sitting here in the
dark?"

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it
seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her
veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide,
startled brown eyes of an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a
strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched fir its soft
feathers against the wires of a cage.  The supple erectness of
her figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel
exercise; as though there were no longer any reason for being
beautiful, and supple, and erect.

"So you've come back," he repeated.

She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over
her motionless figure.

Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then
that he understood.

She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing
where to turn, not knowing what she was doing.  The sight of her
figure, huddled in the fur, was enough.

He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew
that she had seen the report of his death--perhaps, like himself,
had bought a paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read
it.

She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had
pined to be free of--and taking in all the tremendous
significance of this, he longed to cry: "Take your hated body,
that I love, out of my house!  Take away that pitiful white face,
so cruel and soft--before I crush it.  Get out of my sight; never
let me see you again!"

And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move
away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was
fighting to awake--rise and go out into the dark and cold, without
a thought of him, without so much as the knowledge of his
presence.

Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, "No;
stay there!" And turning away from her, he sat down in his
accustomed chair on the other side of the hearth.

They sat in silence.

And Soames thought: 'Why is all this?  Why should I suffer so?
What have I done?  It is not my fault!'

Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and
dying, whose poor breast you see panting as the air is taken from
it, whose poor eyes look at you who have shot it, with a slow,
soft, unseeing look, taking farewell of all that is good--of the
sun, and the air, and its mate.

So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one on each side
of the hearth.

And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved so well,
seemed to grip Soames by the throat till he could bear it no
longer.  And going out into the hall he flung the door wide, to
gulp down the cold air that came in; then without hat or overcoat
went out into the Square.

Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing her way
towards him, and Soames thought: 'Suffering! when will it cease,
my suffering?'

At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance
named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of 'I am master
here.' And Soames walked on.

From far in the clear air the bells of the church where he and
Irene had been married were pealing in 'practice' for the advent
of Christ, the chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic.  He
felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to indifference, or
rouse him to fury.  If only he could burst out of himself, out of
this web that for the first time in his life he felt around him.
If only he could surrender to the thought: 'Divorce her--turn her
out!  She has forgotten you.  Forget her!'

If only he could surrender to the thought: 'Let her go--she has
suffered enough!'

If only he could surrender to the desire: 'Make a slave of her--
she is in your power!'

If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision: 'What does
it all matter?'  Forget himself for a minute, forget that it
mattered what he did, forget that whatever he did he must
sacrifice something.

If only he could act on an impulse!

He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought, vision, or
desire; it was all too serious; too close around him, an
unbreakable cage.

On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were calling their
evening wares, and the ghoulish cries mingled and jangled with
the sound of those church bells.

Soames covered his ears.  The thought flashed across him that but
for a chance, he himself, and not Bosinney, might be lying dead,
and she, instead of crouching there like a shot bird with those
dying eyes....

Something soft touched his legs, the cat was rubbing herself
against them.  And a sob that shook him from head to foot burst
from Soames' chest.  Then all was still again in the dark, where
the houses seemed to stare at him, each with a master and
mistress of its own, and a secret story of happiness or sorrow.

And suddenly he saw that his own door was open, and black against
the light from the hall a man standing with his back turned.
Something slid too in his breast, and he stole up close behind.

He could see his own fur coat flung across the carved oak chair;
the Persian rugs; the silver bowls, the rows of porcelain plates
arranged along the walls, and this unknown man who was standing
there.

And sharply he asked: "What is it you want, sir?"

The visitor turned.  It was young Jolyon.

"The door was open," he said.  "Might I see your wife for a
minute, I have a message for her?"

Soames gave him a strange, sidelong stare.

"My wife can see no one," he muttered doggedly.

Young Jolyon answered gently: "I shouldn't keep her a minute."

Soames brushed by him and barred the way.

"She can see no one," he said again.

Young Jolyon's glance shot past him into the hall, and Soames
turned.  There in the drawing-room doorway stood Irene, her eyes
were wild and eager, her lips were parted, her hands out-
stretched.  In the sight of both men that light vanished from
her face; her hands dropped to her sides; she stood like stone.

Soames spun round, and met his visitor's eyes, and at the look he
saw in them, a sound like a snarl escaped him.  He drew his lips
back in the ghost of a smile.

"This is my house," he said; "I manage my own affairs.  I've told
you once--I tell you again; we are not at home."

And in young Jolyon's face he slammed the door.






THE FORSYTE SAGA

VOLUME II

Contents:
Indian Summer of a Forsyte
In Chancery



TO ANDRE CHEVRILLON




Indian Summer of a Forsyte

"And Summer's lease hath all
      too short a date."

--Shakespeare




I


In the last day of May in the early 'nineties, about six o'clock of
the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the
terrace of his house at Robin Hill.  He was waiting for the midges
to bite him, before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.  His
thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of a
cigar in its tapering, long-nailed fingers--a pointed polished nail
had survived with him from those earlier Victorian days when to
touch nothing, even with the tips of the fingers, had been so
distinguished.  His domed forehead, great white moustache, lean
cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering sunshine
by an old brown Panama hat.  His legs were crossed; in all his
attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an old man who
every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk handkerchief.  At
his feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying to be a
Pomeranian--the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal
aversion had changed into attachment with the years.  Close to his
chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of Holly's dolls
--called 'Duffer Alice'--with her body fallen over her legs and her
doleful nose buried in a black petticoat.  She was never out of
disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.  Below the oak
tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the fernery, and,
beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to the pond, the
coppice, and the prospect--'Fine, remarkable'--at which Swithin
Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five years ago when
he drove down with Irene to look at the house.  Old Jolyon had
heard of his brother's exploit--that drive which had become quite
celebrated on Forsyte 'Change.  Swithin!  And the fellow had gone
and died, last November, at the age of only seventy-nine, renewing
the doubt whether Forsytes could live for ever, which had first
arisen when Aunt Ann passed away.  Died! and left only Jolyon and
James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy, Julia, Hester, Susan!  And
old Jolyon thought: 'Eighty-five! I don't feel it--except when I
get that pain.'

His memory went searching.  He had not felt his age since he had
bought his nephew Soames' ill-starred house and settled into it
here at Robin Hill over three years ago.  It was as if he had been
getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son
and his grandchildren--June, and the little ones of the second
marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of
London and the cackle of Forsyte 'Change,' free of his boards, in a
delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of
occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its
twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly.
All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in his heart
during that long and tragic business of June, Soames, Irene his
wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out.  Even June
had thrown off her melancholy at last--witness this travel in Spain
she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.  Curiously
perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful, yet blank,
because his son was not there.  Jo was never anything but a comfort
and a pleasure to him nowadays--an amiable chap; but women,
somehow--even the best--got a little on one's nerves, unless of
course one admired them.

Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first
elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had
sprung up after the last mowing! The wind had got into the sou'-
west, too--a delicious air, sappy! He pushed his hat back and let
the sun fall on his chin and cheek.  Somehow, to-day, he wanted
company--wanted a pretty face to look at.  People treated the old as
if they wanted nothing.  And with the un-Forsytean philosophy which
ever intruded on his soul, he thought: 'One's never had enough.
With a foot in the grave one'll want something, I shouldn't be
surprised!'  Down here--away from the exigencies of affairs--his
grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his little domain,
to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above them, said, 'Open,
sesame,' to him day and night.  And sesame had opened--how much,
perhaps, he did not know.  He had always been responsive to what
they had begun to call 'Nature,' genuinely, almost religiously
responsive, though he had never lost his habit of calling a sunset
a sunset and a view a view, however deeply they might move him.
But nowadays Nature actually made him ache, he appreciated it so.
Every one of these calm, bright, lengthening days, with Holly's
hand in his, and the dog Balthasar in front looking studiously for
what he never found, he would stroll, watching the roses open,
fruit budding on the walls, sunlight brightening the oak leaves and
saplings in the coppice, watching the water-lily leaves unfold and
glisten, and the silvery young corn of the one wheat field;
listening to the starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows
chewing the cud, flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of
these fine days he ached a little from sheer love of it all,
feeling perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer to
enjoy it.  The thought that some day--perhaps not ten years hence,
perhaps not five--all this world would be taken away from him,
before he had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him in
the nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon.  If anything
came after this life, it wouldn't be what he wanted; not Robin
Hill, and flowers and birds and pretty faces--too few, even now, of
those about him! With the years his dislike of humbug had
increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the 'sixties, as he had
worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off,
leaving him reverent before three things alone--beauty, upright
conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now
was beauty.  He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could
still read The Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it
down if he heard a blackbird sing.  Upright conduct, property--
somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never
tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he could not get
enough of them.  Staring into the stilly radiance of the early
evening and at the little gold and white flowers on the lawn, a
thought came to him: This weather was like the music of 'Orfeo,'
which he had recently heard at Covent Garden.  A beautiful opera,
not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but, in its way, perhaps
even more lovely; something classical and of the Golden Age about
it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli 'almost worthy of the old
days'--highest praise he could bestow.  The yearning of Orpheus for
the beauty he was losing, for his love going down to Hades, as in
life love and beauty did go--the yearning which sang and throbbed
through the golden music, stirred also in the lingering beauty of
the world that evening.  And with the tip of his cork-soled,
elastic-sided boot he involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog
Balthasar, causing the animal to wake and attack his fleas; for
though he was supposed to have none, nothing could persuade him of
the fact.  When he had finished he rubbed the place he had been
scratching against his master's calf, and settled down again with
his chin over the instep of the disturbing boot.  And into old
Jolyon's mind came a sudden recollection--a face he had seen at
that opera three weeks ago--Irene, the wife of his precious nephew
Soames, that man of property! Though he had not met her since the
day of  the 'At Home' in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which
celebrated his granddaughter June's ill-starred engagement to young
Bosinney, he had remembered her at once, for he had always admired
her--a very pretty creature.  After the death of young Bosinney,
whose mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard that
she had left Soames at once.  Goodness only knew what she had been
doing since.  That sight of her face--a side view--in the row in
front, had been literally the only reminder these three years that
she was still alive.  No one ever spoke of her.  And yet Jo had
told him something once--something which had upset him completely.
The boy had got it from George Forsyte, he believed, who had seen
Bosinney in the fog the day he was run over--something which
explained the young fellow's distress--an act of Soames towards his
wife--a shocking act.  Jo had seen her, too, that afternoon, after
the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his description had
always lingered in old Jolyon's mind--'wild and lost' he had called
her.  And next day June had gone there--bottled up her feelings and
gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her mistress
had slipped out in the night and vanished.  A tragic business
altogether! One thing was certain--Soames had never been able to
lay hands on her again.  And he was living at Brighton, and
journeying up and down--a fitting fate, the man of property! For
when he once took a dislike to anyone--as he had to his nephew--old
Jolyon never got over it.  He remembered still the sense of relief
with which he had heard the news of Irene's disappearance.  It had
been shocking to think of her a prisoner in that house to which she
must have wandered back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a
moment--like a wounded animal to its hole after seeing that news,
'Tragic death of an Architect,' in the street.  Her face had struck
him very much the other night--more beautiful than he had remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it.  A young
woman still--twenty-eight perhaps.  Ah, well! Very likely she
had another lover by now.  But at this subversive thought--for
married women should never love: once, even, had been too much--his
instep rose, and with it the dog Balthasar's head.  The sagacious
animal stood up and looked into old Jolyon's face.  'Walk?' he
seemed to say; and old Jolyon answered: "Come on, old chap!"

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of
buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery.  This feature,
where very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below
the level of the lawn so that it might come up again on the level
of the other lawn and give the impression of irregularity, so
important in horticulture.  Its rocks and earth were beloved of the
dog Balthasar, who sometimes found a mole there.  Old Jolyon made a
point of passing through it because, though it was not beautiful,
he intended that it should be, some day, and he would think: 'I
must get Varr to come down and look at it; he's better than Beech.'
For plants, like houses and human complaints, required the best
expert consideration.  It was inhabited by snails, and if
accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one and tell
them the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers got
leggers, Mother?  'No, sonny.'  'Then darned if I haven't been and
swallowed a snileybob.'  And when they skipped and clutched his
hand, thinking of the snileybob going down the little boy's 'red
lane,' his eyes would twinkle.  Emerging from the fernery, he
opened the wicket gate, which just there led into the first field,
a large and park-like area, out of which, within brick walls, the
vegetable garden had been carved.  Old Jolyon avoided this, which
did not suit his mood, and made down the hill towards the pond.
Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two, gambolled in front, at the
gait which marks an oldish dog who takes the same walk every day.
Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting another water-lily
opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly to-morrow, when
'his little sweet' had got over the upset which had followed on her
eating a tomato at lunch--her little arrangements were very
delicate.  Now that Jolly had gone to school--his first term--Holly
was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her badly.  He felt
that pain too, which often bothered him now, a little dragging at
his left side.  He looked back up the hill.  Really, poor young
Bosinney had made an uncommonly good job of the house; he would
have done very well for himself if he had lived!  And where was he
now? Perhaps, still haunting this, the site of his last work, of
his tragic love affair.  Or was Philip Bosinney's spirit diffused
in the general?  Who could say?  That dog was getting his legs
muddy!  And he moved towards the coppice.  There had been the most
delightful lot of bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered
like little patches of sky fallen in between the trees, away out
of the sun.  He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there
installed, and pursued a path into the thick of the saplings,
making for one of the bluebell plots.  Balthasar, preceding him
once more, uttered a low growl.  Old Jolyon stirred him with his
foot, but the dog remained motionless, just where there was no room
to pass, and the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly
back.  Whether from the growl and the look of the dog's stivered
hair, or from the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon
also felt something move along his spine.  And then the path
turned, and there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting.
Her face was turned away, and he had just time to think: 'She's
trespassing--I must have a board put up!' before she turned.
Powers above!  The face he had seen at the opera--the very woman he
had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things
blurred, as if a spirit--queer effect--the slant of sunlight
perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood
smiling, her head a little to one side.  Old Jolyon thought: 'How
pretty she is!' She did not speak, neither did he; and he realized
why with a certain admiration.  She was here no doubt because of
some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it by vulgar
explanation.

"Don't let that dog touch your frock," he said; "he's got wet feet.
Come here, you!"

But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her hand
down and stroked his head.  Old Jolyon said quickly:

"I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn't notice me."

"Oh, yes! I did."

He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: 'Do you
think one could miss seeing you?'

"They're all in Spain," he remarked abruptly.  "I'm alone; I drove
up for the opera.  The Ravogli's good.  Have you seen the cow-
houses?"

In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like
emotion he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and
she moved beside him.  Her figure swayed faintly, like the best
kind of French figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French grey.
He noticed two or three silver threads in her amber-coloured hair,
strange hair with those dark eyes of hers, and that creamy-pale
face.  A sudden sidelong look from the velvety brown eyes disturbed
him.  It seemed to come from deep and far, from another world
almost, or at all events from some one not living very much in
this.  And he said mechanically

"Where are you living now?"

"I have a little flat in Chelsea."

He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
anything; but the perverse word came out:

"Alone?"

She nodded.  It was a relief to know that.  And it came into his
mind that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress of
this coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.

"All Alderneys," he muttered; "they give the best milk.  This one's
a pretty creature.  Woa, Myrtle!"

The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene's own,
was standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.  She
looked round at them out of the corner of those lustrous, mild,
cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble of saliva
threaded its way towards the straw.  The scent of hay and vanilla
and ammonia rose in the dim light of the cool cow-house; and old
Jolyon said:

"You must come up and have some dinner with me.  I'll send you home
in the carriage."

He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt,
with her memories.  But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a
charming figure, beauty!  He had been alone all the afternoon.
Perhaps his eyes were wistful, for she answered: "Thank you, Uncle
Jolyon.  I should like to."

He rubbed his hands, and said:

"Capital! Let's go up, then!" And, preceded by the dog Balthasar,
they ascended through the field.  The sun was almost level in their
faces now, and he could see, not only those silver threads, but
little lines, just deep enough to stamp her beauty with a coin-like
fineness--the special look of life unshared with others.  "I'll
take her in by the terrace," he thought: "I won't make a common
visitor of her."

"What do you do all day?" he said.

"Teach music; I have another interest, too."

"Work!" said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing,
and smoothing its black petticoat.  "Nothing like it, is there?  I
don't do any now.  I'm getting on.  What interest is that?"

"Trying to help women who've come to grief."  Old Jolyon did not
quite understand.  "To grief?" he repeated; then realised with a
shock that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if he
had used that expression.  Assisting the Magdalenes of London!
What a weird and terrifying interest!  And, curiosity overcoming
his natural shrinking, he asked:

"Why? What do you do for them?"

"Not much.  I've no money to spare.  I can only give sympathy and
food sometimes."

Involuntarily old Jolyon's hand sought his purse.  He said hastily:
"How d'you get hold of them?"

"I go to a hospital."

"A hospital! Phew!"

"What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
beauty."

Old Jolyon straightened the doll.  "Beauty!" he ejaculated: "Ha!
Yes! A sad business!" and he moved towards the house.  Through a
French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her
into the room where he was wont to study The Times and the sheets
of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of mangold
wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material for her
paint brush.

"Dinner's in half an hour.  You'd like to wash your hands!  I'll
take you to June's room."

He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last
visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both perhaps-
-he did not know, could not say!  All that was dark, and he wished
to leave it so.  But what changes!  And in the hall he said:

"My boy Jo's a painter, you know.  He's got a lot of taste.  It
isn't mine, of course, but I've let him have his way."

She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall and
music room, as it now was--all thrown into one, under the great
skylight.  Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her.  Was she trying
to conjure somebody from the shades of that space where the
colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had gold
himself; more lively and solid.  But Jo had French tastes, and it
had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the fume of
cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and there by a
little blaze of blue or crimson colour.  It was not his dream!
Mentally he had hung this space with those gold-framed masterpieces
of still and stiller life which he had bought in days when quantity
was precious.  And now where were they?  Sold for a song!  That
something which made him, alone among Forsytes, move with the times
had warned him against the struggle to retain them.  But in his
study he still had 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.'

He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his
side.

"These are the bathrooms," he said, "and other arrangements.  I've
had them tiled.  The nurseries are along there.  And this is Jo's
and his wife's.  They all communicate.  But you remember, I
expect."

Irene nodded.  They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large
room with a small bed, and several windows.

"This is mine," he said.  The walls were covered with the
photographs of children and watercolour sketches, and he added
doubtfully:

"These are Jo's.  The view's first-rate.  You can see the Grand
Stand at Epsom in clear weather."

The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the 'prospect' a
luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous
day.  Few houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,
away to a loom of downs.

"The country's changing," he said abruptly, "but there it'll be
when we're all gone.  Look at those thrushes--the birds are sweet
here in the mornings.  I'm glad to have washed my hands of London."

Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its
mournful look.  'Wish I could make her look happy!' he thought.  'A
pretty face, but sad!'  And taking up his can of hot water he went
out into the gallery.

"This is June's room," he said, opening the next door and putting
the can down; "I think you'll find everything." And closing the
door behind her he went back to his own room.  Brushing his hair
with his great ebony brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau de
Cologne, he mused.  She had come so strangely--a sort of visit-
ation; mysterious, even romantic, as if his desire for company, for
beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was which fulfilled that
sort of thing.  And before the mirror he straightened his still
upright figure, passed the brushes over his great white moustache,
touched up his eyebrows with eau de Cologne, and rang the bell.

"I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me.
Let cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau and
pair at half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night.  Is Miss
Holly asleep?"

The maid thought not.  And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery,
stole on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose
hinges he kept specially oiled that he might slip in and out in the
evenings without being heard.

But Holly was asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that
type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they
had completed her.  Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on
her face was perfect peace--her little arrangements were evidently
all right again.  And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room,
stood adoring her!  It was so charming, solemn, and loving--that
little face.  He had more than his share of the blessed capacity of
living again in the young.  They were to him his future life--all
of a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity perhaps
admitted.  There she was with everything before her, and his
blood--some of it--in her tiny veins.  There she was, his little
companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that
she knew nothing but love.  His heart swelled, and he went out,
stilling the sound of his patent-leather boots.  In the corridor an
eccentric notion attacked him: To think that children should come
to that which Irene had told him she was helping!  Women who were
all, once, little things like this one sleeping there!  'I must
give her a cheque!' he mused; 'Can't bear to think of them!'  They
had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts; wounding too
deeply the core of true refinement hidden under layers of
conformity to the sense of property--wounding too grievously the
deepest thing in him--a love of beauty which could give him, even
now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the society
of a pretty woman.  And he went downstairs, through the swinging
doors, to the back regions.  There, in the wine-cellar, was a hock
worth at least two pounds a bottle, a Steinberg Cabinet, better
than any Johannisberg that ever went down throat; a wine of
perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine--nectar indeed! He got a
bottle out, handling it like a baby, and holding it level to the
light, to look.  Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow
coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure.  Three
years to settle down again since the move from Town--ought to be in
prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had bought it--thank God
he had kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it.  She
would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen.  He wiped
the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose down,
inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.

Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a
lace scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair was
visible, and the pallor of her neck.  In her grey frock she made a
pretty picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the piano.

He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went.  The room, which had
been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort, held
now but a little round table.  In his present solitude the big
dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed
till his son came back.  Here in the company of two really good
copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone.  It was the
only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather.  He had
never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin, or Sylvanus
Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies of past times; and
to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him but a
sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he might
come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and cigar.  But
this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled at her
across the little table and he spoke of Italy and Switzerland,
telling her stories of his travels there, and other experiences
which he could no longer recount to his son and grand-daughter
because they knew them.  This fresh audience was precious to him;
he had never become one of those old men who ramble round and round
the fields of reminiscence.  Himself quickly fatigued by the
insensitive, he instinctively avoided fatiguing others, and his
natural flirtatiousness towards beauty guarded him specially in his
relations with a woman.  He would have liked to draw her out, but
though she murmured and smiled and seemed to be enjoying what he
told her, he remained conscious of that mysterious remoteness which
constituted half her fascination.  He could not bear women who
threw their shoulders and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-
mouthed women who laid down the law and knew more than you did.
There was only one quality in a woman that appealed to him--charm;
and the quieter it was, the more he liked it.  And this one had
charm, shadowy as afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and
valleys he had loved.  The feeling, too, that she was, as it were,
apart, cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely
desirable companion.  When a man is very old and quite out of the
running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for
he would still be first in the heart of beauty.  And he drank his
hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young.  But the dog
Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart the
interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those greenish
glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to him.

The light was just failing when they went back into the music-room.
And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:

"Play me some Chopin."

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall
know the texture of men's souls.  Old Jolyon could not bear a
strong cigar or Wagner's music.  He loved Beethoven and Mozart,
Handel and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the
operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had been seduced by
Chopin, just as in painting he had succumbed to Botticelli.  In
yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from
the standard of the Golden Age.  Their poetry was not that of
Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and
Beethoven.  It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no
one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and turned
and twisted, and melted up the heart.  And, never certain that this
was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could see the
pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.

Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned with
pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could see
her, crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar.  She sat a few
moments with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her mind
for what to give him.  Then she began and within old Jolyon there
arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite like anything else in the
world.  He fell slowly into a trance, interrupted only by the
movements of taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals,
and replacing it.  She was there, and the hock within him, and the
scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of sunshine lingering
into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and bluish trees
above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and fields of lavender
where milk-white cows were grazing, and a woman all shadowy, with
dark eyes and a white neck, smiled, holding out her arms; and
through air which was like music a star dropped and was caught on a
cow's horn.  He opened his eyes.  Beautiful piece; she played well-
-the touch of an angel!  And he closed them again.  He felt mirac-
ulously sad and happy, as one does, standing under a lime-tree in
full honey flower.  Not live one's own life again, but just stand
there and bask in the smile of a woman's eyes, and enjoy the
bouquet!  And he jerked his hand; the dog Balthasar had reached up
and licked it.

"Beautiful!" He said: "Go on--more Chopin!"

She began to play again.  This time the resemblance between her and
'Chopin' struck him.  The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in
her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the soft
darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight from a
golden moon.  Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her or in
that music.  A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and
dispersed.  'So we go out!' he thought.  'No more beauty! Nothing?'

Again Irene stopped.

"Would you like some Gluck?  He used to write his music in a sunlit
garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him."

"Ah! yes.  Let's have 'Orfeo.'"  Round about him now were fields of
gold and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight,
bright birds flying to and fro.  All was summer.  Lingering waves
of sweetness and regret flooded his soul.  Some cigar ash dropped,
and taking out a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a
mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne.  'Ah!' he thought,
'Indian summer--that's all!' and he said: "You haven't played me
'Che faro.'"

She did not answer; did not move.  He was conscious of something--
some strange upset.  Suddenly he saw her rise and turn away, and a
pang of remorse shot through him.  What a clumsy chap!  Like
Orpheus, she of course--she too was looking for her lost one in the
hall of memory!  And disturbed to the heart, he got up from his
chair.  She had gone to the great window at the far end.  Gingerly
he followed.  Her hands were folded over her breast; he could just
see her cheek, very white.  And, quite emotionalized, he said:

"There, there, my love!"  The words had escaped him mechanically,
for they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but their
effect was instantaneously distressing.  She raised her arms,
covered her face with them, and wept.

Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age.  The
passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike
the control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had
never before broken down in the presence of another being.

"There, there--there, there!" he murmured, and putting his hand out
reverently, touched her.  She turned, and leaned the arms which
covered her face against him.  Old Jolyon stood very still, keeping
one thin hand on her shoulder.  Let her cry her heart out--it would
do her good.

And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine
them.

The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the
last of daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from the
lamp within; there was a scent of new-mown grass.  With the wisdom
of a long life old Jolyon did not speak.  Even grief sobbed itself
out in time; only Time was good for sorrow--Time who saw the
passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the layer-to-rest.
There came into his mind the words: 'As panteth the hart after
cooling streams'--but they were of no use to him.  Then, conscious
of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes.  He put his
chin forward, pressed his moustache against her forehead, and felt
her shake with a quivering of her whole body, as of a tree which
shakes itself free of raindrops.  She put his hand to her lips, as
if saying: "All over now!  Forgive me!"

The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to
where she had been so upset.  And the dog Balthasar, following,
laid the bone of one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.

Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think of
nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from cabinet
to cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and Lowestoft and
Chelsea, turning them round and round with his thin, veined hands,
whose skin, faintly freckled, had such an aged look.

"I bought this at Jobson's," he would say; "cost me thirty pounds.
It's very old.  That dog leaves his bones all over the place.  This
old 'ship-bowl' I picked up at the sale when that precious rip, the
Marquis, came to grief.  But you don't remember.  Here's a nice
piece of Chelsea.  Now, what would you say this was?"  And he was
comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was taking a real
interest in these things; for, after all, nothing better composes
the nerves than a doubtful piece of china.

When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he said:

"You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you
these by daylight, and my little sweet--she's a dear little thing.
This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you."

For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing his
side against her leg.  Going out under the porch with her, he said:

"He'll get you up in an hour and a quarter.  Take this for your
protegees," and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her hand.
He saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: "Oh! Uncle
Jolyon!" and a real throb of pleasure went through him.  That meant
one or two poor creatures helped a little, and it meant that she
would come again.  He put his hand in at the window and grasped
hers once more.  The carriage rolled away.  He stood looking at the
moon and the shadows of the trees, and thought: 'A sweet night!
She......!'




II


Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny.  Old Jolyon
walked and talked with Holly.  At first he felt taller and full of
a new vigour; then he felt restless.  Almost every afternoon they
would enter the coppice, and walk as far as the log.  'Well, she's
not there!' he would think, 'of course not!'  And he would feel a
little shorter, and drag his feet walking up the hill home, with
his hand clapped to his left side.  Now and then the thought would
move in him: 'Did she come--or did I dream it?' and he would stare
at space, while the dog Balthasar stared at him.  Of course she
would not come again!  He opened the letters from Spain with less
excitement.  They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly,
that he could bear it.  Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes
and looked at where she had sat.  She was not there, so he
unscrewed his eyes again.

On the seventh afternoon he thought: 'I must go up and get some
boots.'  He ordered Beacon, and set out.  Passing from Putney
towards Hyde Park he reflected: 'I might as well go to Chelsea and
see her.'  And he called out: "Just drive me to where you took that
lady the other night."  The coachman turned his broad red face, and
his juicy lips answered: "The lady in grey, sir?"

"Yes, the lady in grey."  What other ladies were there!  Stodgy
chap!

The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,
standing a little back from the river.  With a practised eye old
Jolyon saw that they were cheap.  'I should think about sixty pound
a year,'  he mused; and entering, he looked at the name-board.  The
name 'Forsyte' was not on it, but against 'First Floor, Flat C'
were the words: 'Mrs. Irene Heron.'  Ah! She had taken her maiden
name again!  And somehow this pleased him.  He went upstairs
slowly, feeling his side a little.  He stood a moment, before
ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and fluttering there.  She
would not be in!  And then--Boots!  The thought was black.  What did
he want with boots at his age? He could not wear out all those he
had.

"Your mistress at home?"

"Yes, sir."

"Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."

"Yes, sir, will you come this way?"

Old Jolyon followed a very little maid--not more than sixteen one
would say--into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were
drawn.  It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague
fragrance and good taste.  He stood in the middle, with his top
hat in his hand, and thought: 'I expect she's very badly off!'
There was a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself
reflected.  An old-looking chap!  He heard a rustle, and turned
round.  She was so close that his moustache almost brushed her
forehead, just under her hair.

"I was driving up," he said.  "Thought I'd look in on you, and ask
you how you got up the other night."

And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved.  She was really
glad to see him, perhaps.

"Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the
Park?"

But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned.  The Park!
James and Emily!  Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his
precious family would be there very likely, prancing up and down.
And they would go and wag their tongues about having seen him with
her, afterwards.  Better not!  He did not wish to revive the echoes
of the past on Forsyte 'Change.  He removed a white hair from the
lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand
over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin.  It felt very hollow
there under the cheekbones.  He had not been eating much lately--he
had better get that little whippersnapper who attended Holly to
give him a tonic.  But she had come back and when they were in the
carriage, he said:

"Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?" and added
with a twinkle: "No prancing up and down there," as if she had been
in the secret of his thoughts.

Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and
strolled towards the water.

"You've gone back to your maiden name, I see," he said: "I'm not
sorry."

She slipped her hand under his arm: "Has June forgiven me, Uncle
Jolyon?"

He answered gently: "Yes--yes; of course, why not?"

"And have you?"

"I?  I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay."  And
perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the
beautiful.

She drew a deep breath.  "I never regretted--I couldn't.  Did you
ever love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?"

At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him.  Had he?  He
did not seem to remember that he ever had.  But he did not like to
say this to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose
life was suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love.  And he
thought: 'If I had met you when I was young I--I might have made a
fool of myself, perhaps.'  And a longing to escape in generalities
beset him.

"Love's a queer thing," he said, "fatal thing often.  It was the
Greeks--wasn't it?--made love into a goddess; they were right, I
dare say, but then they lived in the Golden Age."

"Phil adored them."

Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly--with his power to see all
round a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like
this.  She wanted to talk about her lover!  Well!  If it was any
pleasure to her!  And he said: "Ah! There was a bit of the sculptor
in him, I fancy."

"Yes.  He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted
way the Greeks gave themselves to art."

Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
symmetry--clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes
of his, and high cheek-bones--Symmetry?

"You're of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon."

Old Jolyon looked round at her.  Was she chaffing him?  No, her
eyes were soft as velvet.  Was she flattering him?  But if so, why?
There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.

"Phil thought so.  He used to say: 'But I can never tell him that I
admire him.'"

Ah! There it was again.  Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him!
And he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half
grateful, as if he recognised what a link they were between herself
and him.

"He was a very talented young fellow," he murmured.  "It's hot; I
feel the heat nowadays.  Let's sit down."

They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves
covered them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon.  A pleasure
to sit there and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him.
And the wish to increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:

"I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw.  He'd be at his
best with you.  His ideas of art were a little new--to me "--he had
stiffed the word 'fangled.'

"Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty."  Old
Jolyon thought: 'The devil he did!' but answered with a twinkle:
"Well, I have, or I shouldn't be sitting here with you."  She was
fascinating when she smiled with her eyes, like that!

"He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old.  Phil
had real insight."

He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of
a longing to talk of her dead lover--not a bit; and yet it was
precious to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which
--quite true!--had never grown old.  Was that because--unlike her and
her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had always kept
his balance, his sense of symmetry.  Well! It had left him power,
at eighty-four, to admire beauty.  And he thought, 'If I were a
painter or a sculptor!  But I'm an old chap.  Make hay while the
sun shines.'

A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at
the edge of the shadow from their tree.  The sunlight fell cruelly
on their pale, squashed, unkempt young faces.  "We're an ugly lot!"
said old Jolyon suddenly.  "It amazes me to see how--love triumphs
over that."

"Love triumphs over everything!"

"The young think so," he muttered.

"Love has no age, no limit, and no death."

With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so
large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life!  But
this extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he
said: "Well, if it had limits, we shouldn't be born; for by George!
it's got a lot to put up with."

Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff.  The
great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got
a rush of blood to the head--his circulation was not what it had
been.

She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she
murmured:

"It's strange enough that I'm alive."

Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.

"Ah!" he said: "my son saw you for a moment--that day."

"Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a
second it was--Phil."

Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble.  She put her hand over them, took
it away again, and went on calmly: "That night I went to the
Embankment; a woman caught me by the dress.  She told me about
herself.  When one knows that others suffer, one's ashamed."

"One of those?"

She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one
who has never known a struggle with desperation.  Almost against
his will he muttered: "Tell me, won't you?"

"I didn't care whether I lived or died.  When you're like that,
Fate ceases to want to kill you.  She took care of me three days--
she never left me.  I had no money.  That's why I do what I can for
them, now."

But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!'  What fate could compare
with that?  Every other was involved in it.

"I wish you had come to me," he said.  "Why didn't you?"  But Irene
did not answer.

"Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose?  Or was it June who kept
you away?  How are you getting on now?"  His eyes involuntarily
swept her body.  Perhaps even now she was--!  And yet she wasn't
thin--not really!

"Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough."  The answer
did not reassure him; he had lost confidence.  And that fellow
Soames!  But his sense of justice stifled condemnation.  No, she
would certainly have died rather than take another penny from him.
Soft as she looked, there must be strength in her somewhere--
strength and fidelity.  But what business had young Bosinney to
have got run over and left her stranded like this!

"Well, you must come to me now," he said, "for anything you want,
or I shall be quite cut up."  And putting on his hat, he rose.
"Let's go and get some tea.  I told that lazy chap to put the
horses up for an hour, and come for me at your place.  We'll take a
cab presently; I can't walk as I used to."

He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens--the
sound of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty of
a charming form moving beside him.  He enjoyed their tea at
Ruffel's in the High Street, and came out thence with a great box
of chocolates swung on his little finger.  He enjoyed the drive
back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his cigar.  She had promised
to come down next Sunday and play to him again, and already in
thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her to carry
back to town.  It was a pleasure to give her a little pleasure, if
it WERE pleasure from an old chap like him!  The carriage was
already there when they arrived.  Just like that fellow, who was
always late when he was wanted!  Old Jolyon went in for a minute to
say good-bye.  The little dark hall of the flat was impregnated
with a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a bench against the
wall--its only furniture--he saw a figure sitting.  He heard Irene
say softly: "Just one minute."  In the little drawing-room when the
door was shut, he asked gravely: "One of your protegees?"

"Yes.  Now thanks to you, I can do something for her."

He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had
frightened so many in its time.  The idea of her thus actually in
contact with this outcast grieved and frightened him.  What could
she do for them?  Nothing.  Only soil and make trouble for herself,
perhaps.  And he said: "Take care, my dear!  The world puts the
worst construction on everything."

"I know that."

He was abashed by her quiet smile.  "Well then--Sunday," he
murmured: "Good-bye."

She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.

"Good-bye," he said again; "take care of yourself."  And he went
out, not looking towards the figure on the bench.  He drove home by
way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of and
tell them to send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy.  She
must want picking-up sometimes!  Only in Richmond Park did he
remember that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and was
surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea.




III


The little spirits of the past which throng an old man's days had
never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy
hours elapsing before Sunday came.  The spirit of the future, with
the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead.  Old Jolyon was
not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was
coming to lunch.  There is wonderful finality about a meal; it
removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for
reasons beyond control.  He played many games with Holly on the
lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready to
bowl to Jolly in the holidays.  For she was not a Forsyte, but
Jolly was--and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and
reached the age of eighty-five.  The dog Balthasar, in attendance,
lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded,
till his face was like the harvest moon.  And because the time was
getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the last.
On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and
though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy like that.
Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement in life and
that excitement was not good for him, would have been met by one of
those steady and rather defiant looks of his deep-set iron-grey
eyes, which seemed to say: 'I know my own business best.'  He
always had and always would.

On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to
church, he visited the strawberry beds.  There, accompanied by the
dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in
finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe.
Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red in
the forehead.  Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the
dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with eau
de Cologne.  There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that he
was thinner.  What a 'threadpaper' he had been when he was young!
It was nice to be slim--he could not bear a fat chap; and yet
perhaps his cheeks were too thin!  She was to arrive by train at
half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road past Drage's
farm at the far end of the coppice.  And, having looked into June's
room to see that there was hot water ready, he set forth to meet
her, leisurely, for his heart was beating.  The air smelled sweet,
larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was visible.  A perfect
day!  On just such a one, no doubt, six years ago, Soames had
brought young Bosinney down with him to look at the site before
they began to build.  It was Bosinney who had pitched on the exact
spot for the house--as June had often told him.  In these days he
was thinking much about that young fellow, as if his spirit were
really haunting the field of his last work, on the chance of
seeing--her.  Bosinney--the one man who had possessed her heart, to
whom she had given her whole self with rapture!  At his age one
could not, of course, imagine such things, but there stirred in him
a queer vague aching--as it were the ghost of an impersonal
jealousy; and a feeling, too, more generous, of pity for that love
so early lost.  All over in a few poor months!  Well, well!  He
looked at his watch before entering the coppice--only a quarter
past, twenty-five minutes to wait!  And then, turning the corner of
the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her the first time,
on the log; and realised that she must have come by the earlier
train to sit there alone for a couple of hours at least.  Two hours
of her society missed!  What memory could make that log so dear to
her?  His face showed what he was thinking, for she said at once:

"Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew."

"Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like.  You're looking a
little Londony; you're giving too many lessons."

That she should have to give lessons worried him.  Lessons to a
parcel of young girls thumping out scales with their thick fingers.

"Where do you go to give them?" he asked.

"They're mostly Jewish families, luckily."

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and doubtful.

"They love music, and they're very kind."

"They had better be, by George!"  He took her arm--his side always
hurt him a little going uphill--and said:

"Did you ever see anything like those buttercups?  They came like
that in a night."

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the
flowers and the honey.  "I wanted you to see them--wouldn't let
them turn the cows in yet."  Then, remembering that she had come to
talk about Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the
stables:

"I expect he wouldn't have let me put that there--had no notion of
time, if I remember."

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and he
knew it was done that he might not feel she came because of her
dead lover.

"The best flower I can show you," he said, with a sort of triumph,
"is my little sweet.  She'll be back from Church directly.  There's
something about her which reminds me a little of you," and it did
not seem to him peculiar that he had put it thus, instead of
saying: "There's something about you which reminds me a little of
her."  Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose
digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of
Strasbourg, came rushing towards them from under the oak tree.  She
stopped about a dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that
this was all she had in her mind.  Old Jolyon, who knew better,
said:

"Well, my darling, here's the lady in grey I promised you."

Holly raised herself and looked up.  He watched the two of them
with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry,
passing into a shy smile too, and then to something deeper.  She
had a sense of beauty, that child--knew what was what!  He enjoyed
the sight of the kiss between them.

"Mrs. Heron, Mam'zelle Beauce.  Well, Mam'zelle--good sermon?"

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part
of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest in
church remained to him.  Mam'zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery
hand clad in a black kid glove--she had been in the best families--
and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask:
"Are you well-brrred?" Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything
unpleasing to her--a not uncommon occurrence--she would say to them:
"The little Tayleurs never did that--they were such well-brrred
little children."  Jolly hated the little Tayleurs; Holly wondered
dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them.  'A thin rum
little soul,' old Jolyon thought her--Mam'zelle Beauce.

Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself had
picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and another
bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain aromatic
spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a touch of eczema
to-morrow.

After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee.
It was no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce withdrew
to write her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future had been
endangered in the past by swallowing a pin--an event held up daily
in warning to the children to eat slowly and digest what they had
eaten.  At the foot of the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly and the
dog Balthasar teased and loved each other, and in the shade old
Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously savoured,
gazed at Irene sitting in the swing.  A light, vaguely swaying,
grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon it, lips
just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little drooped.  She
looked content; surely it did her good to come and see him!  The
selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him, for he could
still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that what
he wanted, though much, was not quite all that mattered.

"It's quiet here," he said; "you mustn't come down if you find it
dull.  But it's a pleasure to see you.  My little sweet is the
only face which gives me any pleasure, except yours."

From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be
appreciated, and this reassured him.  "That's not humbug," he said.
"I never told a woman I admired her when I didn't.  In fact I
don't know when I've told a woman I admired her, except my wife in
the old days; and wives are funny."  He was silent, but resumed
abruptly:

"She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and
there we were."  Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and,
afraid that he had said something painful, he hurried on: "When my
little sweet marries, I hope she'll find someone who knows what
women feel.  I shan't be here to see it, but there's too much
topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don't want her to pitch up against
that."  And, aware that he had made bad worse, he added: "That dog
will scratch."

A silence followed.  Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature
whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made
for love?  Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find
another mate--not so disorderly as that young fellow who had got
himself run over.  Ah! but her husband?

"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.

She shook her head.  Her face had closed up suddenly.  For all her
softness there was something irreconcilable about her.  And a
glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies
strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian civil-
isation--so much older than this of his old age--had never thought
about such primitive things.

"That's a comfort," he said.  "You can see the Grand Stand to-day.
Shall we take a turn round?"

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls
peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the
stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the
rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her--even into the kitchen
garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of
their pods with her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little
brown hand.  Many delightful things he showed her, while Holly and
the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for
attention.  It was one of the happiest afternoons he had ever
spent, but it tired him and he was glad to sit down in the music
room and let her give him tea.  A special little friend of Holly's
had come in--a fair child with short hair like a boy's.  And the
two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the stairs, and
up in the gallery.  Old Jolyon begged for Chopin.  She played
studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near,
stood at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent
forward, listening.  Old Jolyon watched.

"Let's see you dance, you two!"

Shyly, with a false start, they began.  Bobbing and circling,
earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the
strains of that waltz.  He watched them and the face of her who was
playing turned smiling towards those little dancers thinking:

'Sweetest picture I've seen for ages.'

A voice said:

"Hollee! Mais enfin--qu'est-ce que tu fais la--danser, le dimanche!
Viens, donc!"

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would
save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly 'caught out.'

"Better the day, better the deed, Mam'zelle.  It's all my doing.
Trot along, chicks, and have your tea."

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took
every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:

"Well, there we are! Aren't they sweet? Have you any little ones
among your pupils?"

"Yes, three--two of them darlings."

"Pretty?"

"Lovely!"

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very
young.  "My little sweet," he said, "is devoted to music; she'll be
a musician some day.  You wouldn't give me your opinion of her
playing, I suppose?"

"Of course I will."

"You wouldn't like--" but he stifled the words "to give her
lessons."  The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him;
yet it would mean that he would see her regularly.  She left the
piano and came over to his chair.

"I would like, very much; but there is--June.  When are they coming
back?"

Old Jolyon frowned.  "Not till the middle of next month.  What does
that matter?"

"You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
Jolyon."

Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head.  "You know she couldn't;
one doesn't forget."

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed
finality:

"Well, we shall see."

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred
little things, till the carriage came round to take her home.  And
when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there
smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of
paper.  He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and
stood under the masterpiece 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.'  He
was not thinking of that picture, but of his life.  He was going to
leave her something in his Will; nothing could so have stirred the
stilly deeps of thought and memory.  He was going to leave her a
portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds, qualities, work--
all that had made that wealth; going to leave her, too, a part of
all he had missed in life, by his sane and steady pursuit of
wealth.  All! What had he missed?  'Dutch Fishing Boats' responded
blankly; he crossed to the French window, and drawing the curtain
aside, opened it.  A wind had got up, and one of last year's oak
leaves which had somehow survived the gardener's brooms, was
dragging itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace
in the twilight.  Except for that it was very quiet out there, and
he could smell the heliotrope watered not long since.  A bat went
by.  A bird uttered its last 'cheep.'  And right above the oak tree
the first star shone.  Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for
some fresh years of youth.  Morbid notion!  No such bargain was
possible, that was real tragedy! No making oneself new again for
love or life or anything.  Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from
afar off while you could, and leave it something in your Will.  But
how much? And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out
into the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went
up to the chimney-piece.  There were his pet bronzes--a Cleopatra
with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with
her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses.  'They last!' he
thought, and a pang went through his heart.  They had a thousand
years of life before them!

'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old
before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as
possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair.  He might live
another five years.  She would be well over thirty by then.  'How
much?'  She had none of his blood in her!  In loyalty to the tenor
of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and
founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning thought-
-None of his blood, no right to anything!  It was a luxury then,
this notion.  An extravagance, a petting of an old man's whim, one
of those things done in dotage.  His real future was vested in
those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he was gone.
He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old
leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of
cigars.  And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her
grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him.
Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that
lost lover of hers.  But she was there, whether she would or no,
giving him pleasure with her beauty and grace.  One had no right to
inflict an old man's company, no right to ask her down to play to
him and let him look at her--for no reward!  Pleasure must be paid
for in this world.  'How much?'  After all, there was plenty; his
son and his three grandchildren would never miss that little lump.
He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could leave it where
he liked, allow himself this little pleasure.  He went back to the
bureau.  'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them think what
they like.  I'm going to!'  And he sat down.

'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand--how much? If only with
his money he could buy one year, one month of youth.  And startled
by that thought, he wrote quickly:


'DEAR HERRING,--Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my
niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes,
fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty."
'Yours faithfully,
'JOLYON FORSYTE.'


When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the
window and drew in a long breath.  It was dark, but many stars
shone now.




IV


He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught
him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts.  Experience had
also taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight
showed the folly of such panic.  On this particular morning the
thought which gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at
his age not improbable, he would not see her.  From this it was but
a step to realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son
and June returned from Spain.  How could he justify desire for the
company of one who had stolen--early morning does not mince words--
June's lover?  That lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little
thing; warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and--quite true--not one
who forgot!  By the middle of next month they would be back.  He
had barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come
into what remained of his life.  Darkness showed up to him absurdly
clear the nature of his feeling.  Admiration for beauty--a craving
to see that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet--what other reason was there for
asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his
son and his son's wife from thinking him very queer?  He would be
reduced to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least
indisposition would cut him off even from that.  He lay with eyes
open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself an
old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop
beating altogether.  He had seen the dawn lighting the window
chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow,
before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane.  Five weeks
before he need bother, at his age an eternity!  But that early
morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of
one who had always had his own way.  He would see her as often as
he wished!  Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his
solicitor's instead of writing about it; she might like to go to
the opera!  But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap
Beacon grinning behind his back.  Servants were such fools; and, as
likely as not, they had known all the past history of Irene and
young Bosinney--servants knew everything, and suspected the rest.
He wrote to her that morning:


"MY DEAR IRENE,--I have to be up in town to-morrow.  If you
would like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine
with me quietly ...."

But where?  It was decades since he had dined anywhere in London
save at his Club or at a private house.  Ah! that new-fangled place
close to Covent Garden....

"Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel whether
to expect you there at 7 o'clock."
"Yours affectionately,
"JOLYON FORSYTE."


She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little
pleasure; for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to
see her was instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly that
one so old should go out of his way to see beauty, especially in a
woman.

The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his
lawyer's, tired him.  It was hot too, and after dressing for dinner
he lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.  He must
have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself feeling
very queer; and with some difficulty rose and rang the bell.  Why!
it was past seven!  And there he was and she would be waiting.  But
suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was obliged to relapse
on the sofa.  He heard the maid's voice say:

"Did you ring, sir?"

"Yes, come here"; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in
front of his eyes.  "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile."

"Yes, sir."  Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

"Don't go.  Take this message to my niece--a lady waiting in the
hall--a lady in grey.  Say Mr. Forsyte is not well--the heat.  He
is very sorry; if he is not down directly, she is not to wait
dinner."

When she was gone, he thought feebly: 'Why did I say a lady in
grey--she may be in anything.  Sal volatile!'  He did not go off
again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came to be standing
beside him, holding smelling salts to his nose, and pushing a
pillow up behind his head.  He heard her say anxiously: "Dear Uncle
Jolyon, what is it?" was dimly conscious of the soft pressure of
her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of smelling salts,
suddenly discovered strength in them, and sneezed.

"Ha!" he said, "it's nothing.  How did you get here? Go down and
dine--the tickets are on the dressing-table.  I shall be all right
in a minute."

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat
divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all
right.

"Why! You are in grey!" he said.  "Help me up."  Once on his feet
he gave himself a shake.

"What business had I to go off like that!"  And he moved very
slowly to the glass.  What a cadaverous chap!  Her voice, behind
him, murmured:

"You mustn't come down, Uncle; you must rest."

"Fiddlesticks!  A glass of champagne'll soon set me to rights.  I
can't have you missing the opera."

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome.  What carpets
they had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up
in them at every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she
looked, and said with the ghost of a twinkle:

"I'm a pretty host."

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent
its slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he
felt much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought
such solicitude into her manner towards him.

"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and
watching the smile in her eyes, went on:

"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life;
plenty of that when you get to my age.  That's a nice dress--I like
the style."

"I made it myself."

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her
interest in life.

"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up.  I
want to see some colour in your cheeks.  We mustn't waste life; it
doesn't do.  There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she
won't be fat.  And Mephisto--anything more dreadful than a fat chap
playing the Devil I can't imagine."

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from
dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his
staying quiet and going to bed early.  When he parted from her at
the door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to
Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of her
words: "You are such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!"  Why! Who
wouldn't be!  He would have liked to stay up another day and take
her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would bore her to
death.  No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised to come
then.  They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for a
month.  It would be something.  That little Mam'zelle Beauce
wouldn't like it, but she would have to lump it.  And crushing his
old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say:
'Drive me to Chelsea.'  But his sense of proportion was too strong.
Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another
aberration like that of last night, away from home.  Holly, too,
was expecting him, and what he had in his bag for her.  Not that
there was any cupboard love in his little sweet--she was a bundle
of affection.  Then, with the rather bitter cynicism of the old, he
wondered for a second whether it was not cupboard love which made
Irene put up with him.  No, she was not that sort either.  She had,
if anything, too little notion of how to butter her bread, no sense
of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not breathed a word about
that codicil, nor should he--sufficient unto the day was the good
thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was restraining
the dog Balthasar, and their caresses made 'jubey' his drive home.
All the rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was
content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while the long
lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns and the flowers.  But
on Thursday evening at his lonely dinner he began to count the
hours; sixty-five till he would go down to meet her again in the
little coppice, and walk up through the fields at her side.  He had
intended to consult the doctor about his fainting fit, but the
fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no excitement and all
that; and he did not mean to be tied by the leg, did not want to be
told of an infirmity--if there were one, could not afford to hear
of it at his time of life, now that this new interest had come.
And he carefully avoided making any mention of it in a letter to
his son.  It would only bring them back with a run!  How far this
silence was due to consideration for their pleasure, how far to
regard for his own, he did not pause to consider.

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was
dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious
of a scent of violets.  Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in
grey, standing by the fireplace, holding out her arms.  The odd
thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold nothing, they were
curved as if round someone's neck, and her own neck was bent back,
her lips open, her eyes closed.  She vanished at once, and there
were the mantelpiece and his bronzes.  But those bronzes and the
mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only the fireplace and
the wall!  Shaken and troubled, he got up.  'I must take medicine,'
he thought; 'I can't be well.'  His heart beat too fast, he had an
asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the window, he opened
it to get some air.  A dog was barking far away, one of the dogs at
Gage's farm no doubt, beyond the coppice.  A beautiful still night,
but dark.  'I dropped off,' he mused, 'that's it!  And yet I'll
swear my eyes were open!'  A sound like a sigh seemed to answer.

"What's that?" he said sharply, "who's there?"

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart, he
stepped out on the terrace.  Something soft scurried by in the
dark.  "Shoo!"  It was that great grey cat.  'Young Bosinney was
like a great cat!' he thought.  'It was him in there, that she--
that she was--He's got her still!'  He walked to the edge of the
terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could just see the
powdering of the daisies on the unmown lawn.  Here to-day and gone
to-morrow!  And there came the moon, who saw all, young and old,
alive and dead, and didn't care a dump!  His own turn soon.  For a
single day of youth he would give what was left!  And he turned
again towards the house.  He could see the windows of the night
nursery up there.  His little sweet would be asleep.  'Hope that
dog won't wake her!' he thought.  'What is it makes us love, and
makes us die!  I must go to bed.'

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he
passed back within.

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his
well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating
warmth, only pale winter sunshine.  The shell can withstand the
gentle beating of the dynamos of memory.  The present he should
distrust; the future shun.  From beneath thick shade he should
watch the sunlight creeping at his toes.  If there be sun of
summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the
Indian-summer sun!  Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his
wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before the
world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of
years!' yea!  If he preserve his principles in perfect order, a
Forsyte may live on long after he is dead.

Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him that
which transcended Forsyteism.  For it is written that a Forsyte
shall not love beauty more than reason; nor his own way more than
his own health.  And something beat within him in these days that
with each throb fretted at the thinning shell.  His sagacity knew
this, but it knew too that he could not stop that beating, nor
would if he could.  And yet, if you had told him he was living on
his capital, he would have stared you down.  No, no; a man did not
live on his capital; it was not done!  The shibboleths of the past
are ever more real than the actualities of the present.  And he, to
whom living on one's capital had always been anathema, could not
have borne to have applied so gross a phrase to his own case.
Pleasure is healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in the
youth of the young--and what else on earth was he doing!

Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now
arranged his time.  On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train;
Irene came and dined with him.  And they went to the opera.  On
Thursdays he drove to town, and, putting that fat chap and his
horses up, met her in Kensington Gardens, picking up the carriage
after he had left her, and driving home again in time for dinner.
He threw out the casual formula that he had business in London on
those two days.  On Wednesdays and Saturdays she came down to give
Holly music lessons.  The greater the pleasure he took in her
society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a matter-
of-fact and friendly uncle.  Not even in feeling, really, was he
more--for, after all, there was his age.  And yet, if she were late
he fidgeted himself to death.  If she missed coming, which happened
twice, his eyes grew sad as an old dog's, and he failed to sleep.

And so a month went by--a month of summer in the fields, and in his
heart, with summer's heat and the fatigue thereof.  Who could have
believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward to his
son's and his grand-daughter's return with something like dread!
There was such a delicious freedom, such recovery of that
independence a man enjoys before he founds a family, about these
weeks of lovely weather, and this new companionship with one who
demanded nothing, and remained always a little unknown, retaining
the fascination of mystery.  It was like a draught of wine to him
who has been drinking water for so long that he has almost
forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to his
brain.  The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and
the sunlight had a living value--were no longer mere reminders of
past enjoyment.  There was something now to live for which stirred
him continually to anticipation.  He lived in that, not in
retrospection; the difference is considerable to any so old as he.
The pleasures of the table, never of much consequence to one
naturally abstemious, had lost all value.  He ate little, without
knowing what he ate; and every day grew thinner and more worn to
look at.  He was again a 'threadpaper'; and to this thinned form
his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples, gave more
dignity than ever.  He was very well aware that he ought to see the
doctor, but liberty was too sweet.  He could not afford to pet his
frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the
expense of liberty.  Return to the vegetable existence he had led
among the agricultural journals with the life-size mangold wurzels,
before this new attraction came into his life--no! He exceeded his
allowance of cigars.  Two a day had always been his rule.  Now he
smoked three and sometimes four--a man will when he is filled with
the creative spirit.  But very often he thought: 'I must give up
smoking, and coffee; I must give up rattling up to town.'  But he
did not; there was no one in any sort of authority to notice him,
and this was a priceless boon.

The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb.
Mam'zelle Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too
'wellbrrred' to make personal allusions.  Holly had not as yet an
eye for the relative appearance of him who was her plaything and
her god.  It was left for Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to
rest in the hot part of the day, to take a tonic, and so forth.
But she did not tell him that she was the a cause of his thinness--
for one cannot see the havoc oneself is working.  A man of eighty-
five has no passions, but the Beauty which produces passion works
on in the old way, till death closes the eyes which crave the sight
of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter
from his son in Paris to say that they would all be back on Friday.
This had always been more sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic
improvidence given to the old, that they may endure to the end, he
had never quite admitted it.  Now he did, and something would have
to be done.  He had ceased to be able to imagine life without this
new interest, but that which is not imagined sometimes exists, as
Forsytes are perpetually finding to their cost.  He sat in his old
leather chair, doubling up the letter, and mumbling with his lips
the end of an unlighted cigar.  After to-morrow his Tuesday
expeditions to town would have to be abandoned.  He could still
drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his man of
business.  But even that would be dependent on his health, for now
they would begin to fuss about him.  The lessons!  The lessons must
go on!  She must swallow down her scruples, and June must put her
feelings in her pocket.  She had done so once, on the day after the
news of Bosinney's death; what she had done then, she could surely
do again now.  Four years since that injury was inflicted on her--
not Christian to keep the memory of old sores alive.  June's will
was strong, but his was stronger, for his sands were running out.
Irene was soft, surely she would do this for him, subdue her
natural shrinking, sooner than give him pain!  The lessons must
continue; for if they did, he was secure.  And lighting his cigar
at last, he began trying to shape out how to put it to them all,
and explain this strange intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away
from the naked truth--that he could not bear to be deprived of the
sight of beauty.  Ah! Holly!  Holly was fond of her, Holly liked
her lessons.  She would save him--his little sweet!  And with that
happy thought he became serene, and wondered what he had been
worrying about so fearfully.  He must not worry, it left him always
curiously weak, and as if but half present in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness, though
he did not faint.  He would not ring the bell, because he knew it
would mean a fuss, and make his going up on the morrow more
conspicuous.  When one grew old, the whole world was in conspiracy
to limit freedom, and for what reason?--just to keep the breath in
him a little longer.  He did not want it at such cost.  Only the
dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery from that weakness; anxiously
watched his master go to the sideboard and drink some brandy,
instead of giving him a biscuit.  When at last old Jolyon felt able
to tackle the stairs he went up to bed.  And, though still shaky
next morning, the thought of the evening sustained and strengthened
him.  It was always such a pleasure to give her a good dinner--he
suspected her of undereating when she was alone; and, at the opera
to watch her eyes glow and brighten, the unconscious smiling of her
lips.  She hadn't much pleasure, and this was the last time he
would be able to give her that treat.  But when he was packing his
bag he caught himself wishing that he had not the fatigue of
dressing for dinner before him, and the exertion, too, of telling
her about June's return.

The opera that evening was 'Carmen,' and he chose the last
entr'acte to break the news, instinctively putting it off till the
latest moment.

She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she had
taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence
became necessary.  The mask was down over her face, that mask
behind which so much went on that he could not see.  She wanted
time to think it over, no doubt!  He would not press her, for she
would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow afternoon, and he
should see her then when she had got used to the idea.  In the cab
he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old days,
but this one was not bad at all.  When he took her hand to say
good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me."

"To-morrow then," he said.  "Good-night.  Sleep well."  She echoed
softly: "Sleep welll" and from the cab window, already moving away,
he saw her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put out in
a gesture which seemed to linger.

He sought his room slowly.  They never gave him the same, and he
could not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy' bedrooms with new
furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink
roses.  He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in
his head.

His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he
knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing--wild and unaccountable.
Well, there was in life something which upset all your care and
plans--something which made men and women dance to its pipes.  And
he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the
unaccountable held sway.  You thought you had hold of life, but it
slipped away behind you, took you by the scruff of the neck, forced
you here and forced you there, and then, likely as not, squeezed
life out of you!  It took the very stars like that, he shouldn't
wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them apart; it had
never done playing its pranks.  Five million people in this great
blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy of that Life-
Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board
when you struck your fist on it.  Ah, well! Himself would not hop
much longer--a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!--how noisy! His forehead burned; she had
kissed it just where he always worried; just there--as if she had
known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him.  But,
instead, her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness.  She had
never spoken in quite that voice, had never before made that
lingering gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced
down over the river.  There was little air, but the sight of that
breadth of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him.  'The
great thing,' he thought 'is not to make myself a nuisance.  I'll
think of my little sweet, and go to sleep.'  But it was long before
the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into the short
slumber of the summer morning.  And old Jolyon had but forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden, and
with the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers,
gathered a great bunch of carnations.  They were, he told her, for
'the lady in grey'--a name still bandied between them; and he put
them in a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene the
moment she came, on the subject of June and future lessons.  Their
fragrance and colour would help.  After lunch he lay down, for he
felt very tired, and the carriage would not bring her from the
station till four o'clock.  But as the hour approached he grew
restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle
Beauce, sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending
to their silkworms.  Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these
methodical creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of
elephants; who nibbled such quantities of holes in nice green
leaves; and smelled, as he thought, horrid.  He sat down on a
chintz-covered windowseat whence he could see the drive, and get
what air there was; and the dog Balthasar who appreciated chintz on
hot days, jumped up beside him.  Over the cottage piano a violet
dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and on it the first
lavender, whose scent filled the room.  In spite of the coolness
here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life vehemently
impressed his ebbed-down senses.  Each sunbeam which came through
the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled very strong;
the lavender perfume was overpowering; those silkworms heaving up
their grey-green backs seemed horribly alive; and Holly's dark head
bent over them had a wonderfully silky sheen.  A marvellous cruelly
strong thing was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock
you with its multitude of forms and its beating vitality.  He had
never, till those last few weeks, had this curious feeling of being
with one half of him eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and
with the other half left on the bank, watching that helpless
progress.  Only when Irene was with him did he lose this double
consciousness.

Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
piano--for to point with a finger was not 'well-brrred'--and said
slyly:

"Look at the 'lady in grey,' Gran; isn't she pretty to-day?"

Old Jolyon's heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was
clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:

"Who's been dressing her up?"

"Mam'zelle."

"Hollee! Don't be foolish!"

That prim little Frenchwoman!  She hadn't yet got over the music
lessons being taken away from her.  That wouldn't help.  His little
sweet was the only friend they had.  Well, they were her lessons.
And he shouldn't budge shouldn't budge for anything.  He stroked
the warm wool on Balthasar's head, and heard Holly say: "When
mother's home, there won't be any changes, will there?  She doesn't
like strangers, you know."

The child's words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of
opposition about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his
new-found freedom.  Ah! He would have to resign himself to being an
old man at the mercy of care and love, or fight to keep this new
and prized companionship; and to fight tired him to death.  But his
thin, worn face hardened into resolution till it appeared all Jaw.
This was his house, and his affair; he should not budge!  He looked
at his watch, old and thin like himself; he had owned it fifty
years.  Past four already!  And kissing the top of Holly's head in
passing, he went down to the hall.  He wanted to get hold of her
before she went up to give her lesson.  At the first sound of
wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the
victoria was empty.

"The train's in, sir; but the lady 'asn't come."

Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push
away that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter
disappointment he was feeling.

"Very well," he said, and turned back into the house.  He went to
his study and sat down, quivering like a leaf.  What did this mean?
She might have lost her train, but he knew well enough she hadn't.
'Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon.'  Why 'Good-bye' and not 'Good-
night'?  And that hand of hers lingering in the air.  And her kiss.
What did it mean?  Vehement alarm and irritation took possession of
him.  He got up and began to pace the Turkey carpet, between window
and wall.  She was going to give him up!  He felt it for certain--
and he defenceless.  An old man wanting to look on beauty!  It was
ridiculous!  Age closed his mouth, paralysed his power to fight.
He had no right to what was warm and living, no right to anything
but memories and sorrow.  He could not plead with her; even an old
man has his dignity.  Defenceless!  For an hour, lost to bodily
fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl of carnations he had
plucked, which mocked him with its scent.  Of all things hard to
bear, the prostration of will-power is hardest, for one who has
always had his way.  Nature had got him in its net, and like an
unhappy fish he turned and swam at the meshes, here and there,
found no hole, no breaking point.  They brought him tea at five
o'clock, and a letter.  For a moment hope beat up in him.  He cut
the envelope with the butter knife, and read:


"DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,--I can't bear to write anything that may
disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night.  I
feel I can't come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that
June is coming back.  Some things go too deep to be forgotten.  It
has been such a joy to see you and Holly.  Perhaps I shall still
see you sometimes when you come up, though I'm sure it's not good
for you; I can see you are tiring yourself too much.  I believe you
ought to rest quite quietly all this hot weather, and now you have
your son and June coming back you will be so happy.  Thank you a
million times for all your sweetness to me.

"Lovingly your IRENE."


So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he
chiefly cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable end
of all things, the approach of death with its stealthy, rustling
footsteps.  Not good for him!  Not even she could see how she was
his new lease of interest in life, the incarnation of all the
beauty he felt slipping from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he
paced, torn between his dignity and his hold on life.  Intolerable
to be squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on
when your will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to
the ground with care and love.  Intolerable!  He would see what
telling her the truth would do--the truth that he wanted the sight
of her more than just a lingering on.  He sat down at his old
bureau and took a pen.  But he could not write.  There was some-
thing revolting in having to plead like this; plead that she should
warm his eyes with her beauty.  It was tantamount to confessing
dotage.  He simply could not.  And instead, he wrote:


"I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to
stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my
little grand-daughter.  But old men learn to forego their whims;
they are obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner
or later; and perhaps the sooner the better.
"My love to you,
"JOLYON FORSYTE."


'Bitter,' he thought, 'but I can't help it.  I'm tired.'  He sealed
and dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it
fall to the bottom, thought: 'There goes all I've looked forward
to!'

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his
cigar which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he went
very slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery.  He sat down
on the window-seat.  A night-light was burning, and he could just
see Holly's face, with one hand underneath the cheek.  An early
cockchafer buzzed in the Japanese paper with which they had filled
the grate, and one of the horses in the stable stamped restlessly.
To sleep like that child!  He pressed apart two rungs of the
venetian blind and looked out.  The moon was rising, blood-red.  He
had never seen so red a moon.  The woods and fields out there were
dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the summer light.
And beauty, like a spirit, walked.  'I've had a long life,' he
thought, 'the best of nearly everything.  I'm an ungrateful chap;
I've seen a lot of beauty in my time.  Poor young Bosinney said I
had a sense of beauty.  There's a man in the moon to-night!'  A
moth went by, another, another.  'Ladies in grey!'  He closed his
eyes.  A feeling that he would never open them again beset him; he
let it grow, let himself sink; then, with a shiver, dragged the
lids up.  There was something wrong with him, no doubt, deeply
wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.  It didn't much
matter now!  Into that coppice the moon-light would have crept;
there would be shadows, and those shadows would be the only things
awake.  No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just the shadows--
moving; 'Ladies in grey!'  Over that log they would climb; would
whisper together.  She and Bosinney!  Funny thought!  And the frogs
and little things would whisper too!  How the clock ticked, in
here!  It was all eerie--out there in the light of that red moon; in
here with the little steady night-light and, the ticking clock and
the nurse's dressing-gown hanging from the edge of the screen,
tall, like a woman's figure.  'Lady in grey!'  And a very odd
thought beset him: Did she exist?  Had she ever come at all?  Or
was she but the emanation of all the beauty he had loved and must
leave so soon?  The violet-grey spirit with the dark eyes and the
crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the moonlight, and at
blue-bell time?  What was she, who was she, did she exist?  He rose
and stood a moment clutching the window-sill, to give him a sense
of reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door.  He
stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as if conscious of his
eyes fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and curled up closer in
defence.  He tiptoed on and passed out into the dark passage;
reached his room, undressed at once, and stood before a mirror in
his night-shirt.  What a scarecrow--with temples fallen in, and
thin legs! His eyes resisted his own image, and a look of pride
came on his face.  All was in league to pull him down, even his
reflection in the glass, but he was not down--yet!  He got into
bed, and lay a long time without sleeping, trying to reach
resignation, only too well aware that fretting and disappointment
were very bad for him.

He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he sent
for the doctor.  After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face as
long as your arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up
smoking.  That was no hardship; there was nothing to get up for, and
when he felt ill, tobacco always lost its savour.  He spent the
morning languidly with the sun-blinds down, turning and re-turning
The Times, not reading much, the dog Balthasar lying beside his bed.
With his lunch they brought him a telegram, running thus:

'Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you
at four-thirty.  Irene.'


Coming down!  After all!  Then she did exist--and he was not
deserted.  Coming down!  A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks
and forehead felt hot.  He drank his soup, and pushed the tray-
table away, lying very quiet until they had removed lunch and left
him alone; but every now and then his eyes twinkled.  Coming down!
His heart beat fast, and then did not seem to beat at all.  At
three o'clock he got up and dressed deliberately, noiselessly.
Holly and Mam'zelle would be in the schoolroom, and the servants
asleep after their dinner, he shouldn't wonder.  He opened his door
cautiously, and went downstairs.  In the hall the dog Balthasar lay
solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon passed into his study
and out into the burning afternoon.  He meant to go down and meet
her in the coppice, but felt at once he could not manage that in
this heat.  He sat down instead under the oak tree by the swing,
and the dog Balthasar, who also felt the heat, lay down beside him.
He sat there smiling.  What a revel of bright minutes!  What a hum
of insects, and cooing of pigeons!  It was the quintessence of a
summer day.  Lovely!  And he was happy--happy as a sand-boy, what-
ever that might be.  She was coming; she had not given him up!  He
had everything in life he wanted--except a little more breath, and
less weight--just here!  He would see her when she emerged from the
fernery, come swaying just a little, a violet-grey figure passing
over the daisies and dandelions and 'soldiers' on the lawn--the
soldiers with their flowery crowns.  He would not move, but she
would come up to him and say: 'Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am sorry!' and
sit in the swing and let him look at her and tell her that he had
not been very well but was all right now; and that dog would lick
her hand.  That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a
good dog.

It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him,
only make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the
Grand Stand at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows crop-
ping the clover in the field and swishing at the flies with their
tails.  He smelled the scent of limes, and lavender.  Ah! that was
why there was such a racket of bees.  They were excited--busy, as
his heart was busy and excited.  Drowsy, too, drowsy and drugged on
honey and happiness; as his heart was drugged and drowsy.  Summer--
summer--they seemed saying; great bees and little bees, and the
flies too!

The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here.
He would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little sleep
of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and
beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn--lady in grey!
And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes.  Some thistle-
down came on what little air there was, and pitched on his
moustache more white than itself.  He did not know; but his
breathing stirred it, caught there.  A ray of sunlight struck
through and lodged on his boot.  A bumble-bee alighted and strolled
on the crown of his Panama hat.  And the delicious surge of slumber
reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head swayed forward and
rested on his breast.  Summer--summer!  So went the hum.

The stable clock struck the quarter past.  The dog Balthasar
stretched and looked up at his master.  The thistledown no longer
moved.  The dog placed his chin over the sunlit foot.  It did not
stir.  The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old
Jolyon's lap, looked in his face, whined; then, leaping down, sat
on his haunches, gazing up.  And suddenly he uttered a long, long
howl.

But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old
master.

Summer--summer--summer!  The soundless footsteps on the grass!


1917







IN CHANCERY

Two households both alike in dignity,
From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.

--Romeo and Juliet



TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD





PART 1




CHAPTER I

AT TIMOTHY'S


The possessive instinct never stands still.  Through florescence
and feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression
even in the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever.
Nor can it be dissociated from environment any more than the
quality of potato from the soil.

The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his
good time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from self-
contented and contained provincialism to still more self-contented
if less contained imperialism--in other words, the 'possessive'
instinct of the nation on the move.  And so, as if in conformity,
was it with the Forsyte family.  They were spreading not merely on
the surface, but within.

When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed
her husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was
cremated, it made strangely little stir among the six old Forsytes
left.  For this apathy there were three causes.  First: the almost
surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892 down at Robin Hill--
first of the Forsytes to desert the family grave at Highgate.  That
burial, coming a year after Swithin's entirely proper funeral, had
occasioned a great deal of talk on Forsyte 'Change, the abode of
Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road, London, which still col-
lected and radiated family gossip.  Opinions ranged from the
lamentation of Aunt Juley to the outspoken assertion of Francie
that it was 'a jolly good thing to stop all that stuffy Highgate
business.'  Uncle Jolyon in his later years--indeed, ever since the
strange and lamentable affair between his granddaughter June's
lover, young Bosinney, and Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte's wife-
-had noticeably rapped the family's knuckles; and that way of his
own which he had always taken had begun to seem to them a little
wayward.  The philosophic vein in him, of course, had always been
too liable to crop out of the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they
were in a way prepared for his interment in a strange spot.  But
the whole thing was an odd business, and when the contents of his
Will became current coin on Forsyte 'Change, a shiver had gone
round the clan.  Out of his estate (L145,304 gross, with
liabilities L35 7s. 4d.) he had actually left L15,000 to "whomever
do you think, my dear?  To Irene!" that runaway wife of his nephew
Soames; Irene, a woman who had almost disgraced the family, and--
still more amazing was to him no blood relation.  Not out and out,
of course; only a life interest--only the income from it!  Still,
there it was; and old Jolyon's claim to be the perfect Forsyte was
ended once for all.  That, then, was the first reason why the
burial of Susan Hayman--at Woking--made little stir.

The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial.
Besides the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by
Hayman when he died) just over the border in Hants, where the Hayman
boys had learned to be such good shots and riders, as it was
believed, which was of course nice for them, and creditable to
everybody; and the fact of owning something really countrified
seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion of her remains--though what
could have put cremation into her head they could not think!  The
usual invitations, however, had been issued, and Soames had gone
down and young Nicholas, and the Will had been quite satisfactory so
far as it went, for she had only had a life interest; and everything
had gone quite smoothly to the children in equal shares.

The third reason why Susan's burial made little stir was the most
expansive of all.  It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the pale,
the thin: "Well, I think people have a right to their own bodies,
even when they're dead."  Coming from a daughter of Nicholas, a
Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling
remark--showing in a flash what a lot of water had run under
bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in '86, just when the
proprietorship of Soames over his wife's body was acquiring the
uncertainty which had led to such disaster.  Euphemia, of course,
spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though well over
thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte.  But, making all
allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the
principle of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central
point of possession from others to oneself.  When Nicholas heard
his daughter's remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: "Wives
and daughters!  There's no end to their liberty in these days.  I
knew that 'Jackson' case would lead to things--lugging in Habeas
Corpus like that!"  He had, of course, never really forgiven the
Married Woman's Property Act, which would so have interfered with
him if he had not mercifully married before it was passed.  But,
in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger
Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were, Colonial
disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical forerunner of
Imperialism, was making progress all the time.  They were all now
married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and the Iseeum Club;
Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio off the King's
Road, Chelsea, and still taking 'lovers' to dances; Euphemia,
living at home and complaining of Nicholas; and those two Dromios,
Giles and Jesse Hayman.  Of the third generation there were not
very many--young Jolyon had three, Winifred Dartie four, young
Nicholas six already, young Roger had one, Marian Tweetyman one;
St. John Hayman two.  But the rest of the sixteen married--Soames,
Rachel and Cicely of James' family; Eustace and Thomas of Roger's;
Ernest, Archibald and Florence of Nicholas'; Augustus and Annabel
Spender of the Hayman's--were going down the years unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been
born; but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only
seventeen descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there
would be more than a further unconsidered trifle or so.  A student
of statistics must have noticed that the birth rate had varied in
accordance with the rate of interest for your money.  Grandfather
'Superior Dosset' Forsyte in the early nineteenth century had been
getting ten per cent. for his, hence ten children.  Those ten,
leaving out the four who had not married, and Juley, whose husband
Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at once, had averaged
from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced accordingly.
The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting barely three per
cent. in the Consols to which their father had mostly tied the
Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and the six of them
who had been reproduced had seventeen children, or just the proper
two and five-sixths per stem.

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction.  A
distrust of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is
guaranteed, together with the knowledge that their fathers did not
die, kept them cautious.  If one had children and not much income,
the standard of taste and comfort must of necessity go down; what
was enough for two was not enough for four, and so on--it would be
better to wait and see what Father did.  Besides, it was nice to be
able to take holidays unhampered.  Sooner in fact than own
children, they preferred to concentrate on the ownership of them-
selves, conforming to the growing tendency fin de siecle, as it
was called.  In this way, little risk was run, and one would be
able to have a motor-car.  Indeed, Eustace already had one, but it
had shaken him horribly, and broken one of his eye teeth; so that
it would be better to wait till they were a little safer.  In the
meantime, no more children!  Even young Nicholas was drawing in his
horns, and had made no addition to his six for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion
rather, of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so far
as to prevent a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899.  It had been
a glorious summer, and after holidays abroad and at the sea they
were practically all back in London, when Roger with a touch of his
old originality had suddenly breathed his last at his own house in
Princes Gardens.  At Timothy's it was whispered sadly that poor
Roger had always been eccentric about his digestion--had he not,
for instance, preferred German mutton to all the other brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and
coming away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for his
Uncle Timothy's in the Bayswater Road.  The 'Old Things'--Aunt
Juley and Aunt Hester--would like to hear about.  it.  His father--
James--at  eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of the
funeral; and Timothy himself, of course, had not gone; so that
Nicholas had been the only brother present.  Still, there had been
a fair gathering; and it would cheer Aunts Juley and Hester up to
know.  The kindly thought was not unmixed with the inevitable
longing to get something out of everything you do, which is the
chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the saner elements
in every nation.  In this practice of taking family matters to
Timothy's in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but following in the
footsteps of his father, who had been in the habit of going at
least once a week to see his sisters at Timothy's, and had only
given it up when he lost his nerve at eighty-six, and could not go
out without Emily.  To go with Emily was of no use, for who could
really talk to anyone in the presence of his own wife?  Like James
in the old days, Soames found time to go there nearly every Sunday,
and sit in the little drawing-room into which, with his undoubted
taste, he had introduced a good deal of change and china not quite
up to his own fastidious mark, and at least two rather doubtful
Barbizon pictures, at Christmastides.  He himself, who had done
extremely well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved
towards the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping to do
better.  In the riverside house which he now inhabited near
Mapledurham he had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to
which few London dealers were strangers.  It served, too, as a
Sunday afternoon attraction in those week-end parties which his
sisters, Winifred or Rachel, occasionally organised for him.  For
though he was but a taciturn showman, his quiet collected
determinism seldom failed to influence his guests, who knew that
his reputation was grounded not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his
power of gauging the future of market values.  When he went to
Timothy's he almost always had some little tale of triumph over a
dealer to unfold, and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which
his aunts would greet it.  This afternoon, however, he was
differently animated, coming from Roger's funeral in his neat dark
clothes--not quite black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle,
and his soul abhorred excessive display of feeling.  Leaning back
in a marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the
sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames, he was noticeably
silent.  Whether because he had been to a funeral or not, the
peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to the best advantage
this afternoon--a face concave and long, with a jaw which divested
of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face
though not at all ill-looking.  He was feeling more strongly than
ever that Timothy's was hopelessly 'rum-ti-too' and the souls of
his aunts dismally mid-Victorian.  The subject on which alone he
wanted to talk--his own undivorced position--was unspeakable.  And
yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else.  It was only
since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling grown up
which was egging him on towards what he knew might well be folly in
a Forsyte of forty-five.  More and more of late he had been
conscious that he was 'getting on.'  The fortune already
considerable when he conceived the house at Robin Hill which had
finally wrecked his marriage with Irene, had mounted with
surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during which he had
devoted himself to little else.  He was worth to-day well over a
hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to--no real
object for going on with what was his religion.  Even if he were to
relax his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would have
a hundred and fifty thousand before he knew where he was.  There
had always been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side to
Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but now
had crept out again in this his 'prime of life.'  Concreted and
focussed of late by the attraction of a girl's undoubted beauty, it
had become a veritable prepossession.

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept any
unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the thought
of that.  He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during those long
years of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with disgust, for
he was fastidious, and his sense of law and order innate.  He wanted
no hole and corner liaison.  A marriage at the Embassy in Paris, a
few months' travel, and he could bring Annette back quite separated
from a past which in truth was not too distinguished, for she only
kept the accounts in her mother's Soho Restaurant; he could bring
her back as something very new and chic with her French taste and
self-possession, to reign at 'The Shelter' near Mapledurham.  On
Forsyte 'Change and among his riverside friends it would be current
that he had met a charming French girl on his travels and married
her.  There would be the flavour of romance, and a certain cachet
about a French wife.  No! He was not at all afraid of that.  It was
only this cursed undivorced condition of his, and--and the question
whether Annette would take him, which he dared not put to the touch
until he had a clear and even dazzling future to offer her.

In his aunts' drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those
usual questions: How was his dear father?  Not going out, of
course, now that the weather was turning chilly?  Would Soames be
sure to tell him that Hester had found boiled holly leaves most
comforting for that pain in her side; a poultice every three hours,
with red flannel afterwards.  And could he relish just a little pot
of their very best prune preserve--it was so delicious this year,
and had such a wonderful effect.  Oh! and about the Darties--had
Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most distressing time
with Montague?  Timothy thought she really ought to have protection
It was said--but Soames mustn't take this for certain--that
he had given some of Winifred's jewellery to a dreadful dancer.
It was such a bad example for dear Val just as he was going to
college.  Soames had not heard?  Oh, but he must go and see his
sister and look into it at once!  And did he think these Boers were
really going to resist?  Timothy was in quite a stew about it.  The
price of Consols was so high, and he had such a lot of money in
them.  Did Soames think they must go down if there was a war?
Soames nodded.  But it would be over very quickly.  It would be so
bad for Timothy if it wasn't.  And of course Soames' dear father
would feel it very much at his age.  Luckily poor dear Roger had
been spared this dreadful anxiety.  And Aunt Juley with a little
handkerchief wiped away the large tear trying to climb the
permanent pout on her now quite withered left cheek; she was
remembering dear Roger, and all his originality, and how he used to
stick pins into her when they were little together.  Aunt Hester,
with her instinct for avoiding the unpleasant, here chimed in: Did
Soames think they would make Mr. Chamberlain Prime Minister at
once?  He would settle it all so quickly.  She would like to see
that old Kruger sent to St. Helena.  She could remember so well the
news of Napoleon's death, and what a, relief it had been to his
grandfather.  Of course she and Juley--"We were in pantalettes
then, my dear"--had not felt it much at the time.

Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate three
of those macaroons for which Timothy's was famous.  His faint,
pale, supercilious smile had deepened just a little.  Really, his
family remained hopelessly provincial, however much of London they
might possess between them.  In these go-ahead days their provinc-
ialism stared out even more than it used to.  Why, old Nicholas was
still a Free Trader, and a member of that antediluvian home of
Liberalism, the Remove Club--though, to be sure, the members were
pretty well all Conservatives now, or he himself could not have
joined; and Timothy, they said, still wore a nightcap.  Aunt Juley
spoke again.  Dear Soames was looking so well, hardly a day older
than he did when dear Ann died, and they were all there together,
dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear Roger.  She paused and
caught the tear which had climbed the pout on her right cheek.  Did
he--did he ever hear anything of Irene nowadays?  Aunt Hester
visibly interposed her shoulder.  Really, Juley was always saying
something!  The smile left Soames' face, and he put his cup down.
Here was his subject broached for him, and for all his desire to
expand, he could not take advantage.

Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:

"They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out and
out; then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it for
her life only."

Had Soames heard that?

Soames nodded.

"Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now.  He is her trustee; you knew
that, of course?"

Soames shook his head.  He did know, but wished to show no
interest.  Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of
Bosinney's death.

"He must be quite middle-aged by now," went on Aunt Juley dreamily.
"Let me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in Mount
Street; long before they went to Stanhope Gate in December.  Just
before that dreadful Commune.  Over fifty!  Fancy that!  Such a
pretty baby, and we were all so proud of him; the very first of you
all."  Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock of not quite her own hair came
loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester gave a little shiver.
Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious piece of self-discovery.
That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was not yet closed.  He
had come thinking he could talk of it, even wanting to talk of his
fettered condition, and--behold! he was shrinking away from this
reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her Malapropisms.

Oh, Soames was not going already!

Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:

"Yes.  Good-bye.  Remember me to Uncle Timothy!"  And, leaving a
cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling
to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them looking
brightly after him--dear Soames, it had been so good of him to come
to-day, when they were not feeling very....!

With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the stairs,
where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor and port
wine, and house where draughts are not permitted.  The poor old
things--he had not meant to be unkind!  And in the street he
instantly forgot them, repossessed by the image of Annette and the
thought of the cursed coil around him.  Why had he not pushed the
thing through and obtained divorce when that wretched Bosinney was
run over, and there was evidence galore for the asking!  And he
turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie's residence in Green
Street, Mayfair.




CHAPTER II

EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD


That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of fortunes
as Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he had
inhabited twenty years at least would have been more noticeable if
the rent, rates, taxes, and repairs of that house had not been
defrayed by his father-in-law.  By that simple if wholesale device
James Forsyte had secured a certain stability in the lives of his
daughter and his grandchildren.  After all, there is something
invaluable about a safe roof over the head of a sportsman so
dashing as Dartie.  Until the events of the last few days he had
been almost-supernaturally steady all this year.  The fact was he
had acquired a half share in a filly of George Forsyte's, who had
gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger, now stilled
by the grave.  Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out of Shirt-on-fire, by
Suspender, was a bay filly, three years old, who for a variety of
reasons had never shown her true form.  With half ownership of this
hopeful animal, all the idealism latent somewhere in Dartie, as in
every other man, had put up its head, and kept him quietly ardent
for months past.  When a man has some thing good to live for it is
astonishing how sober he becomes; and what Dartie had was really
good--a three to one chance for an autumn handicap, publicly
assessed at twenty-five to one.  The old-fashioned heaven was a
poor thing beside it, and his shirt was on the daughter of Shirt-
on-fire.  But how much more than his shirt depended on this
granddaughter of Suspender!  At that roving age of forty-five,
trying to Forsytes--and, though perhaps less distinguishable from
any other age, trying even to Darties--Montague had fixed his
current fancy on a dancer.  It was no mean passion, but without
money, and a good deal of it, likely to remain a love as airy as
her skirts; and Dartie never had any money, subsisting miserably on
what he could beg or borrow from Winifred--a woman of character,
who kept him because he was the father of her children, and from a
lingering admiration for those now-dying Wardour Street good looks
which in their youth had fascinated her.  She, together with anyone
else who would lend him anything, and his losses at cards and on
the turf (extraordinary how some men make a good thing out of
losses!) were his whole means of subsistence; for James was now too
old and nervous to approach, and Soames too formidably adamant.  It
is not too much to say that Dartie had been living on hope for
months.  He had never been fond of money for itself, had always
despised the Forsytes with their investing habits, though careful
to make such use of them as he could.  What he liked about money
was what it bought--personal sensation.

"No real sportsman cares for money," he would say, borrowing a
'pony' if it was no use trying for a 'monkey.'  There was something
delicious about Montague Dartie.  He was, as George Forsyte said, a
'daisy.'

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day
of September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night
before, arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an
eminence to see his half of the filly take her final canter: If she
won he would be a cool three thou. in pocket--a poor enough
recompense for the sobriety and patience of these weeks of hope,
while they had been nursing her for this race.  But he had not been
able to afford more.  Should he 'lay it off' at the eight to one to
which she had advanced?  This was his single thought while the
larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled sweet, and the
pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like satin.

After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to 'lay it
off' would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred--hardly
enough to purchase a dancer out and out.  Even more potent was the
itch in the blood of all the Darties for a real flutter.  And
turning to George he said: "She's a clipper.  She'll win hands
down; I shall go the whole hog."  George, who had laid off every
penny, and a few besides, and stood to win, however it came out,
grinned down on him from his bulky height, with the words: "So ho,
my wild one!" for after a chequered apprenticeship weathered with
the money of a deeply complaining Roger, his Forsyte blood was
beginning to stand him in good stead in the profession of owner.

There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from which
the sensitive recorder shrinks.  Suffice it to say that the good
thing fell down.  Sleeve-links finished in the ruck.  Dartie's
shirt was lost.

Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames turned
his face towards Green Street, what had not happened!

When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised
self-control for months from religious motives, and remains un-
rewarded, he does not curse God and die, he curses God and lives,
to the distress of his family.

Winifred--a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable--who had
borne the brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never
really believed that he would do what he now did.  Like so many
wives, she thought she knew the worst, but she had not yet known
him in his forty-fifth year, when he, like other men, felt that it
was now or never.  Paying on the 2nd of October a visit of inspec-
tion to her jewel case, she was horrified to observe that her
woman's crown and glory was gone--the pearls which Montague had
given her in '86, when Benedict was born, and which James had been
compelled to pay for in the spring of '87, to save scandal.  She
consulted her husband at once.  He 'pooh-poohed' the matter.  They
would turn up!  Nor till she said sharply: "Very well, then, Monty,
I shall go down to Scotland Yard myself," did he consent to take
the matter in hand.  Alas! that the steady and resolved continuity
of design necessary to the accomplishment of sweeping operations
should be liable to interruption by drink.  That night Dartie
returned home without a care in the world or a particle of
reticence.  Under normal conditions Winifred would merely have
locked her door and let him sleep it off, but torturing suspense
about her pearls had caused her to wait up for him.  Taking a small
revolver from his pocket and holding on to the dining table, he
told her at once that he did not care a cursh whether she lived
s'long as she was quiet; but he himself wash tired o' life.
Winifred, holding onto the other side of the dining table,
answered:

"Don't be a clown, Monty.  Have you been to Scotland Yard?"

Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the
trigger several times.  It was not loaded.  Dropping it with an
imprecation, he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank
into a chair.  Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him
some soda water.  The liquor had a magical effect.  Life had
illused him; Winifred had never 'unshtood'm.'  If he hadn't the
right to take the pearls he had given her himself, who had?  That
Spanish filly had got'm.  If Winifred had any 'jection he w'd cut--
her--throat.  What was the matter with that?  (Probably the first
use of that celebrated phrase--so obscure are the origins of even
the most classical language!)

Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard school, looked
up at him, and said: "Spanish filly!  Do you mean that girl we saw
dancing in the Pandemonium Ballet?  Well, you are a thief and a
blackguard."  It had been the last straw on a sorely loaded
consciousness; reaching up from his chair Dartie seized his wife's
arm, and recalling the achievements of his boyhood, twisted it.
Winifred endured the agony with tears in her eyes, but no murmur.
Watching for a moment of weakness, she wrenched it free; then
placing the dining table between them, said between her teeth: "You
are the limit, Monty."  (Undoubtedly the inception of that phrase--
so is English formed under the stress of circumstances.) Leaving
Dartie with foam on his dark moustache she went upstairs, and,
after locking her door and bathing her arm in hot water, lay awake
all night, thinking of her pearls adorning the neck of another, and
of the consideration her husband had presumably received therefor.

The man of the world awoke with a sense of  being lost to that
world, and a dim recollection  of having been called a 'limit.'  He
sat for half  an hour in the dawn and the armchair where he had
slept--perhaps the unhappiest half-hour he  had ever spent, for even
to a Dartie there is something tragic about an end.  And he knew
that he  had reached it.  Never again would he sleep in his
dining-room and wake with the light filtering  through those
curtains bought by Winifred at  Nickens and Jarveys with the money
of James.  Never again eat a devilled kidney at that rose-wood
table, after a roll in the sheets and a hot bath.  He took his note
case from his dress coat pocket.  Four hundred pounds, in fives and
tens--the remainder of the proceeds of his half of Sleeve-links,
sold last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who, having won over
the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike to the animal which
he himself now felt.  The ballet was going to Buenos Aires the day
after to-morrow, and he was going too.  Full value for the pearls
had not yet been received; he was only at the soup.

He stole upstairs.  Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides,
the water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed
stealthily all he could.  It was hard to leave so many shining
boots, but one must sacrifice something.  Then, carrying a valise
in either hand, he stepped out onto the landing.  The house was
very quiet--that house where he had begotten his four children.  It
was a curious moment, this, outside the room of his wife, once
admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him 'the limit.'  He
steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but the next door
was harder to pass.  It was the room his daughters slept in.  Maud
was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture came
into Dartie's early morning eyes.  She was the most like him of the
four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance.  Just
coming out, a pretty thing!  He set down the two valises.  This
almost formal abdication of fatherhood hurt him.  The morning light
fell on a face which worked with real emotion.  Nothing so false as
penitence moved him; but genuine paternal feeling, and that
melancholy of 'never again.'  He moistened his lips; and complete
irresolution for a moment paralysed his legs in their check
trousers.  It was hard--hard to be thus compelled to leave his
home!  "D---nit!" he muttered, "I never thought it would come to
this."  Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning to
get up.  And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on downstairs.
His cheeks were wet, and the knowledge of that was comforting, as
though it guaranteed the genuineness of his sacrifice.  He lingered
a little in the rooms below, to pack all the cigars he had, some
papers, a crush hat, a silver cigarette box, a Ruff's Guide.  Then,
mixing himself a stiff whisky and soda, and lighting a cigarette,
he stood hesitating before a photograph of his two girls, in a
silver frame.  It belonged to Winifred.  'Never mind,' he thought;
'she can get another taken, and I can't!'  He slipped it into the
valise.  Then, putting on his hat and overcoat, he took two others,
his best malacca cane, an umbrella, and opened the front door.
Closing it softly behind him, he walked out, burdened as he had
never been in all his life, and made his way round the corner to
wait there for an early cab to come by.

Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his age
from the house which he had called his own.

When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the house,
her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should thus elude
the reproaches she had carefully prepared in those long wakeful
hours.  He had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton, with that woman
as likely as not.  Disgusting!  Forced to a complete reticence
before Imogen and the servants, and aware that her father's nerves
would never stand the disclosure, she had been unable to refrain
from going to Timothy's that afternoon, and pouring out the story
of the pearls to Aunts Juley and Hester in utter confidence.  It
was only on the following morning that she noticed the
disappearance of that photograph.  What did it mean?  Careful
examination of her husband's relics prompted the thought that he
had gone for good.  As that conclusion hardened she stood quite
still in the middle of his dressing-room, with all the drawers
pulled out, to try and realise what she was feeling.  By no means
easy!  Though he was 'the limit' he was yet her property, and for
the life of her she could not but feel the poorer.  To be widowed
yet not widowed at forty-two; with four children; made conspicuous,
an object of commiseration!  Gone to the arms of a Spanish Jade!
Memories, feelings, which she had thought quite dead, revived
within her, painful, sullen, tenacious.  Mechanically she closed
drawer after drawer, went to her bed, lay on it, and buried her
face in the pillows.  She did not cry.  What was the use of that?
When she got off her bed to go down to lunch she felt as if only
one thing could do her good, and that was to have Val home.  He--
her eldest boy--who was to go to Oxford next month at James'
expense, was at Littlehampton taking his final gallops with his
trainer for Smalls, as he would have phrased it following his
father's diction.  She caused a telegram to be sent to him.

"I must see about his clothes," she said to Imogen; "I can't have
him going up to Oxford all anyhow.  Those boys are so particular."

"Val's got heaps of things," Imogen answered.

"I know; but they want overhauling.  I hope he'll come."

"He'll come like a shot, Mother.  But he'll probably skew his
Exam."

"I can't help that," said Winifred.  "I want him."

With an innocent shrewd look at her mother's face, Imogen kept
silence.  It was father, of course!  Val did come 'like a shot' at
six o'clock.

Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young
Publius Valerius Dartie.  A youth so named could hardly turn out
otherwise.  When he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits,
and the craving for distinction, had determined that her children
should have names such as no others had ever had.  (It was a mercy
--she felt now--that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.) But it
was to George Forsyte, always a wag, that Val's christening was
due.  It so happened that Dartie, dining with him a week after the
birth of his son and heir, had mentioned this aspiration of
Winifred's.

"Call him Cato," said George, "it'll be damned piquant!"  He had
just won a tenner on a horse of that name.

"Cato!" Dartie had replied--they were a little 'on' as the phrase
was even in those days--"it's not a Christian name."

"Halo you!" George called to a waiter in knee breeches.  "Bring me
the Encyc'pedia Brit. from the Library, letter C."

The waiter brought it.

"Here you are!" said George, pointing with his cigar: "Cato Publius
Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia.  That's what you want.  Publius
Valerius is Christian enough."

Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred.  She had been
charmed.  It was so 'chic.'  And Publius Valerius became the baby's
name, though it afterwards transpired that they had got hold of the
inferior Cato.  In 1890, however, when little Publius was nearly
ten, the word 'chic' went out of fashion, and sobriety came in;
Winifred began to have doubts.  They were confirmed by little
Publius himself who returned from his first term at school com-
plaining that life was a burden to him--they called him Pubby.
Winifred--a woman of real decision--promptly changed his school and
his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an initial.

At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth,
light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile, considerable
knowledge of what he should not know, and no experience of what he
ought to do.  Few boys had more narrowly escaped being expelled--
the engaging rascal.  After kissing his mother and pinching Imogen,
he ran upstairs three at a time, and came down four, dressed for
dinner.  He was awfully sorry, but his 'trainer,' who had come up
too, had asked him to dine at the Oxford and Cambridge; it wouldn't
do to miss--the old chap would be hurt.  Winifred let him go with
an unhappy pride.  She had wanted him at home, but it was very nice
to know that his tutor was so fond of him.  He went out with a wink
at Imogen, saying: "I say, Mother, could I have two plover's eggs
when I come in?--cook's got some.  They top up so jolly well.  Oh!
and look here--have you any money?--I had to borrow a fiver from
old Snobby."

Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:

"My dear, you are naughty about money.  But you shouldn't pay him
to-night, anyway; you're his guest.  How nice and slim he looked
in his white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!"

"Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I
ought to stand the tickets; he's always hard up, you know."

Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:

"Well, perhaps you'd better pay him, but you mustn't stand the
tickets too."

Val pocketed the fiver.

"If I do, I can't," he said.  "Good-night, Mum!"

He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously, sniffing
the air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into covert.  Jolly
good biz!  After that mouldy old slow hole down there!

He found his 'tutor,' not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but
at the Goat's Club.  This 'tutor' was a year older than himself, a
good-looking youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a
small mouth, an oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree,
one of those young men who without effort establish moral
ascendancy over their companions.  He had missed being expelled
from school a year before Val, had spent that year at Oxford, and
Val could almost see a halo round his head.  His name was Crum, and
no one could get through money quicker.  It seemed to be his only
aim in life--dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the Forsyte
would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the value for that
money was.

They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking
cigars, with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into stalls
at the Liberty.  For Val the sound of comic songs, the sight of
lovely legs were fogged and interrupted by haunting fears that he
would never equal Crum's quiet dandyism.  His idealism was roused;
and when that is so, one is never quite at ease.  Surely he had too
wide a mouth, not the best cut of waistcoat, no braid on his
trousers, and his lavender gloves had no thin black stitchings down
the back.  Besides, he laughed too much--Crum never laughed, he
only smiled, with his regular dark brows raised a little so that
they formed a gable over his just drooped lids.  No! he would never
be Crum's equal.  All the same it was a jolly good show, and
Cynthia Dark simply ripping.  Between the acts Crum regaled him
with particulars of Cynthia's private life, and the awful knowledge
became Val's that, if he liked, Crum could go behind.  He simply
longed to say: "I say, take me!" but dared not, because of his
deficiencies; and this made the last act or two almost miserable.
On coming out Crum said: "It's half an hour before they close;
let's go on to the Pandemonium."  They took a hansom to travel the
hundred yards, and seats costing seven-and-six apiece because they
were going to stand, and walked into the Promenade.  It was in
these little things, this utter negligence of money that Crum had
such engaging polish.  The ballet was on its last legs and night,
and the traffic of the Promenade was suffering for the moment.  Men
and women were crowded in three rows against the barrier.  The
whirl and dazzle on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco
fumes and women's scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which
belongs to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism.
He looked admiringly in a young woman's face, saw she was not
young, and quickly looked away.  Shades of Cynthia Dark!  The young
woman's arm touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk
and mignonette.  Val looked round the corner of his lashes. Perhaps
she was young, after all.  Her foot trod on his; she begged his
pardon.  He said:

"Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'm tired of it; aren't you?"

Young Val smiled--his wide, rather charming smile.  Beyond that he
did not go--not yet convinced.  The Forsyte in him stood out for
greater certainty.  And on the stage the ballet whirled its
kaleidoscope of snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and
violet and seemed suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled
pyramid.  Applause broke out, and it was over!  Maroon curtains had
cut it off.  The semi-circle of men and women round the barrier
broke up, the young woman's arm pressed his.  A little way off
disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation; Val
stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking towards
it.  Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm.  The one in
the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a dark
moustache; he reeled a little as he walked.  Crum's voice said slow
and level: "Look at that bounder, he's screwed!"  Val turned to
look.  The 'bounder' had disengaged his arm, and was pointing
straight at them.  Crum's voice, level as ever, said:

"He seems to know you!"  The 'bounder' spoke:

"H'llo!" he said.  "You f'llows, look!  There's my young rascal of
a son!"

Val saw.  It was his father!  He could have sunk into the crimson
carpet.  It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his
father was 'screwed'; it was Crum's word 'bounder,' which, as by
heavenly revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true.  Yes,
his father looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his pink
carnation, and his square, self-assertive walk.  And without a word
he ducked behind the young woman and slipped out of the Promenade.
He heard the word, "Val!" behind him, and ran down deep-carpeted
steps past the 'chuckersout,' into the Square.

To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience
a young man can go through.  It seemed to Val, hurrying away, that
his career had ended before it had begun.  How could he go up to
Oxford now amongst all those chaps, those splendid friends of
Crum's, who would know that his father was a 'bounder'!  And
suddenly he hated Crum.  Who the devil was Crum, to say that?  If
Crum had been beside him at that moment, he would certainly have
been jostled off the pavement.  His own father--his own!  A choke
came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands down deep into his
overcoat pockets.  Damn Crum!  He conceived the wild idea of
running back and fending his father, taking him by the arm and
walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up at once and
pursued his way down Piccadilly.  A young woman planted herself
before him.  "Not so angry, darling!"  He shied, dodged her, and
suddenly became quite cool.  If Crum ever said a word, he would
jolly well punch his head, and there would be an end of it.  He
walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that thought, then
lost its comfort utterly.  It wasn't simple like that!  He
remembered how, at school, when some parent came down who did not
pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow afterwards.  It was
one of those things nothing could remove.  Why had his mother
married his father, if he was a 'bounder'?  It was bitterly unfair-
-jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a 'bounder' for father.
The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised
that he had long known subconsciously that his father was not 'the
clean potato.'  It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened
to him--beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow!
And, down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green
Street, and let himself in with a smuggled latch-key.  In the
dining-room his plover's eggs were set invitingly, with some cut
bread and butter, and a little whisky at the bottom of a decanter--
just enough, as Winifred had thought, for him to feel himself a
man.  It made him sick to look at them, and he went upstairs.

Winifred heard him pass, and thought: 'The dear boy's in.  Thank
goodness!  If he takes after his father I don't know what I shall
do!  But he won't he's like me.  Dear Val!'




CHAPTER III

SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS


When Soames entered his sister's little Louis Quinze drawing-room,
with its small balcony, always flowered with hanging geraniums in
the summer, and now with pots of Lilium Auratum, he was struck by
the immutability of human affairs.  It looked just the same as on
his first visit to the newly married Darties twenty-one years ago.
He had chosen the furniture himself, and so completely that no
subsequent purchase had ever been able to change the room's
atmosphere.  Yes, he had founded his sister well, and she had
wanted it.  Indeed, it said a great deal for Winifred that after
all this time with Dartie she remained well-founded.  From the
first Soames had nosed out Dartie's nature from underneath the
plausibility, savoir faire, and good looks which had dazzled
Winifred, her mother, and even James, to the extent of permitting
the fellow to marry his daughter without bringing anything but
shares of no value into settlement.

Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at her
Buhl bureau with a letter in her hand.  She rose and came towards
him.  Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored,
something in her face disturbed Soames.  She crumpled the letter in
her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it out to him.  He
was her lawyer as well as her brother.

Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:


'You will not get chance to insult in my own again.  I am leaving
country to-morrow.  It's played out.  I'm tired of being insulted
by you.  You've brought on yourself.  No self-respecting man can
stand it.  I shall not ask you for anything again.  Good-bye.  I
took the photograph of the two girls.  Give them my love.  I don't
care what your family say.  It's all their doing.  I'm going to
live new life.

'M.D.'


This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry.  He
looked at Winifred--the splotch had clearly come from her; and he
checked the words: 'Good riddance!'  Then it occurred to him that
with this letter she was entering that very state which he himself
so earnestly desired to quit--the state of a Forsyte who was not
divorced.

Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a little
gold-topped bottle.  A dull commiseration, together with a vague
sense of injury, crept about Soames' heart.  He had come to her to
talk of his own position, and get sympathy, and here was she in the
same position, wanting of course to talk of it, and get sympathy
from him.  It was always like that!  Nobody ever seemed to think
that he had troubles and interests of his own.  He folded up the
letter with the splotch inside, and said:

"What's it all about, now?"

Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.

"Do you think he's really gone, Soames?  You see the state he was
in when he wrote that."

Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by
pretending that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:

"I shouldn't think so.  I might find out at his Club."

"If George is there," said Winifred, "he would know."

"George?" said Soames; "I saw him at his father's funeral."

"Then he's sure to be there."

Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister's acumen, said
grudgingly: "Well, I'll go round.  Have you said anything in Park
Lane?"

"I've told Emily," returned Winifred, who retained that 'chic' way
of describing her mother.  "Father would have a fit."

Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James.  With
another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his sister's
exact position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly.  The evening
was drawing in--a touch of chill in the October haze.  He walked
quickly, with his close and concentrated air.  He must get through,
for he wished to dine in Soho.  On hearing from the hall porter at
the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie had not been in to-day, he looked at the
trusty fellow and decided only to ask if Mr. George Forsyte was in
the Club.  He was.  Soames, who always looked askance at his cousin
George, as one inclined to jest at his expense, followed the page-
boy, slightly reassured by the thought that George had just lost
his father.  He must have come in for about thirty thousand, be-
sides what he had under that settlement of Roger's, which had
avoided death duty.  He found George in a bow-window, staring out
across a half-eaten plate of muffins.  His tall, bulky, black-
clothed figure loomed almost threatening, though preserving still
the supernatural neatness of the racing man.  With a faint grin on
his fleshy face, he said:

"Hallo, Soames!  Have a muffin?"

"No, thanks," murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the
desire to say something suitable and sympathetic, added:

"How's your mother?"

"Thanks," said George; "so-so.  Haven't seen you for ages.  You
never go racing.  How's the City?"

Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:

"I wanted to ask you about Dartie.  I hear he's...."

"Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola.  Good for
Winifred and the little Darties.  He's a treat."

Soames nodded.  Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie
made them kin.

"Uncle James'll sleep in his bed now," resumed George; "I suppose
he's had a lot off you, too."

Soames smiled.

"Ah! You saw him further," said George amicably.  "He's a real
rouser.  Young Val will want a bit of looking after.  I was always
sorry for Winifred.  She's a plucky woman."

Again Soames nodded.  "I must be getting back to her," he said;
"she just wanted to know for certain.  We may have to take steps.
I suppose there's no mistake?"

"It's quite O.K.," said George--it was he who invented so many of
those quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources.
"He was drunk as a lord last night; but he went off all right this
morning.  His ship's the Tuscarora;" and, fishing out a card, he
read mockingly:

"'Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.'  I should
hurry up with the steps, if I were you.  He fairly fed me up last
night."

"Yes," said Soames; "but it's not always easy."  Then, conscious
from George's eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own
affair, he got up, and held out his hand.  George rose too.

"Remember me to Winifred....  You'll enter her for the Divorce
Stakes straight off if you ask me."

Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway.  George
had seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked big
and lonely in those black clothes.  Soames had never known him so
subdued.  'I suppose he feels it in a way,' he thought.  'They must
have about fifty thousand each, all told.  They ought to keep the
estate together.  If there's a war, house property will go down.
Uncle Roger was a good judge, though.'  And the face of Annette
rose before him in the darkening street; her brown hair and her
blue eyes with their dark lashes, her fresh lips and cheeks, dewy
and blooming in spite of London, her perfect French figure.  'Take
steps!' he thought.  Re-entering Winifred's house he encountered
Val, and they went in together.  An idea had occurred to Soames.
His cousin Jolyon was Irene's trustee, the first step would be to
go down and see him at Robin Hill.  Robin Hill!  The odd--the very
odd feeling those words brought back!  Robin Hill--the house
Bosinney had built for him and Irene--the house they had never
lived in--the fatal house!  And Jolyon lived there now!  H'm!  And
suddenly he thought: 'They say he's got a boy at Oxford!  Why not
take young Val down and introduce them!  It's an excuse!  Less
bald--very much less bald!' So, as they went upstairs, he said to
Val:

"You've got a cousin at Oxford; you've never met him.  I should
like to take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and
introduce you.  You'll find it useful."

Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames
clinched it.

"I'll call for you after lunch.  It's in the country--not far;
you'll enjoy it."

On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort
that the steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment,
not himself.

Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.

"It's quite true," he said; "he's gone to Buenos Aires, started
this morning--we'd better have him shadowed when he lands.  I'll
cable at once.  Otherwise we may have a lot of expense.  The sooner
these things are done the better.  I'm always regretting that I
didn't..." he stopped, and looked sidelong at the silent Winifred.
"By the way," he went on, "can you prove cruelty?"

Winifred said in a dull voice:

"I don't know.  What is cruelty?"

"Well, has he struck you, or anything?"

Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.

"He twisted my arm.  Or would pointing a pistol count?  Or being
too drunk to undress himself, or--No--I can't bring in the
children."

"No," said Soames; "no!  I wonder!  Of course, there's legal
separation--we can get that.  But separation!  Um!"

"What does it mean?" asked Winifred desolately.

"That he can't touch you, or you him; you're both of you married
and unmarried."  And again he grunted.  What was it, in fact, but
his own accursed position, legalised!  No, he would not put her
into that!

"It must be divorce," he said decisively;" failing cruelty, there's
desertion.  There's a way of shortening the two years, now.  We get
the Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights.  Then if he
doesn't obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six months' time.
Of course you don't want him back.  But they won't know that.
Still, there's the risk that he might come.  I'd rather try
cruelty."

Winifred shook her head.  "It's so beastly."

"Well," Soames murmured, "perhaps there isn't much risk so long as
he's infatuated and got money.  Don't say anything to anybody, and
don't pay any of his debts."

Winifred sighed.  In spite of all she had been through, the sense
of loss was heavy on her.  And this idea of not paying his debts
any more brought it home to her as nothing else yet had.  Some
richness seemed to have gone out of life.  Without her husband,
without her pearls, without that intimate sense that she made a
brave show above the domestic whirlpool, she would now have to face
the world.  She felt bereaved indeed.

And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put more
than his usual warmth.

"I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow," he said, "to see young
Jolyon on business.  He's got a boy at Oxford.  I'd like to take
Val with me and introduce him.  Come down to 'The Shelter' for the
week-end and bring the children.  Oh! by the way, no, that won't
do; I've got some other people coming."  So saying, he left her and
turned towards Soho.




CHAPTER IV

SOHO


Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London,
Soho is perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit.  'So-ho, my
wild one!'  George would have said if he had seen his cousin going
there.  Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians,
tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names, people
looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the British
Body Politic.  Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts of its
own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its rents up
when those of other quarters go down.  For long years Soames'
acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its Western
bastion, Wardour Street.  Many bargains had he picked up there.
Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney's death
and Irene's flight, he had bought treasures there sometimes, though
he had no place to put them; for when the conviction that his wife
had gone for good at last became firm within him, he had caused a
board to be put up in Montpellier Square:

FOR SALE

THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE

Enquire of Messrs.  Lesson and Tukes,
Court Street, Belgravia.


It had sold within a week--that desirable residence, in the shadow
of whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.

Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down,
Soames had gone there once more, and stood against the Square
railings, looking at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of
possessive memories which had turned so bitter in the mouth.  Why
had she never loved him?  Why?  She had been given all she had
wanted, and in return had given him, for three long years, all he
had wanted--except, indeed, her heart.  He had uttered a little
involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced suspiciously
at him who no longer possessed the right to enter that green door
with the carved brass knocker beneath the board 'For Sale!'  A
choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he had hurried away
into the mist.  That evening he had gone to Brighton to live....

Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne, where
Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her accounts,
Soames thought with wonder of those seven years at Brighton.  How
had he managed to go on so long in that town devoid of the scent of
sweetpeas, where he had not even space to put his treasures?  True,
those had been years with no time at all for looking at them--years
of almost passionate money-making, during which Forsyte, Bustard
and Forsyte had become solicitors to more limited Companies than
they could properly attend to.  Up to the City of a morning in a
Pullman car, down from the City of an evening in a Pullman car.
Law papers again after dinner, then the sleep of the tired, and up
again next morning.  Saturday to Monday was spent at his Club in
town--curious reversal of customary procedure, based on the deep
and careful instinct that while working so hard he needed sea air
to and from the station twice a day, and while resting must indulge
his domestic affections.  The Sunday visit to his family in Park
Lane, to Timothy's, and to Green Street; the occasional visits
elsewhere had seemed to him as necessary to health as sea air on
weekdays.  Even since his migration to Mapledurham he had main-
tained those habits until--he had known Annette.

Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or that
outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know where a
circle begins.  It was intricate and deeply involved with the
growing consciousness that property without anyone to leave it to
is the negation of true Forsyteism.  To have an heir, some
continuance of self, who would begin where he left off--ensure, in
fact, that he would not leave off--had quite obsessed him for the
last year and more.  After buying a bit of Wedgwood one evening in
April, he had dropped into Malta Street to look at a house of his
father's which had been turned into a restaurant--a risky pro-
ceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the terms of the
lease.  He had stared for a little at the outside  painted a good
cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little bay-
trees in a recessed doorway--and at the words 'Restaurant Bretagne'
above them in gold letters, rather favourably impressed.  Entering,
he had noticed that several people were already seated at little
round green tables with little pots of fresh flowers on them and
Brittany-ware plates, and had asked of a trim waitress to see the
proprietor.  They had shown him into a back room, where a girl was
sitting at a simple bureau covered with papers, and a small round,
table was laid for two.  The impression of cleanliness, order, and
good taste was confirmed when the girl got up, saying, "You wish to
see Maman, Monsieur?" in a broken accent.

"Yes," Soames had answered, "I represent your landlord; in fact,
I'm his son."

"Won't you sit down, sir, please?  Tell Maman to come to this
gentleman."

He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed
business instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was remarkably
pretty--so remarkably pretty that his eyes found a difficulty in
leaving her face.  When she moved to put a chair for him, she
swayed in a curious subtle way, as if she had been put together by
someone with a special secret skill; and her face and neck, which
was a little bared, looked as fresh as if they had been sprayed
with dew.  Probably at this moment Soames decided that the lease
had not been violated; though to himself and his father he based
the decision on the efficiency of those illicit adaptations in the
building, on the signs of prosperity, and the obvious business
capacity of Madame Lamotte.  He did not, however, neglect to leave
certain matters to future consideration, which had necessitated
further visits, so that the little back room had become quite
accustomed to his spare, not unsolid, but unobtrusive figure, and
his pale, chinny face with clipped moustache and dark hair not yet
grizzling at the sides.

"Un Monsieur tres distingue," Madame Lamotte found him; and
presently, "Tres amical, tres gentil," watching his eyes upon her
daughter.

She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their
knowledge of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank
balances.

After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
ceased--without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like
all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a
born empiricist.  But it was this change in his mode of life which
had gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to
alter his condition from that of the unmarried married man to that
of the married man remarried.

Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899,
he bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of the
Dreyfus case--a question which he had always found useful in making
closer acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her daughter, who
were Catholic and anti-Dreyfusard.

Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed a
general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about the
Transvaal.  He entered, thinking: 'War's a certainty.  I shall sell
my consols.'  Not that he had many, personally, the rate of
interest was too wretched; but he should advise his Companies--
consols would assuredly go down.  A look, as he passed the doorways
of the restaurant, assured him that business was good as ever, and
this, which in April would have pleased him, now gave him a certain
uneasiness.  If the steps which he had to take ended in his
marrying Annette, he would rather see her mother safely back in
France, a move to which the prosperity of the Restaurant Bretagne
might become an obstacle.  He would have to buy them out, of
course, for French people only came to England to make money; and
it would mean a higher price.  And then that peculiar sweet
sensation at the back of his throat, and a slight thumping about
the heart, which he always experienced at the door of the little
room, prevented his thinking how much it would cost.

Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing
through the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her hands
up to her hair.  It was the attitude in which of all others he
admired her--so beautifully straight and rounded and supple.  And
he said:

"I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that
partition.  No, don't call her."

"Monsieur will have supper with us?  It will be ready in ten
minutes."  Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an
impulse which surprised him.

"You look so pretty to-night," he said, "so very pretty.  Do you
know how pretty you look, Annette?"

Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed.  "Monsieur is very good."

"Not a bit good," said Soames, and sat down gloomily.

Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile
was crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.

And, looking at those lips, Soames said:

"Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?"

"Oh, I like London.  Paris, of course.  But London is better than
Orleans, and the English country is so beautiful.  I have been to
Richmond last Sunday."

Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle.  Mapledurham!
Dared he?  After all, dared he go so far as that, and show her what
there was to look forward to!  Still!  Down there one could say
things.  In this room it was impossible.

"I want you and your mother," he said suddenly, "to come for the
afternoon next Sunday.  My house is on the river, it's not too late
in this weather; and I can show you some good pictures.  What do
you say?"

Annette clasped her hands.

"It will be lovelee.  The river is so beautiful"

"That's understood, then.  I'll ask Madame."

He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself
away.  But had he not already said too much?  Did one ask
restaurant proprietors with pretty daughters down to one's country
house without design?  Madame Lamotte would see, if Annette didn't.
Well! there was not much that Madame did not see.  Besides, this
was the second time he had stayed to supper with them; he owed them
hospitality.

Walking home towards Park Lane--for he was staying at his father's-
-with the impression of Annette's soft clever hand within his own,
his thoughts were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather puzzled.  Take
steps!  What steps?  How?  Dirty linen washed in public?  Pah!
With his reputation for sagacity, for far-sightedness and the
clever extrication of others, he, who stood for proprietary
interests, to become the plaything of that Law of which he was a
pillar!  There was something revolting in the thought!  Winifred's
affair was bad enough!  To have a double dose of publicity in the
family!  Would not a liaison be better than that--a liaison, and a
son he could adopt?  But dark, solid, watchful, Madame Lamotte
blocked the avenue of that vision.  No! that would not work.  It
was not as if Annette could have a real passion for him; one could
not expect that at his age.  If her mother wished, if the worldly
advantage were manifestly great--perhaps!  If not, refusal would be
certain.  Besides, he thought: 'I'm not a villain.  I don't want to
hurt her; and I don't want anything underhand.  But I do want her,
and I want a son!  There's nothing for it but divorce--somehow--
anyhow--divorce!'  Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the
lamplight, he passed slowly along the railings of the Green Park.
Mist clung there among the bluish tree shapes, beyond range of the
lamps.  How many hundred times he had walked past those trees from
his father's house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or
from his own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of
married life!  And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if
he could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk
on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he
used to when going home to Irene in the old days.  What could she
be like now?--how had she passed the years since he last saw her,
twelve years in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her that
money?  Was she still beautiful?  Would he know her if he saw her?
'I've not changed much,' he thought; 'I expect she has.  She made
me suffer.'  He remembered suddenly one night, the first on which
he went out to dinner alone--an old Malburian dinner--the first
year of their marriage.  With what eagerness he had hurried back;
and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing.  Opening the
drawingroom door noiselessly, he had stood watching the expression
on her face, different from any he knew, so much more open, so
confiding, as though to her music she was giving a heart he had
never seen.  And he remembered how she stopped and looked round,
how her face changed back to that which he did know, and what an
icy shiver had gone through him, for all that the next moment he
was fondling her shoulders.  Yes, she had made him suffer!
Divorce!  It seemed ridiculous, after all these years of utter
separation!  But it would have to be.  No other way!  'The
question,' he thought with sudden realism, 'is--which of us?  She
or me?  She deserted me.  She ought to pay for it.  There'll be
someone, I suppose.'  Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling
sound, and, turning, made his way back to Park Lane.




CHAPTER V

JAMES SEES VISIONS


The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained
Soames on the inner mat.

"The master's poorly, sir," he murmured.  "He wouldn't go to bed
till you came in.  He's still in the diningroom."

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.

"What's the matter with him, Warmson?"

"Nervous, sir, I think.  Might be the funeral; might be Mrs.
Dartie's comin' round this afternoon.  I think he overheard
something.  I've took him in a negus.  The mistress has just gone
up."

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.

"All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I'll take him up myself."
And he passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a
camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated
shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped.  His white
hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little
moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks, still
quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to the
corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling
thoughts.  His long legs, thin as a crow's, in shepherd's plaid
trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and
glistening tapered nails.  Beside him, on a low stool, stood a
half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat.  There he
had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day.  At eighty-
eight he was still organically sound, but suffering terribly from
the thought that no one ever told him anything.  It is, indeed,
doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being buried that
day, for Emily had kept it from him.  She was always keeping things
from him.  Emily was only seventy!  James had a grudge against his
wife's youth.  He felt sometimes that he would never have married
her if he had known that she would have so many years before her,
when he had so few.  It was not natural.  She would live fifteen or
twenty years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of money; she
had always had extravagant tastes.  For all he knew she might want
to buy one of these motor-cars.  Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and
all the young people--they all rode those bicycles now and went off
Goodness knew where.  And now Roger was gone.  He didn't know--
couldn't tell!  The family was breaking up.  Soames would know how
much his uncle had left.  Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames'
uncle not as his own brother.  Soames!  It was more and more the
one solid spot in a vanishing world.  Soames was careful; he was a
warm man; but he had no one to leave his money to.  There it was!
He didn't know!  And there was that fellow Chamberlain!  For James'
political principles had been fixed between '70 and '85 when 'that
rascally Radical' had been the chief thorn in the side of property
and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he
would get the country into a mess and make money go down before he
had done with it.  A stormy petrel of a chap!  Where was Soames?
He had gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep
from him.  He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son's
trousers.  Roger! Roger in his coffin!  He remembered how, when
they came up from school together from the West, on the box seat of
the old Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the 'boot' and gone
to sleep.  James uttered a thin cackle.  A funny fellow--Roger--an
original!  He didn't know!  Younger than himself, and in his
coffin!  The family was breaking up.  There was Val going to the
university; he never came to see him now.  He would cost a pretty
penny up there.  It was an extravagant age.  And all the pretty
pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before
James' eyes.  He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged
terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on
them; he grudged the diminution of security.  And now that Cicely
had married, she might be having children too.  He didn't know--
couldn't tell!  Nobody thought of anything but spending money in
these days, and racing about, and having what they called 'a good
time.'  A motor-car went past the window.  Ugly great lumbering
thing, making all that racket!  But there it was, the country
rattling to the dogs!  People in such a hurry that they couldn't
even care for style--a neat turnout like his barouche and bays was
worth all those new-fangled things.  And consols at 116!  There
must be a lot of money in the country.  And now there was this old
Kruger!  They had tried to keep old Kruger from him.  But he knew
better; there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there!  He had
known how it would be when that fellow Gladstone--dead now, thank
God! made such a mess of it after that dreadful business at Majuba.
He shouldn't wonder if the Empire split up and went to pot.  And
this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a full quarter of an
hour with qualms of the most serious character.  He had eaten a
poor lunch because of them.  But it was after lunch that the real
disaster to his nerves occurred.  He had been dozing when he became
aware of voices--low voices.  Ah! they never told him anything!
Winifred's and her mother's.  "Monty!"  That fellow Dartie--always
that fellow Dartie!  The voices had receded; and James had been
left alone, with his ears standing up like a hare's, and fear
creeping about his inwards.  Why did they leave him alone?  Why
didn't they come and tell him?  And an awful thought, which through
long years had haunted him, concreted again swiftly in his brain.
Dartie had gone bankrupt--fraudulently bankrupt, and to save
Winifred and the children, he--James--would have to pay!  Could he--
could Soames turn him into a limited company?  No, he couldn't!
There it was!  With every minute before Emily came back the spectre
fiercened.  Why, it might be forgery!  With eyes fixed on the
doubted Turner in the centre of the wall, James suffered tortures.
He saw Dartie in the dock, his grandchildren in the gutter, and
himself in bed.  He saw the doubted Turner being sold at Jobson's,
and all the majestic edifice of property in rags.  He saw in fancy
Winifred unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily's voice
saying: "Now, don't fuss, James!"  She was always saying: "Don't
fuss!"  She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman
eighteen years younger than himself.  Then Emily's real voice said:

"Have you had a nice nap, James?"

Nap!  He was in torment, and she asked him that!

"What's this about Dartie?" he said, and his eyes glared at her.

Emily's self-possession never deserted her.

"What have you been hearing?" she asked blandly.

"What's this about Dartie?" repeated James.  "He's gone bankrupt."

"Fiddle!"

James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his
stork-like figure.

"You never tell me anything," he said; "he's gone bankrupt."

The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that
mattered at the moment.

"He has not," she answered firmly.  "He's gone to Buenos Aires."

If she had said "He's gone to Mars" she could not have dealt James
a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in British
securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.

"What's he gone there for?" he said.  "He's got no money.  What did
he take?"

Agitated within by Winifred's news, and goaded by the constant
reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:

"He took Winifred's pearls and a dancer."

"What!" said James, and sat down.

His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she
said:

"Now, don't fuss, James!"

A dusky red had spread over James' cheeks and forehead.

"I paid for them," he said tremblingly; "he's a thief!  I--I knew
how it would be.  He'll be the death of me; he ...."  Words failed
him and he sat quite still.  Emily, who thought she knew him so
well, was alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she kept
some sal volatile.  She could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit
working in that thin, tremulous shape against the extravagance of
the emotion called up by this outrage on Forsyte principles--the
Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: 'You mustn't get into a
fantod, it'll never do.  You won't digest your lunch.  You'll have
a fit!'  All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James than
sal volatile.

"Drink this," she said.

James waved it aside.

"What was Winifred about," he said, "to let him take her pearls?"
Emily perceived the crisis past.

"She can have mine," she said comfortably.  "I never wear them.
She'd better get a divorce."

"There you go!" said James.  "Divorce!  We've never had a divorce
in the family.  Where's Soames?"

"He'll be in directly."

"No, he won't," said James, almost fiercely; "he's at the funeral.
You think I know nothing."

"Well," said Emily with calm, "you shouldn't get into such fusses
when we tell you things."  And plumping up his cushions, and
putting the sal volatile beside him, she left the room.

But James sat there seeing visions--of Winifred in the Divorce
Court, and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on
Roger's coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he
had paid for and would never see again; of money back at four per
cent., and the country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon
wore into evening, and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those
visions became more and more mixed and menacing--of being told
nothing, till he had nothing left of all his wealth, and they told
him nothing of it.  Where was Soames?  Why didn't he come in?...
His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to drink, and saw
his son standing there looking at him.  A little sigh of relief
escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he said:

"There you are!  Dartie's gone to Buenos Aires."

Soames nodded.  "That's all right," he said; "good riddance."

A wave of assuagement passed over James' brain.  Soames knew.
Soames was the only one of them all who had sense.  Why couldn't he
come and live at home?  He had no son of his own.  And he said
plaintively:

"At my age I get nervous.  I wish you were more at home, my boy."

Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no
understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched
his father's shoulder.

"They sent their love to you at Timothy's," he said.  "It went off
all right.  I've been to see Winifred.  I'm going to take steps."
And he thought: 'Yes, and you mustn't hear of them.'

James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin throat
between the points of his collar looked very gristly and naked.

"I've been very poorly all day," he said; "they never tell me
anything."

Soames' heart twitched.

"Well, it's all right.  There's nothing to worry about.  Will you
come up now?" and he put his hand under his father's arm.

James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together they
went slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the
firelight, and out to the stairs.  Very slowly they ascended.

"Good-night, my boy," said James at his bedroom door.

"Good-night, father," answered Soames.  His hand stroked down the
sleeve beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it,
so thin was the arm.  And, turning away from the light in the
opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.

'I want a son,' he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed;
'I want a son.'




CHAPTER VI

NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME


Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper
lawn at Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney sprawled
under it and said to Soames: "Forsyte, I've found the very place
for your house."  Since then Swithin had dreamed, and old Jolyon
died, beneath its branches.  And now, close to the swing,
no-longer-young Jolyon often painted there.  Of all spots in the
world it was perhaps the most sacred to him, for he had loved his
father.

Contemplating its great girth--crinkled and a little mossed, but
not yet hollow--he would speculate on the passage of time.  That
tree had seen, perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he
shouldn't wonder, from the days of Elizabeth at least.  His own
fifty years were as nothing to its wood.  When the house behind it,
which he now owned, was three hundred years of age instead of
twelve, that tree might still be standing there, vast and hollow--
for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it down?  A Forsyte
might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it jealously.
And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like coated with
such age.  Wistaria was already about its walls--the new look had
gone.  Would it hold its own and keep the dignity Bosinney had
bestowed on it, or would the giant London have lapped it round and
made it into an asylum in the midst of a jerry-built wilderness?
Often, within and without of it, he was persuaded that Bosinney had
been moved by the spirit when he built.  He had put his heart into
that house, indeed!  It might even become one of the 'homes of
England'--a rare achievement for a house in these degenerate days
of building.  And the aesthetic spirit, moving hand in hand with
his Forsyte sense of possessive continuity, dwelt with pride and
pleasure on his ownership thereof.  There was the smack of
reverence and ancestor-worship (if only for one ancestor) in his
desire to hand this house down to his son and his son's son.  His
father had loved the house, had loved the view, the grounds, that
tree; his last years had been happy there, and no one had lived
there before him.  These last eleven years at Robin Hill had formed
in Jolyon's life as a painter, the important period of success.  He
was now in the very van of water-colour art, hanging on the line
everywhere.  His drawings fetched high prices.  Specialising in
that one medium with the tenacity of his breed, he had 'arrived'-
-rather late, but not too late for a member of the family which
made a point of living for ever.  His art had really deepened and
improved.  In conformity with his position he had grown a short
fair beard, which was just beginning to grizzle, and hid his
Forsyte chin; his brown face had lost the warped expression of his
ostracised period--he looked, if anything, younger.  The loss of
his wife in 1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which
turn out in the end for the good of all.  He had, indeed, loved her
to the last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become
increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June, jealous
even of her own little daughter Holly, and making ceaseless plaint
that he could not love her, ill as she was, and 'useless to
everyone, and better dead.'  He had mourned her sincerely, but his
face had looked younger since she died.  If she could only have
believed that she made him happy, how much happier would the twenty
years of their companionship have been!

June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly
taken her own mother's place; and ever since old Jolyon died she
had been established in a sort of studio in London.  But she had
come back to Robin Hill on her stepmother's death, and gathered the
reins there into her small decided hands.  Jolly was then at
Harrow; Holly still learning from Mademoiselle Beauce.  There had
been nothing to keep Jolyon at home, and he had removed his grief
and his paint-box abroad.  There he had wandered, for the most part
in Brittany, and at last had fetched up in Paris.  He had stayed
there several months, and come back with the younger face and the
short fair beard.  Essentially a man who merely lodged in any
house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign at Robin
Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where and when
he liked.  She was inclined, it is true, to regard the house rather
as an asylum for her proteges! but his own outcast days had filled
Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast, and June's 'lame
ducks' about the place did not annoy him.  By all means let her
have them down--and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical
humour perceived that they ministered to his daughter's love of
domination as well as moved her warm heart, he never ceased to
admire her for having so many ducks.  He fell, indeed, year by year
into a more and more detached and brotherly attitude towards his
own son and daughters, treating them with a sort of whimsical
equality.  When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly, he never quite
knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating cherries
with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and ironical
smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little.  And he
was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in
his dress, so that his son need not blush for him.  They were
perfect friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal
confidences, both having the competitive self-consciousness of
Forsytes.  They knew they would stand by each other in scrapes, but
there  was no need to talk about it.  Jolyon had a striking horror-
-partly original sin, but partly the result of his early
immorality--of the moral attitude.  The most he could ever have
said to his son would have been:

"Look here, old man; don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have
wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment.  The
great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time
they annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton.
They would be particularly careful during that match, continually
saying: "Hooray! Oh! hard luck, old man!" or "Hooray! Oh! bad luck,
Dad!" to each other, when some disaster at which their hearts
bounded happened to the opposing  school.  And Jolyon would wear a
grey top hat, instead of his usual soft one, to save his son's
feelings, for a black top hat he could not stomach.  When Jolly went
up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him, amused, humble, and a little
anxious not to discredit his boy amongst all these youths who seemed
so much more assured and old than himself.  He often thought, 'Glad
I'm a painter' for he had long dropped under-writing at Lloyds--
'it's so innocuous.  You can't look down on a painter--you can't
take him seriously enough.'  For Jolly, who had a sort of natural
lordliness, had passed at once into a very small set, who secretly
amused his father.  The boy had fair hair which curled a little, and
his grandfather's deepset iron-grey eyes.  He was well-built and
very upright, and always pleased Jolyon's aesthetic sense, so that
he was a tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of
their own sex whom they admire physically.  On that occasion,
however, he actually did screw up his courage to give his son
advice, and this was it:

"Look here, old man, you're bound to get into debt; mind you come
to me at once.  Of course, I'll always pay them.  But you might
remember that one respects oneself more afterwards if one pays
one's own way.  And don't ever borrow, except from me, will you?"

And Jolly had said:

"All right, Dad, I won't," and he never had.

"And there's just one other thing.  I don't know much about
morality and that, but there is this: It's always worth while
before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt
another person more than is absolutely necessary."

Jolly had looked thoughtful, and nodded, and presently had squeezed
his father's hand.  And Jolyon had thought: 'I wonder if I had the
right to say that?'  He always had a sort of dread of losing the
dumb confidence they had in each other; remembering how for long
years he had lost his own father's, so that there had been nothing
between them but love at a great distance.  He under-estimated, no
doubt, the change in the spirit of the age since he himself went up
to Cambridge in '65; and perhaps he underestimated, too, his boy's
power of understanding that he was tolerant to the very bone.  It
was that tolerance of his, and possibly his scepticism, which ever
made his relations towards June so queerly defensive.  She was such
a decided mortal; knew her own mind so terribly well; wanted things
so inexorably until she got them--and then, indeed, often dropped
them like a hot potato.  Her mother had been like that, whence had
come all those tears.  Not that his incompatibility with his
daughter was anything like what it had been with the first Mrs.
Young Jolyon.  One could be amused where a daughter was concerned;
in a wife's case one could not be amused.  To see June set her
heart and jaw on a thing until she got it was all right, because it
was never anything which interfered fundamentally with Jolyon's
liberty--the one thing on which his jaw was also absolutely rigid,
a considerable jaw, under that short grizzling beard.  Nor was
there ever any necessity for real heart-to-heart encounters.  One
could break away into irony--as indeed he often had to.  But the
real trouble with June was that she had never appealed to his
aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with her red-gold hair
and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the Berserker in
her spirit.  It was very different with Holly, soft and quiet, shy
and affectionate, with a playful imp in her somewhere.  He watched
this younger daughter of his through the duckling stage with
extraordinary interest.  Would she come out a swan?  With her
sallow oval face and her grey wistful eyes and those long dark
lashes, she might, or she might not.  Only this last year had he
been able to guess.  Yes, she would be a swan--rather a dark one,
always a shy one, but an authentic swan.  She was eighteen now, and
Mademoiselle Beauce was gone--the excellent lady had removed, after
eleven years haunted by her continuous reminiscences of the 'well-
brrred little Tayleurs,' to another family whose bosom would now be
agitated by her reminiscences of the 'well-brrred little Forsytes.'
She had taught Holly to speak French like herself.

Portraiture was not Jolyon's forte, but he had already drawn his
younger daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on the
afternoon of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to him
which caused his eyebrows to go up:


       Mr. SOAMES FORSYTE

THE SHELTER,          CONNOISSEURS CLUB,
MAPLEDURHAM.          ST. JAMES'S.


But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....

To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a
little daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved
father lying peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was never
likely to be, forgotten by so impressionable and warm-hearted a man
as Jolyon.  A sense as of mystery, too, clung to that sad day, and
about the end of one whose life had been so well-ordered, balanced,
and above-board.  It seemed incredible that his father could thus
have vanished without, as it were, announcing his intention,
without last words to his son, and due farewells.  And those
incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the lady in grey,' of
Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded) involved all
things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's will
and the codicil thereto.  It had been his duty as executor of that
will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her
life interest in fifteen thousand pounds.  He had called on her to
explain that the existing investment in India Stock, ear-marked to
meet the charge, would produce for her the interesting net sum of
L430 odd a year, clear of income tax.  This was but the third time
he had seen his cousin Soames' wife--if indeed she was still his
wife, of which he was not quite sure.  He remembered having seen
her sitting in the Botanical Gardens waiting for Bosinney--a
passive, fascinating figure, reminding him of Titian's 'Heavenly
Love,' and again, when, charged by his father, he had gone to
Montpellier Square on the afternoon when Bosinney's death was
known.  He still recalled vividly her sudden appearance in the
drawing-room doorway on that occasion--her beautiful face, passing
from wild eagerness of hope to stony despair; remembered the
compassion he had felt, Soames' snarling smile, his words, "We are
not at home!" and the slam of the front door.

This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful--freed from
that warp of wild hope and despair.  Looking at her, he thought:
'Yes, you are just what the Dad would have admired!'  And the
strange story of his father's Indian summer became slowly clear to
him.  She spoke of old Jolyon with reverence and tears in her eyes.
"He was so wonderfully kind to me; I don't know why.  He looked so
beautiful and peaceful sitting in that chair under the tree; it was
I who first came on him sitting there, you know.  Such a lovely
day.  I don't think an end could have been happier.  We should all
like to go out like that."

'Quite right!' he had thought.  'We should all a like to go out in
full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.'  And
looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had asked
her what she was going to do now. "I am going to live again a
little, Cousin Jolyon.  It's wonderful to have money of one's own.
I've never had any.  I shall keep this flat, I think; I'm used to
it; but I shall be able to go to Italy."

"Exactly!" Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling lips;
and he had gone away thinking: 'A fascinating woman!  What a waste!
I'm glad the Dad left her that money.'  He had not seen her again,
but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it to her
bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had done so;
and always he had received a note in acknowledgment, generally from
the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her personality had
become embodied in slightly scented grey paper, an upright fine
handwriting, and the words, 'Dear Cousin Jolyon.'  Man of property
that he now was, the slender cheque he signed often gave rise to the
thought: 'Well, I suppose she just manages'; sliding into a vague
wonder how she was faring otherwise in a world of men not wont to
let beauty go unpossessed.  At first Holly had spoken of her
sometimes, but 'ladies in grey' soon fade from children's memories;
and the tightening of June's lips in those first weeks after her
grandfather's death whenever her former friend's name was mentioned,
had discouraged allusion.  Only once, indeed, had June spoken
definitely: "I've forgiven her.  I'm frightfully glad she's
independent now...."

On receiving Soames' card, Jolyon said to the maid--for he could
not abide butlers--"Show him into the study, please, and say I'll
be there in a minute"; and then he looked at Holly and asked:

"Do you remember 'the lady in grey,' who used to give you music-
lessons?"

"Oh yes, why?  Has she come?"

Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a coat,
was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not for those
young ears.  His face, in fact, became whimsical perplexity
incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.

Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at
the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he
thought: 'Who's that boy?  Surely they never had a child.'

The elder figure turned.  The meeting of those two Forsytes of the
second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in
the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other,
was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at
cordiality.  'Has he come about his wife?' Jolyon was thinking; and
Soames, 'How shall I begin?' while Val, brought to break the ice,
stood negligently scrutinising this 'bearded pard' from under his
dark, thick eyelashes.

"This is Val Dartie," said Soames, "my sister's son.  He's just
going up to Oxford.  I thought I'd like him to know your boy."

"Ah!  I'm sorry Jolly's away.  What college?"

"B.N.C.," replied Val.

"Jolly's at the 'House,' but he'll be delighted to look you up."

"Thanks awfully."

"Holly's in--if you could put up with a female relation, she'd show
you round.  You'll find her in the hall if you go through the
curtains.  I was just painting her."

With another "Thanks, awfully!"  Val vanished, leaving the two
cousins with the ice unbroken.

"I see you've some drawings at the 'Water Colours,'" said Soames.

Jolyon winced.  He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family at
large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his mind
with Frith's 'Derby Day' and Landseer prints.  He had heard from
June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse.  He had
become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.

"I haven't seen you for a long time," he said.

"No," answered Soames between close lips, "not since--as a matter
of fact, it's about that I've come.  You're her trustee, I'm told."

Jolyon nodded.

"Twelve years is a long time," said Soames rapidly: "I--I'm tired
of it."

Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:

"Won't you smoke?"

"No, thanks."

Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.

"I wish to be free," said Soames abruptly.

"I don't see her," murmured Jolyon through the fume of his
cigarette.

"But you know where she lives, I suppose?"

Jolyon nodded.  He did not mean to give her address without
permission.  Soames seemed to divine his thought.

"I don't want her address," he said; "I know it."

"What exactly do you want?"

"She deserted me.  I want a divorce."

"Rather late in the day, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Soames.  And there was a silence.

"I don't know much about these things--at least, I've forgotten,"
said Jolyon with a wry smile.  He himself had had to wait for death
to grant him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon.  "Do you wish me
to see her about it?"

Soames raised his eyes to his cousin's face.  "I suppose there's
someone," he said.

A shrug moved Jolyon's shoulders.

"I don't know at all.  I imagine you may have both lived as if the
other were dead.  It's usual in these cases."

Soames turned to the window.  A few early fallen oak-leaves strewed
the terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind.  Jolyon
saw the figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the lawn
towards the stables.  'I'm not going to run with the hare and hunt
with the hounds,' he thought.  'I must act for her.  The Dad would
have wished that.'  And for a swift moment he seemed to see his
father's figure in the old armchair, just beyond Soames, sitting
with knees crossed, The Times in his hand.  It vanished.

"My father was fond of her," he said quietly.

"Why he should have been I don't know," Soames answered without
looking round.  "She brought trouble to your daughter June; she
brought trouble to everyone.  I gave her all she wanted.  I would
have given her even--forgiveness--but she chose to leave me."

In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice.
What was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be sorry
for him?

"I can go and see her, if you like," he said.  "I suppose she might
be glad of a divorce, but I know nothing."

Soames nodded.

"Yes, please go.  As I say, I know her address; but I've no wish to
see her."  His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were very
dry.

"You'll have some tea?" said Jolyon, stifling the words: 'And see
the house.'  And he led the way into the hall.  When he had rung
the bell and ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his drawing
to the wall.  He could not bear, somehow, that his work should be
seen by Soames, who was standing there in the middle of the great
room which had been designed expressly to afford wall space for his
own pictures.  In his cousin's face, with its unseizable family
likeness to himself, and its chinny, narrow, concentrated look,
Jolyon saw that which moved him to the thought: 'That chap could
never forget anything--nor ever give himself away.  He's pathetic!'




CHAPTER VII

THE COLT AND THE FILLY


When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was
thinking: 'This is jolly dull!  Uncle Soames does take the bun.
I wonder what this filly's like?'  He anticipated no pleasure from
her society; and suddenly he saw her standing there looking at him.
Why, she was pretty!  What luck!

"I'm afraid you don't know me," he said.  "My name's Val Dartie--
I'm once removed, second cousin, something like that, you know.  My
mother's name was Forsyte."

Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too
shy to withdraw it, said:

"I don't know any of my relations.  Are there many?"

"Tons.  They're awful--most of them.  At least, I don't know--some
of them.  One's relations always are, aren't they?"

"I expect they think one awful too," said Holly.

"I don't know why they should.  No one could think you awful, of
course."

Holly looked at him--the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave
young Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.

"I mean there are people and people," he added astutely.  "Your dad
looks awfully decent, for instance."

"Oh yes!" said Holly fervently; "he is."

A flush mounted in Val's cheeks--that scene in the Pandemonium
promenade--the dark man with the pink carnation developing into his
own father!  "But you know what the Forsytes are," he said almost
viciously.  "Oh! I forgot; you don't."

"What are they?"

"Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit.  Look at Uncle
Soames!"

"I'd like to," said Holly.

Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers.  "Oh! no," he
said, "let's go out.  You'll see him quite soon enough.  What's
your brother like?"

Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without
answering.  How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered
anything, had been her lord, master, and ideal?

"Does he sit on you?" said Val shrewdly.  "I shall be knowing him
at Oxford.  Have you got any horses?"

Holly nodded.  "Would you like to see the stables?"

"Rather!"

They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into the
stable-yard.  There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy brown-and-
white dog, so old that he did not get up, but faintly waved the
tail curled over his back.

"That's Balthasar," said Holly; "he's so old--awfully old, nearly
as old as I am.  Poor old boy!  He's devoted to Dad."

"Balthasar!  That's a rum name.  He isn't purebred you know."

"No! but he's a darling," and she bent down to stroke the dog.
Gentle and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck and
hands, she seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing slipped
between him and all previous knowledge.

"When grandfather died," she said, "he wouldn't eat for two days.
He saw him die, you know."

"Was that old Uncle Jolyon?  Mother always says he was a topper."

"He was," said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.

In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a
long black tail and mane.  "This is mine--Fairy."

"Ah!" said Val, "she's a jolly palfrey.  But you ought to bang her
tail.  She'd look much smarter."  Then catching her wondering look,
he thought suddenly: 'I don't know--anything she likes!'  And he
took a long sniff of the stable air.  "Horses are ripping, aren't
they?  My Dad..."  he stopped.

"Yes?" said Holly.

An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him--but not quite.
"Oh!  I don't know he's often gone a mucker over them.  I'm jolly
keen on them too--riding and hunting.  I like racing awfully, as
well; I should like to be a gentleman rider."  And oblivious of the
fact that he had but one more day in town, with two engagements, he
plumped out:

"I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in Richmond
Park?"

Holly clasped her hands.

"Oh yes!  I simply love riding.  But there's Jolly's horse; why
don't you ride him?  Here he is.  We could go after tea."

Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.

He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown boots
and Bedford cords.

"I don't much like riding his horse," he said.  "He mightn't like
it.  Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect.  Not that I
believe in buckling under to him, you know.  You haven't got an
uncle, have you?  This is rather a good beast," he added,
scrutinising Jolly's horse, a dark brown, which was showing the
whites of its eyes.  "You haven't got any hunting here, I suppose?"

"No; I don't know that I want to hunt.  It must be awfully
exciting, of course; but it's cruel, isn't it?  June says so."

"Cruel?" ejaculated Val.  "Oh! that's all rot.  Who's June?"

"My sister--my half-sister, you know--much older than me."  She had
put her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly's horse, and was rubbing
her nose against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which
seemed to have an hypnotic effect on the animal.  Val contemplated
her cheek resting against the horse's nose, and her eyes gleaming
round at him.  'She's really a duck,' he thought.

They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by
the dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth, and
clearly expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.

"This is a ripping place," said Val from under the oak tree, where
they had paused to allow the dog Balthasar to come up.

"Yes," said Holly, and sighed.  "Of course I want to go everywhere.
I wish I were a gipsy."

"Yes, gipsies are jolly," replied Val, with a conviction which had
just come to him; "you're rather like one, you know."

Holly's face shone suddenly and deeply, like dark leaves gilded by
the sun.

"To go mad-rabbiting everywhere and see everything, and live in the
open--oh! wouldn't it be fun?"

"Let's do it!" said Val.

"Oh yes, let's!"

"It'd be grand sport, just you and I."

Then Holly perceived the quaintness and gushed.

"Well, we've got to do it," said Val obstinately, but reddening
too.

"I believe in doing things you want to do.  What's down there?"

"The kitchen-garden, and the pond and the coppice, and the farm."

"Let's go down!"

Holly glanced back at the house.

"It's tea-time, I expect; there's Dad beckoning."

Val, uttering a growly sound, followed her towards the house.

When they re-entered the hall gallery the sight of two middle-aged
Forsytes drinking tea together had its magical effect, and they
became quite silent.  It was, indeed, an impressive spectacle.  The
two were seated side by side on an arrangement in marqueterie which
looked like three silvery pink chairs made one, with a low
tea-table in front of them.  They seemed to have taken up that
position, as far apart as the seat would permit, so that they need
not look at each other too much; and they were eating and drinking
rather than talking--Soames with his air of despising the tea-cake
as it disappeared, Jolyon of finding himself slightly amusing.  To
the casual eye neither would have seemed greedy, but both were
getting through a good deal of sustenance.  The two young ones
having been supplied with food, the process went on silent and
absorbative, till, with the advent of cigarettes, Jolyon said to
Soames:

"And how's Uncle James?"

"Thanks, very shaky."

"We're a wonderful family, aren't we?  The other day I was
calculating the average age of the ten old Forsytes from my
father's family Bible.  I make it eighty-four already, and five
still living.  They ought to beat the record;" and looking
whimsically at Soames, he added:

"We aren't the men they were, you know."

Soames smiled.  'Do you really think I shall admit that I'm not
their equal'; he seemed to be saying, 'or that I've got to give up
anything, especially life?'

"We may live to their age, perhaps," pursued Jolyon, "but self-
consciousness is a handicap, you know, and that's the difference
between us.  We've lost conviction. How and when self-consciousness
was born I never can make out.  My father had a little, but I don't
believe any other of the old Forsytes ever had a scrap.  Never to
see yourself as others see you, it's a wonderful preservative.  The
whole history of the last century is in the difference between us.
And between us and you," he added, gazing through a ring of smoke
at Val and Holly, uncomfortable under his quizzical regard,
"there'll be--another difference.  I wonder what."

Soames took out his watch.

"We must go," he said, "if we're to catch our train."

"Uncle Soames never misses a train," muttered Val, with his mouth
full.

"Why should I?" Soames answered simply.

"Oh! I don't know," grumbled Val, "other people do."

At the front door he gave Holly's slim brown hand a long and
surreptitious squeeze.

"Look out for me to-morrow," he whispered; "three o'clock.  I'll
wait for you in the road; it'll save time.  We'll have a ripping
ride."  He gazed back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the
principles of a man about town, would have waved his hand.  He felt
in no mood to tolerate his uncle's conversation.  But he was not in
danger.  Soames preserved a perfect muteness, busy with far-away
thoughts.

The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and a
half which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days
when he came down to watch with secret pride the building of the
house--that house which was to have been the home of him and her
from whom he was now going to seek release.  He looked back once,
up that endless vista of autumn lane between the yellowing hedges.
What an age ago!  "I don't want to see her," he had said to Jolyon.
Was that true?  'I may have to,' he thought; and he shivered,
seized by one of those queer shudderings that they say mean
footsteps on one's grave.  A chilly world!  A queer world!  And
glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: 'Wish I were his age!
I wonder what she's like now!'




CHAPTER VIII

JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP


When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting, for
daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving unconsciously
a revival of that momentary vision of his father sitting in the old
leather chair with his knees crossed and his straight eyes gazing
up from under the dome of his massive brow.  Often in this little
room, cosiest in the house, Jolyon would catch a moment of
communion with his father.  Not, indeed, that he had definitely any
faith in the persistence of the human spirit--the feeling was not
so logical--it was, rather, an atmospheric impact, like a scent, or
one of those strong animistic impressions from forms, or effects of
light, to which those with the artist's eye are especially prone.
Here only--in this little unchanged room where his father had spent
the most of his waking hours--could be retrieved the feeling that
he was not quite gone, that the steady counsel of that old spirit
and the warmth of his masterful lovability endured.

What would his father be advising now, in this sudden recrudescence
of an old tragedy--what would he say to this menace against her to
whom he had taken such a fancy in the last weeks of his life?  'I
must do my best for her,' thought Jolyon; 'he left her to me in his
will.  But what is the best?'

And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd
common sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient chair
and crossed his knees.  But he felt a mere shadow sitting there;
nor did any inspiration come, while the fingers of the wind tapped
on the darkening panes of the french-window.

'Go and see her?' he thought, 'or ask her to come down here?
What's her life been?  What is it now, I wonder?  Beastly to rake
up things at this time of day.'  Again the figure of his cousin
standing with a hand on a front door of a fine olive-green leaped
out, vivid, like one of those figures from old-fashioned clocks
when the hour strikes; and his words sounded in Jolyon's ears
clearer than any chime: "I manage my own affairs.  I've told you
once, I tell you again: We are not at home."  The repugnance he had
then felt for Soames--for his flat-cheeked, shaven face full of
spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure
slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not digest--
came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase.  'I
dislike him,' he thought, 'I dislike him to the very roots of me.
And that's lucky; it'll make it easier for me to back his wife.'
Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally averse
from what he termed 'ructions'; unless angered, he conformed deeply
to that classic description of the she-dog, 'Er'd ruther run than
fight.'  A little smile became settled in his beard.  Ironical that
Soames should come down here--to this house, built for himself!
How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin of his past intention;
furtively nosing at the walls and stairway, appraising everything!
And intuitively Jolyon thought: 'I believe the fellow even now
would like to be living here.  He could never leave off longing for
what he once owned!  Well, I must act, somehow or other; but it's a
bore--a great bore.'

Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene
would see him.

The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower so
wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms.
Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at the
close of the summer holidays.  And the streets to Jolyon, who was
not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new motor-
cars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically.  He counted
these vehicles from his hansom, and made the proportion of them one
in twenty.  'They were one in thirty about a year ago,' he thought;
'they've come to stay.  Just so much more rattling round of wheels
and general stink'--for he was one of those rather rare Liberals
who object to anything new when it takes a material form; and he
instructed his driver to get down to the river quickly, out of the
traffic, desiring to look at the water through the mellowing screen
of plane-trees.  At the little block of flats which stood back some
fifty yards from the Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and
went up to the first floor.

Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!

The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once apparent
to him remembering the threadbare refinement in that tiny flat
eight years ago when he announced her good fortune.  Everything was
now fresh, dainty, and smelled of flowers.  The general effect was
silvery with touches of black, hydrangea colour, and gold.  'A
woman of great taste,' he thought.  Time had dealt gently with
Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte.  But with Irene Time hardly seemed to
deal at all, or such was his impression.  She appeared to him not a
day older, standing there in mole-coloured velvet corduroy, with
soft dark eyes and dark gold hair, with outstretched hand and a
little smile.

"Won't you sit down?"

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

"You look absolutely unchanged," he said.

"And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon."

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still a
comfort to him.

"I'm ancient, but I don't feel it.  That's one thing about paint-
ing, it keeps you young.  Titian lived to ninety-nine, and had to
have plague to kill him off.  Do you know, the first time I ever
saw you I thought of a picture by him?"

"When did you see me for the first time?"

"In the Botanical Gardens."

"How did you know me, if you'd never seen me before?"

"By someone who came up to you."  He was looking at her hardily,
but her face did not change; and she said quietly:

"Yes; many lives ago."

"What is your recipe for youth, Irene?"

"People who don't live are wonderfully preserved."

H'm! a bitter little saying!  People who don't live!  But an
opening, and he took it.  "You remember my Cousin Soames?"

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

"He came to see me the day before yesterday!  He wants a divorce.
Do you?"

"I?"  The word seemed startled out of her.  "After twelve years?
It's rather late.  Won't it be difficult?"

Jolyon looked hard into her face.  "Unless...."  he said.

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

What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words?
Relief, surprise, pity!  Venus for twelve years without a lover!

"And yet," he said, "I suppose you would give a good deal to be
free, too?"

"I don't know.  What does it matter, now?"

"But if you were to love again?"

"I should love."  In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the
whole philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.

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

"Only that I'm sorry he's not free.  He had his chance once.  I
don't know why he didn't take it."

"Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know,
unless we want something in their place; and not always then."

Irene smiled.  "Don't you, Cousin Jolyon?--I think you do."

"Of course, I'm a bit of a mongrel--not quite a pure Forsyte.  I
never take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on," said
Jolyon uneasily.

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

"I don't know; perhaps children."

She was silent for a little, looking down.

"Yes," she murmured; "it's hard.  I would help him to be free if I
could."

Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast;
so was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity.  She was so
lovely, and so lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!

"Well," he said, "I shall have to see Soames.  If there's anything
I can do for you I'm always at your service.  You must think of me
as a wretched substitute for my father.  At all events I'll let you
know what happens when I speak to Soames.  He may supply the
material himself."

She shook her head.

"You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing.  I should like
him to be free; but I don't see what I can do."

"Nor I at the moment," said Jolyon, and soon after took his leave.
He went down to his hansom.  Half-past three!  Soames would be at
his office still.

"To the Poultry," he called through the trap.  In front of the
Houses of Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling,
"Grave situation in the Transvaal!" but the cries hardly roused
him, absorbed in recollection of that very beautiful figure, of her
soft dark glance, and the words: "I have never had one since."
What on earth did such a woman do with her life, back-watered like
this?  Solitary, unprotected, with every man's hand against her or
rather--reaching out to grasp her at the least sign.  And year
after year she went on like that!

The word 'Poultry' above the passing citizens brought him back to
reality.

'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,' in black letters on a ground the
colour of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went up
the stone stairs muttering: "Fusty musty ownerships!  Well, we
couldn't do without them!"

"I want Mr. Soames Forsyte," he said to the boy who opened the
door.

"What name?"

"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."

The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte with
a beard, and vanished.

The offices of 'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte' had slowly absorbed
the offices of 'Tooting and Bowles,' and occupied the whole of the
first floor.

The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of
managing and articled clerks.  The complete retirement of James
some six years ago had accelerated business, to which the final
touch of speed had been imparted when Bustard dropped off, worn
out, as many believed, by the suit of 'Fryer versus Forsyte,' more
in Chancery than ever and less likely to benefit its beneficiaries.
Soames, with his saner grasp of actualities, had never permitted it
to worry him; on the contrary, he had long perceived that
Providence had presented him therein with L200 a year net in
perpetuity, and--why not?

When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of holdings
in Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was going to
advise his companies to put on the market at once, before other
companies did the same.  He looked round, sidelong, and said:

"How are you?  Just one minute.  Sit down, won't you?" And having
entered three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he turned
towards Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....

"Yes?" he said.

"I have seen her."

Soames frowned.

"Well?"

"She has remained faithful to memory."

Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed.  His cousin had flushed a
dusky yellowish red.  What had made him tease the poor brute!

"I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free.  Twelve years is
a long time.  You know your law, and what chance it gives you."
Soames uttered a curious little grunt, and the two remained a full
minute without speaking.  'Like wax!' thought Jolyon, watching that
close face, where the flush was fast subsiding.  'He'll never give
me a sign of what he's thinking, or going to do.  Like wax!'  And
he transferred his gaze to a plan of that flourishing town, 'By-
Street on Sea,' the future existence of which lay exposed on the
wall to the possessive instincts of the firm's clients.  The whim-
sical thought flashed through him: 'I wonder if I shall get a bill
of costs for this--"To attending Mr. Jolyon Forsyte in the matter
of my divorce, to receiving his account of his visit to my wife,
and to advising him to go and see her again, sixteen and
eightpence."'

Suddenly Soames said: "I can't go on like this.  I tell you, I
can't go on like this."  His eyes were shifting from side to side,
like an animal's when it looks for way of escape.  'He really
suffers,' thought Jolyon; 'I've no business to forget that, just
because I don't like him.'

"Surely," he said gently, "it lies with yourself.  A man can always
put these things through if he'll take it on himself."

Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come from
somewhere very deep.

"Why should I suffer more than I've suffered already?  Why should
I?"

Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders.  His reason agreed, his
instinct rebelled; he could not have said why.

"Your father," went on Soames, "took an interest in her--why,
goodness knows!  And I suppose you do too?" he gave Jolyon a sharp
look.  "It seems to me that one only has to do another person a
wrong to get all the sympathy.  I don't know in what way I was to
blame--I've never known.  I always treated her well.  I gave her
everything she could wish for.  I wanted her."

Again Jolyon's reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head.
'What is it?' he thought; 'there must be something wrong in me.
Yet if there is, I'd rather be wrong than right.'

"After all," said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, "she was
my wife."

In a flash the thought went through his listener: 'There it is!
Ownerships!  Well, we all own things.  But--human beings!  Pah!'

"You have to look at facts," he said drily, "or rather the want of
them."

Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.

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

"I beg your pardon," replied Jolyon; "I've told you what she said.
It was explicit."

"My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in her
word.  We shall see."

Jolyon got up.

"Good-bye," he said curtly.

"Good-bye," returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to
understand the look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his cousin's
face.  He sought Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of mind, as
though the skin of his moral being had been scraped; and all the
way down in the train he thought of Irene in her lonely flat, and
of Soames in his lonely office, and of the strange paralysis of life
that lay on them both.  'In chancery!'  he thought.  'Both their
necks in chancery--and her's so pretty!'




CHAPTER IX

VAL HEARS THE NEWS


The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous
feature in the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke two
and kept one, it was the latter event which caused him, if
anything, the greater surprise, while jogging back to town from
Robin Hill after his ride with Holly.  She had been even prettier
than he had thought her yesterday, on her silver-roan, long-tailed
'palfrey'; and it seemed to him, self-critical in the brumous
October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only his boots
had shone throughout their two-hour companionship.  He took out his
new gold 'hunter'--present from James--and looked not at the time,
but at sections of his face in the glittering back of its opened
case.  He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and it displeased
him, for it must have displeased her.  Crum never had any spots.
Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade of the
Pandemonium.  To-day he had not had the faintest desire to unbosom
himself to Holly about his father.  His father lacked poetry, the
stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time in his
nineteen years.  The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that almost
mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the woman of
uncertain age--both seemed to Val completely 'off,' fresh from
communion with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of his.  She
rode 'Jolly well,' too, so that it had been all the more flattering
that she had let him lead her where he would in the long gallops of
Richmond Park, though she knew them so much better than he did.
Looking back on it all, he was mystified by the barrenness of his
speech; he felt that he could say 'an awful lot of fetching things'
if he had but the chance again, and the thought that he must go
back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and to Oxford on the twelfth--
'to that beastly exam,' too--without the faintest chance of first
seeing her again, caused darkness to settle on his spirit even more
quickly than on the evening.  He should write to her, however, and
she had promised to answer.  Perhaps, too, she would come up to
Oxford to see her brother.  That thought was like the first star,
which came out as he rode into Padwick's livery stables in the
purlieus of Sloane Square.  He got off and stretched himself
luxuriously, for he had ridden some twenty-five good miles.  The
Dartie within him made him chaffer for five minutes with young
Padwick concerning the favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with
the words, "Put the gee down to my account," he walked away, a
little wide at the knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty
little cane.  'I don't feel a bit inclined to go out,' he thought.
'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!'  With
'fizz' and recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle
Soames.  They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said:

"He'd better be told."

At those words, which meant something about his father, of course,
Val's first thought was of Holly.  Was it anything beastly?  His
mother began speaking.

"Your father," she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while
her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, "your
father, my dear boy, has--is not at Newmarket; he's on his way to
South America.  He--he's left us."

Val looked from her to Soames.  Left them!  Was he sorry?  Was he
fond of his father?  It seemed to him that he did not know.  Then,
suddenly--as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars--his heart twitched
within him, and he was sorry.  One's father belonged to one, could
not go off in this fashion--it was not done!  Nor had he always
been the 'bounder' of the Pandemonium promenade.  There were
precious memories of tailors' shops and horses, tips at school, and
general lavish kindness, when in luck.

"But why?" he said.  Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had
asked.  The mask of his mother's face was all disturbed; and he
burst out:

"All right, Mother, don't tell me!  Only, what does it mean?"

"A divorce, Val, I'm afraid."

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his uncle--
that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a guarantee
against the consequences of having a father, even against the
Dartie blood in his own veins.  The flat-checked visage seemed to
wince, and this upset him.

"It won't be public, will it?"

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued
to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public
Press.

"Can't it be done quietly somehow?  It's so disgusting for--for
mother, and--and everybody."

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

"Yes--but, why is it necessary at all?  Mother doesn't want to
marry again."

Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his
schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of--Holly!
Unbearable!  What was to be gained by it?

"Do you, Mother?" he said sharply.

Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the
one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire
chair in which she had been sitting.  She saw that her son would be
against her unless he was told everything; and, yet, how could she
tell him?  Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she stared
at Soames.  Val, too, stared at Soames.  Surely this embodiment of
respectability and the sense of property could not wish to bring
such a slur on his own sister!

Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth
surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his
nephew, he began:

"You don't understand what your mother has had to put up with these
twenty years.  This is only the last straw, Val."  And glancing up
sideways at Winifred, he added:

"Shall I tell him?"

Winifred was silent.  If he were not told, he would be against her!
Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father!
Clenching her lips, she nodded.

Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:

"He has always been a burden round your mother's neck.  She has
paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk, abused
and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires with a
dancer."  And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those words on the
boy, he went on quickly:

"He took your mother's pearls to give to her."

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

"That'll do, Soames--stop!"

In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling.  For debts,
drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the pearls--no!  That
was too much!  And suddenly he found his mother's hand squeezing
his.

"You see," he heard Soames say, "we can't have it all begin over
again.  There's a limit; we must strike while the iron's hot."

Val freed his hand.

"But--you're--never going to bring out that about the pearls!  I
couldn't stand that--I simply couldn't!"

Winifred cried out:

"No, no, Val--oh no!  That's only to show you how impossible your
father is!"  And his uncle nodded.  Somewhat assuaged, Val took out
a cigarette.  His father had bought him that thin curved case.  Oh!
it was unbearable--just as he was going up to Oxford!

"Can't mother be protected without?" he said.  "I could look after
her.  It could always be done later if it was really necessary."

A smile played for a moment round Soames' lips, and became bitter.

"You don't know what you're talking of; nothing's so fatal as delay
in such matters."

"Why?"

"I tell you, boy, nothing's so fatal.  I know from experience."

His voice had the ring of exasperation.  Val regarded him round-
eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of feeling.
Oh! Yes--he remembered now--there had been an Aunt Irene, and
something had happened--something which people kept dark; he had
heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.

"I don't want to speak ill of your father," Soames went on
doggedly, "but I know him well enough to be sure that he'll be back
on your mother's hands before a year's over.  You can imagine what
that will mean to her and to all of you after this.  The only thing
is to cut the knot for good."

In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at
his mother's face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight
into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered
most.

"All right, mother," he said; "we'll back you up.  Only I'd like to
know when it'll be.  It's my first term, you know.  I don't want to
be up there when it comes off."

"Oh! my dear boy," murmured Winifred, "it is a bore for you."  So,
by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face, was
the most poignant regret.  "When will it be, Soames?"

"Can't tell--not for months.  We must get restitution first."

'What the deuce is that?' thought Val.  'What silly brutes lawyers
are!  Not for months!  I know one thing: I'm not going to dine in!'
And he said:

"Awfully sorry, mother, I've got to go out to dinner now."

Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully;
they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the
expression of feeling.

Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and
depressed.  And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover that
he had only eighteen-pence.  One couldn't dine off eighteen-pence,
and he was very hungry.  He looked longingly at the windows of the
Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the best with his father!
Those pearls!  There was no getting over them!  But the more he
brooded and the further he walked the hungrier he naturally became.
Short of trailing home, there were only two places where he could
go--his grandfather's in Park Lane, and Timothy's in the Bayswater
Road.  Which was the less deplorable?  At his grandfather's he
would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the moment.  At
Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected you,
not otherwise.  He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought
that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance
to tip him was hardly fair to either of them.  His mother would
hear he had been there, of course, and might think it funny; but he
couldn't help that.  He rang the bell.

"Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d'you think?"

"They're just going in, Master Val.  Mr. Forsyte will be very glad
to see you.  He was saying at lunch that he never saw you
nowadays."

Val grinned.

"Well, here I am.  Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let's have fizz."

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

"I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val."

"I say," Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, "I'm not at school
any more, you know."

Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond the
stag's-horn coat stand, with the words:

"Mr. Valerus, ma'am."

"Confound him!" thought Val, entering.

A warm embrace, a "Well, Val!" from Emily, and a rather quavery "So
there you are at last!" from James, restored his sense of dignity.

"Why didn't you let us know?  There's only saddle of mutton.
Champagne, Warmson," said Emily.  And they went in.

At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which so
many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily at
the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the
loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children
were flown, reached the boy's spirit.  'I hope I shall kick the
bucket long before I'm as old as grandfather,' he thought.  'Poor
old chap, he's as thin as a rail!'  And lowering his voice while
his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the
soup, he said to Emily:

"It's pretty brutal at home, Granny.  I suppose you know."

"Yes, dear boy."

"Uncle Soames was there when I left.  I say, isn't there anything
to be done to prevent a divorce?  Why is he so beastly keen on it?"

"Hush, my dear!" murmured Emily; "we're keeping it from your
grandfather."

James' voice sounded from the other end.

"What's that?  What are you talking about?"

"About Val's college," returned Emily.  "Young Pariser was there,
James; you remember--he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
afterwards."

James muttered that he did not know--Val must look after himself up
there, or he'd get into bad ways.  And he looked at his grandson
with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully glimmered.

"What I'm afraid of," said Val to his plate, "is of being hard up,
you know."

By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear of
insecurity for his grandchildren.

"Well," said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,
"you'll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it."

"Of course," murmured Val; "if it is good.  How much will it be,
Grandfather?"

"Three hundred and fifty; it's too much.  I had next to nothing at
your age."

Val sighed.  He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three.  "I
don't know what your young cousin has," said James; "he's up there.
His father's a rich man."

"Aren't you?" asked Val hardily.

"I?" replied James, flustered.  "I've got so many expenses.  Your
father...." and he was silent.

"Cousin Jolyon's got an awfully jolly place.  I went down there
with Uncle Soames--ripping stables."

"Ah!" murmured James profoundly.  "That house--I knew how it would
be!"  And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.
His son's tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the
Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a
whirlpool of doubts and misgivings.  Val, who hankered to talk of
Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and
said:

"Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?"  And, receiving her
nod, went on: "I wish you'd tell me about him, Granny.  What became
of Aunt Irene?  Is she still going?  He seems awfully worked-up
about something to-night."

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught
James' ear.

"What's that?" he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his
lips.  "Who's been seeing her?  I knew we hadn't heard the last of
that."

"Now, James," said Emily, "eat your dinner.  Nobody's been seeing
anybody."

James put down his fork.

"There you go," he said.  "I might die before you'd tell me of it.
Is Soames getting a divorce?"

"Nonsense," said Emily with incomparable aplomb; "Soames is much
too sensible."

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white whiskers
together on the skin and bone of it.

"She--she was always...." he said, and with that enigmatic remark
the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned.  But later, when
the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury, and
dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and his
grandfather's kiss--like no other kiss in the world, from lips
pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to
weakness--he returned to the charge in the hall.

"Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny.  Why is he so keen on mother's
getting a divorce?"

"Your Uncle Soames," said Emily, and her voice had in it an
exaggerated assurance, "is a lawyer, my dear boy.  He's sure to
know best."

"Is he?" muttered Val.  "But what did become of Aunt Irene?  I
remember she was jolly good-looking."

"She--er...."  said Emily, "behaved very badly.  We don't talk
about it."

"Well, I don't want everybody at Oxford to know about our affairs,"
ejaculated Val; "it's a brutal idea.  Why couldn't father be pre-
vented without its being made public?"

Emily sighed.  She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of
divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities--so many of those
whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain notor-
iety.  When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it no
better than other people.  But she was eminently practical, and a
woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to its
substance.

"Your mother," she said, "will be happier if she's quite free, Val.
Good-night, my dear boy; and don't wear loud waistcoats up at
Oxford, they're not the thing just now.  Here's a little present."

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his
heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park
Lane.  A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were
rustling, and the stars were shining.  With all that money in his
pocket an impulse to 'see life' beset him; but he had not gone
forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly's shy face,
and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before
him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure of
her warm gloved hand.  'No, dash it!'  he thought, 'I'm going
home!'




CHAPTER X

SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE


It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and
summer lingered below the yellowing leaves.  Soames took many looks
at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday
morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat, and
equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them
on the river.  Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he could not
tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone.  She was so
very pretty--could he trust himself not to say irrevocable words,
passing beyond the limits of discretion?  Roses on the veranda were
still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that there was almost
nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood; yet was he
nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers to steer just
the right course.  This visit had been planned to produce in
Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions, so that they
should be ready to receive with respect any overture he might later
be disposed to make.  He dressed with great care, making himself
neither too young nor too old, very thankful that his hair was
still thick and smooth and had no grey in it.  Three times he went
up to his picture-gallery.  If they had any knowledge at all, they
must see at once that his collection alone was worth at least
thirty thousand pounds.  He minutely inspected, too, the pretty
bedroom overlooking the river where they would take off their hats.
It would be her bedroom if--if the matter went through, and she
became his wife.  Going up to the dressing-table he passed his hand
over the lilac-coloured pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds
of pins; a bowl of pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head
turn just a little.  His wife!  If only the whole thing could be
settled out of hand, and there was not the nightmare of this
divorce to be gone through first; and with gloom puckered on his
forehead, he looked out at the river shining beyond the roses and
the lawn.  Madame Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her
child; Annette would never resist her mother.  If only he were
free!  He drove to the station to meet them.  What taste French-
women had!  Madame Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac
colour, Annette in greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves
and hat.  Rather pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes
were demure.  Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood
in the open french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous
delight in sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the
full when youth and beauty were there to share it with one.  He had
ordered the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very
special Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the
coffee served on the veranda super-excellent.  Madame Lamotte
accepted creme de menthe; Annette refused.  Her manners were
charming, with just a suspicion of 'the conscious beauty' creeping
into them.  'Yes,' thought Soames, 'another year of London and that
sort of life, and she'll be spoiled.'

Madame was in sedate French raptures.  "Adorable!  Le soleil est si
bon!  How everything is chic, is it not, Annette?  Monsieur is a
real Monte Cristo."  Annette murmured assent, with a look up at
Soames which he could not read.  He proposed a turn on the river.
But to punt two persons when one of them looked so ravishing on
those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a sense of lost
opportunity; so they went but a short way towards Pangbourne,
drifting slowly back, with every now and then an autumn leaf
dropping on Annette or on her mother's black amplitude.  And Soames
was not happy, worried by the thought: 'How--when--where--can I
say--what?' They did not yet even know that he was married.  To
tell them he was married might jeopardise his every chance; yet, if
he did not definitely make them understand that he wished for
Annette's hand, it would be dropping into some other clutch before
he was free to claim it.

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

"There'll be war," he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

"Ces pauvres gens bergers!"  Could they not be left to themselves?

Soames smiled--the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could
not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

"Ah! that!"  But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a
little hypocrite.  They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders,
not of business.  Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of
that.

"The Boers are only half-civilised," remarked Soames; "they stand
in the way of progress.  It will never do to let our suzerainty
go."

"What does that mean to say?  Suzerainty!"

"What a strange word!"  Soames became eloquent, roused by these
threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette's
eyes fixed on him.  He was delighted when presently she said:

"I think Monsieur is right.  They should be taught a lesson."  She
was sensible!

"Of course," he said, "we must act with moderation.  I'm no jingo.
We must be firm without bullying.  Will you come up and see my
pictures?"  Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon
perceived that they knew nothing.  They passed his last Mauve, that
remarkable study of a 'Hay-cart going Home,' as if it were a
lithograph.  He waited almost with awe to see how they would view
the jewel of his collection--an Israels whose price he had watched
ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top value,
and would be better on the market again.  They did not view it at
all.  This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin taste
to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked pre-
dilections of the English middle-class to deal with.  At the end of
the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather ashamed--
Meissonier was so steadily going down.  Madame Lamotte stopped
before it.

"Meissonier!  Ah! What a jewel!"  Soames took advantage of that
moment.  Very gently touching Annette's arm, he said:

"How do you like my place, Annette?"

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked
down, and murmured:

"Who would not like it?  It is so beautiful!"

"Perhaps some day--" Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed--she frightened him.  Those
cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate
curves--she was a standing temptation to indiscretion!  No!  No!
One must be sure of one's ground--much surer!  'If I hold off,' he
thought, 'it will tantalise her.'  And he crossed over to Madame
Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

"Yes, that's quite a good example of his later work.  You must come
again, Madame, and see them lighted up.  You must both come and
spend a night."

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted?  By
moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

"Thou art sentimental, Maman!"

Sentimental!  That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of
the world!  And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there
was no sentiment in either of them.  All the better.  Of what use
sentiment?  And yet....!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train.  To
the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette's fingers
responded just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding.  "Go on home, Jordan," he
said to the coachman; "I'll walk."  And he strode out into the
darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing
see-saw within him.  'Bon soir, monsieur!'  How softly she had said
it.  To know what was in her mind!  The French--they were like
cats--one could tell nothing!  But--how pretty!  What a perfect
young thing to hold in one's arms!  What a mother for his heir!
And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a
French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play with
it and buffet it confound them!

The, poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted.  Shadows
deepened in the water.  'I will and must be free,' he thought.  'I
won't hang about any longer.  I'll go and see Irene.  If you want
things done, do them yourself.  I must live again--live and move
and have my being.'  And in echo to that queer biblicality church-
bells chimed the call to evening prayer.




CHAPTER XI

AND VISITS THE PAST


On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do
what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything
he had yet undertaken in his life--save perhaps his birth, and one
other action.  He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene
was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had failed to find
sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine to give him
extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old
Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived.
He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read
the name, 'Mrs. Irene Heron'--Heron, forsooth!  Her maiden name: so
she used that again, did she?--he stepped back into the road to
look up at the windows of the first floor.  Light was coming
through in the corner fiat, and he could hear a piano being played.
He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a grudge in
the old days when so often she had turned to her piano, making of
it a refuge place into which she knew he could not enter.  Repulse!
The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at last open!
Bitter memory came with that sound.  It must be she playing, and
thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than
ever.  Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt
dry, his heart beat fast.  'I have no cause to be afraid,' he
thought.  And then the lawyer stirred within him.  Was he doing a
foolish thing?  Ought he not to have arranged a formal meeting in
the presence of her trustee?  No!  Not before that fellow Jolyon,
who sympathised with her!  Never!  He crossed back into the
doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his heart,
mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell.  When the
door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent
which came--that perfume--from away back in the past, bringing
muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter,
of a house he used to own--perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!

"Say, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "your mistress will see me, I know."
He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the
light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet,
everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he
could only think ridiculously: 'Shall I go in with my overcoat on,
or take it off?' The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:

"Will you walk in, sir?"

Soames walked in.  He noted mechanically that all was still
silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood.  She had
risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys
as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for a
moment, and released.  The light from the shaded piano-candle fell
on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow.  She was in a black
evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her shoulders--he did
not remember ever having seen her in black, and the thought passed
through him: 'She dresses even when she's alone.'

"You!" he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy.  Rehearsal
served him not at all.  He simply could not speak.  He had never
thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so
passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not seen
for twelve years, could affect him in this way.  He had imagined
himself speaking and acting, half as man of business, half as
judge.  And now it was as if he were in the presence not of a mere
woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and elusive as
atmo-sphere itself within him and outside.  A kind of defensive
irony welled up in him.

"Yes, it's a queer visit!  I hope you're well."

"Thank you.  Will you sit down?"

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a window-seat,
sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap.  Light fell on
her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely
as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with
silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

"You have not changed," he said.

"No?  What have you come for?"

"To discuss things."

"I have heard what you want from your cousin."

"Well?"

"I am willing.  I have always been."

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure
watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now.  A thousand
memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and....

"Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on
which I can act.  The law must be complied with."

"I have none to give you that you don't know of."

"Twelve years!  Do you suppose I can believe that?"

"I don't suppose you will believe anything I say; but it's the
truth."

Soames looked at her hard.  He had said that she had not changed;
now he perceived that she had.  Not in face, except that it was
more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little fuller--
no!  She had changed spiritually.  There was more of her, as it
were, something of activity and daring, where there had been sheer
passive resistance.  'Ah!' he thought, 'that's her independent
income!  Confound Uncle Jolyon!'

"I suppose you're comfortably off now?" he said.

"Thank you, yes."

"Why didn't you let me provide for you?  I would have, in spite of
everything."

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

"You are still my wife," said Soames.  Why he said that, what he
meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after.  It was a
truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling.  She rose
from the window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly still,
looking at him.  He could see her bosom heaving.  Then she turned
to the window and threw it open.

"Why do that?" he said sharply.  "You'll catch cold in that dress.
I'm not dangerous."  And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it--faintly, bitterly.

"It was--habit."

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

She shut it and sat down again.  She had developed power, this
woman--this--wife of his!  He felt it issuing from her as she sat
there, in a sort of armour.  And almost unconsciously he rose and
moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face.  Her
eyes met his unflinching.  Heavens! how clear they were, and what
a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair!
And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this!  He ought to hate her.

"You had better tell me," he said; "it's to your advantage to be
free as well as to mine.  That old matter is too old."

"I have told you."

"Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing--nobody?"

"Nobody.  You must go to your own life."

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to
the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in
their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.

"That won't do," he said.  "You deserted me.  In common justice
it's for you...."

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

"Yes.  Why didn't you divorce me then?  Should I have cared?"

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity.
What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite
alone?  And why had he not divorced her?  The old feeling that she
had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while he
stared at her.

"Why couldn't you have made me a good wife?" he said.

"Yes; it was a crime to marry you.  I have paid for it.  You will
find some way perhaps.  You needn't mind my name, I have none to
lose.  Now I think you had better go."

A sense of defeat--of being defrauded of his self-justification,
and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset
Soames like the breath of a cold fog.  Mechanically he reached up,
took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl, reversed it, and
said:

"Lowestoft.  Where did you get this?  I bought its fellow at
Jobson's."  And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many
years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained
staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past.  Her
voice roused him.

"Take it.  I don't want it."

Soames put it back on the shelf.

"Will you shake hands?" he said.

A faint smile curved her lips.  She held out her hand.  It was cold
to his rather feverish touch.  'She's made of ice,' he thought--
'she was always made of ice!'  But even as that thought darted
through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress
and body, as though the warmth within her, which had never been for
him, were struggling to show its presence.  And he turned on his
heel.  He walked out and away, as if someone with a whip were after
him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the empty Embankment and
the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows of the plane-tree
leaves--confused, flurried, sore at heart, and vaguely disturbed,
as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he could
not foresee.  And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him
if instead of, 'I think you had better go,' she had said, 'I think
you had better stay!'  What should he have felt, what would he have
done?  That cursed attraction of her was there for him even now,
after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts.  It was
there, ready to mount to his head at a sign, a touch.  'I was a
fool to go!'  he muttered.  'I've advanced nothing.  Who could
imagine?  I never thought!'  Memory, flown back to the first years
of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.  She had not deserved
to keep her beauty--the beauty he had owned and known so well.  And
a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled
up in him.  Most men would have hated the sight of her, as she had
deserved.  She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to death,
defrauded him of a son.  And yet the mere sight of her, cold and
resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly!  It was
some damned magnetism she had!  And no wonder if, as she asserted;
she had lived untouched these last twelve years.  So Bosinney--
cursed be his memory!--had lived on all this time with her!  Soames
could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.

Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper.  A headline
ran: 'Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!'  Suzerainty!  'Just
like her!' he thought: 'she always did.  Suzerainty!  I still have
it by rights.  She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little
flat!'




CHAPTER XII

ON FORSYTE 'CHANGE


Soames belonged to two clubs, 'The Connoisseurs,' which he put on
his cards and seldom visited, and 'The Remove,' which he did not
put on his cards and frequented.  He had joined this Liberal
institution five years ago, having made sure that its members were
now nearly all sound Conservatives in heart and pocket, if not in
principle.  Uncle Nicholas had put him up.  The fine reading-room
was decorated in the Adam style.

On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news about
the Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down seven-sixteenths
since the morning.  He was turning away to seek the reading-room
when a voice behind him said:

"Well, Soames, that went off all right."

It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away
collar, with a black tie passed through a ring.  Heavens!  How
young and dapper he looked at eighty-two!

"I think Roger'd have been pleased," his uncle went on.  "The thing
was very well done.  Blackley's?  I'll make a note of them.
Buxton's done me no good.  These Boers are upsetting me--that
fellow Chamberlain's driving the country into war.  What do you
think?"

"Bound to come," murmured Soames.

Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, cleanshaven cheeks, very
rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his lips.
This business had revived all his Liberal principles.

"I mistrust that chap; he's a stormy petrel.  House-property will
go down if there's war.  You'll have trouble with Roger's estate.
I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses.  He was
an opinionated beggar."

'There was a pair of you!' thought Soames.  But he never argued
with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as 'a
long-headed chap,' and the legal care of their property.

"They tell me at Timothy's," said Nicholas, lowering his voice,
"that Dartie has gone off at last.  That'll be a relief to your
father.  He was a rotten egg."

Again Soames nodded.  If there was a subject on which the Forsytes
really agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.

"You take care," said Nicholas, "or he'll turn up again.  Winifred
had better have the tooth out, I should say.  No use preserving
what's gone bad."

Soames looked at him sideways.  His nerves, exacerbated by the
interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a personal
allusion in those words.

"I'm advising her," he said shortly.

"Well," said Nicholas, "the brougham's waiting; I must get home.
I'm very poorly.  Remember me to your father."

And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down the
steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat by the
junior porter.

'I've never known Uncle Nicholas other than "very poorly,"' mused
Soames, 'or seen him look other than everlasting.  What a family!
Judging by him, I've got thirty-eight years of health before me.
Well, I'm not going to waste them.'  And going over to a mirror he
stood looking at his face.  Except for a line or two, and three or
four grey hairs in his little dark moustache, had he aged any more
than Irene?  The prime of life--he and she in the very prime of
life!  And a fantastic thought shot into his mind.  Absurd!
Idiotic!  But again it came.  And genuinely alarmed by the recur-
rence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which presages a
feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine.  Eleven stone!
He had not varied two pounds in twenty years.  What age was she?
Nearly thirty-seven--not too old to have a child--not at all!
Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month.  He remembered her
birthday well--he had always observed it religiously, even that
last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was almost
certain she was faithless.  Four birthdays in his house.  He had
looked forward to them, because his gifts had meant a semblance of
gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth.  Except, indeed, that last
birthday--which had tempted him to be too religious!  And he shied
away in thought.  Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds,
from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense.  And then he
thought suddenly: 'I could send her a present for her birthday.
After all, we're Christians!  Couldn't!--couldn't we join up
again!'  And he uttered a deep sigh sitting there.  Annette!  Ah!
but between him and Annette was the need for that wretched divorce
suit!  And how?

"A man can always work these things, if he'll take it on himself,"
Jolyon had said.

But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole career
as a pillar of the law at stake?  It was not fair!  It was quix-
otic!  Twelve years' separation in which he had taken no steps to
free himself put out of court the possibility of using her conduct
with Bosinney as a ground for divorcing her.  By doing nothing to
secure relief he had acquiesced, even if the evidence could now be
gathered, which was more than doubtful.  Besides, his own pride
would never let him use that old incident, he had suffered from it
too much.  No!  Nothing but fresh misconduct on her part--but she
had denied it; and--almost--he had believed her.  Hung up!  Utterly
hung up!

He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of
constriction about his vitals.  He would never sleep with this
going on in him!  And, taking coat and hat again, he went out,
moving eastward.  In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some
special commotion travelling towards him out of the mouth of the
Strand.  It materialised in newspaper men calling out so loudly
that no words whatever could be heard.  He stopped to listen, and
one came by.

"Payper!  Special!  Ultimatium by Krooger!  Declaration of war!"
Soames bought the paper.  There it was in the stop press....!  His
first thought was: 'The Boers are committing suicide.'  His second:
'Is there anything still I ought to sell?' If so he had missed the
chance--there would certainly be a slump in the city to-morrow.  He
swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance.  That ultimatum was
insolent--sooner than let it pass he was prepared to lose money.
They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it would take
three months at least to bring them to heel.  There weren't the
troops out there; always behind time, the Government!  Confound
those newspaper rats!  What was the use of waking everybody up?
Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough.  And he thought with
alarm of his father.  They would cry it down Park Lane.  Hailing a
hansom, he got in and told the man to drive there.

James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating
the news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow.  He paused by
after-thought to say:

"What do you think of it, Warmson?"

The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames had
taken off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in a low
voice: "Well, sir, they 'aven't a chance, of course; but I'm told
they're very good shots.  I've got a son in the Inniskillings."

"You, Warmson?  Why, I didn't know you were married."

"No, sir.  I don't talk of it.  I expect he'll be going out."

The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so
little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the
slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one
personally.  Born in the year of the Crimean War, he had only come
to consciousness by the time the Indian Mutiny was over; since then
the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely
professional, quite unconnected with the Forsytes and all they
stood for in the body politic.  This war would surely be no
exception.  But his mind ran hastily over his family.  Two of the
Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other--it had
always been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction
about the Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform with
silver about it, and rode horses.  And Archibald, he remembered,
had once on a time joined the Militia, but had given it up because
his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about his 'wasting his
time peacocking about in a uniform.'  Recently he had heard
somewhere that young Nicholas' eldest, very young Nicholas, had
become a Volunteer.  'No,' thought Soames, mounting the stairs
slowly, 'there's nothing in that!'

He stood on the landing outside his parents' bed and dressing
rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a
reassuring word.  Opening the landing window, he listened.  The
rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the
thought, 'If these motor-cars increase, it'll affect house
property,' he was about to pass on up to the room always kept ready
for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing call of a
newsvendor.  There it was, and coming past the house!  He knocked
on his mother's door and went in.

His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the
white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut.  He looked pink,
and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and
pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned
shoulders emerged in small peaks.  His eyes alone, grey and
distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the window
to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down, squeezing a
rubber ball attached to a scent bottle.  The room reeked faintly of
the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.

"All right!" said Soames, "it's not a fire.  The Boers have
declared war--that's all."

Emily stopped her spraying.

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

Soames, too, looked at his father.  He was taking it differently
from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were
working in him.

"H'm!" he muttered suddenly, "I shan't live to see the end of
this."

"Nonsense, James!  It'll be over by Christmas."

"What do you know about it?" James answered her with asperity.
"It's a pretty mess at this time of night, too!"  He lapsed into
silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to
say: 'I can't tell--I don't know; I knew how it would be!'  But he
did not.  The grey eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in the
room; then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the knees
were drawn up suddenly to a great height.

"They ought to send out Roberts.  It all comes from that fellow
Gladstone and his Majuba."

The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice,
something of real anxiety.  It was as if he had said: 'I shall
never see the old country peaceful and safe again.  I shall have to
die before I know she's won.'  And in spite of the feeling that
James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched.
Soames went up to the bedside and stroked his father's hand which
had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with
veins.

"Mark my words!" said James, "consols will go to par.  For all I
know, Val may go and enlist."

"Oh, come, James!" cried Emily, "you talk as if there were danger."

Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.

"Well," he muttered, "I told you how it would be.  I don't know,
I'm sure--nobody tells me anything.  Are you sleeping here, my boy?"

The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal
degree of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping in
the house, Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.

The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy's had
known for many a year.  On national occasions, such as this, it
was, indeed, almost impossible to avoid going there.  Not that
there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it
necessary to assure each other that there was none.

Nicholas was there early.  He had seen Soames the night before--
Soames had said it was bound to come.  This old Kruger was in his
dotage--why, he must be seventy-five if he was a day!

(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said?  He had had a fit
after Majuba.  These Boers were a grasping lot!  The dark-haired
Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the contradictious
touch which became the free spirit of a daughter of Roger, chimed
in:

"Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas.  What price the Uitlanders?" What
price, indeed!  A new expression, and believed to be due to her
brother George.

Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing.  Dear
Mrs. MacAnder's boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could
call him grasping.  At this Francie uttered one of her mots,
scandalising, and so frequently repeated:

"Well, his father's a Scotchman, and his mother's a cat."

Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as
for Nicholas, he pouted--witticism of which he was not the author
was hardly to his taste.  Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived,
followed almost immediately by young Nicholas.  On seeing his son,
Nicholas rose.

"Well, I must be going," he said, "Nick here will tell you what'll
win the race."  And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a pillar
of accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was no more
addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he departed.  Dear
Nicholas!  What race was that?  Or was it only one of his jokes?
He was a wonderful man for his age!  How many lumps would dear
Marian take?  And how were Giles and Jesse?  Aunt Juley supposed
their Yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the coast, though
of course the Boers had no ships.  But one never knew what the
French might do if they had the chance, especially since that
dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so terribly that he
had made no investments for months afterwards.  It was the
ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after everything had
been done for them--Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he was so nice,
Mrs. MacAnder had always said.  And Sir Alfred Milner sent out to
talk to them--such a clever man!  She didn't know what they wanted.

But at this moment occurred one of those sensations--so precious at
Timothy's--which great occasions sometimes bring forth:

"Miss June Forsyte."

Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from
smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at
the return of a prodigal June!  Well, this was a surprise!  Dear
June--after all these years!  And how well she was looking!  Not
changed at all!  It was almost on their lips to add, 'And how is
your dear grandfather?' forgetting in that giddy moment that poor
dear Jolyon had been in his grave for seven years now.

Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June,
with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like
flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a bead-
worked seat, for all the world as if ten years had not elapsed
since she had been to see them--ten years of travel and
independence and devotion to lame ducks.  Those ducks of late had
been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors, so that her
impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic
outlook had become intense.  Indeed, she had almost ceased to
believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a
sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort
to the roomful.  She had not expected to meet any of them but 'the
poor old things'; and why she had come to see them she hardly knew,
except that, while on her way from Oxford Street to a studio in
Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with compunction as
two long-neglected old lame ducks.

Aunt Juley broke the hush again.  "We've just been saying, dear,
how dreadful it is about these Boers!  And what an impudent thing
of that old Kruger!"

"Impudent!" said June.  "I think he's quite right.  What business
have we to meddle with them?  If he turned out all those wretched
Uitlanders it would serve them right.  They're only after money."

The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:

"What?  Are you a pro-Boer?" (undoubtedly the first use of that
expression).

"Well!  Why can't we leave them alone?" said June, just as, in the
open doorway, the maid said "Mr. Soames Forsyte."  Sensation on
sensation!  Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how
June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly
suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that old
and lamentable affair of her fiance Bosinney with Soames' wife.
They were seen to just touch each other's hands, and look each at
the other's left eye only.  Aunt Juley came at once to the rescue:

"Dear June is so original.  Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers are
not to blame."

"They only want their independence," said June; "and why shouldn't
they have it?"

"Because," answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side,
"they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty."

"Suzerainty!" repeated June scornfully; "we shouldn't like anyone's
suzerainty over us."

"They got advantages in payment," replied Soames; "a contract is a
contract."

"Contracts are not always just," fumed out June, "and when they're
not, they ought to be broken.  The Boers are much the weaker.  We
could afford to be generous."

Soames sniffed.  "That's mere sentiment," he said.

Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of
disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:

"What lovely weather it has been for the time of year?"

But June was not to be diverted.

"I don't know why sentiment should be sneered at.  It's the best
thing in the world."  She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley
had to intervene again:

"Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames?"

Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed her.
Soames flushed.  To disclose the name of his latest purchases would
be like walking into the jaws of disdain.  For somehow they all
knew of June's predilection for 'genius' not yet on its legs, and
her contempt for 'success' unless she had had a finger in securing
it.

"One or two," he muttered.

But June's face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing its
chance.  Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of Eric
Cobbley--her last lame duck?  And she promptly opened her attack:
Did Soames know his work?  It was so wonderful.  He was the coming
man.

Oh, yes, Soames knew his work.  It was in his view 'splashy,' and
would never get hold of the public.

June blazed up.

"Of course it won't; that's the last thing one would wish for.  I
thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer."

"Of course Soames is a connoisseur," Aunt Juley said hastily; "he
has wonderful taste--he can always tell beforehand what's going to
be successful."

"Oh!" gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, "I
hate that standard of success.  Why can't people buy things because
they like them?"

"You mean," said Francie, "because you like them."

And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently that
Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn't know if
they were any use.

"Well, good-bye, Auntie," said June; "I must get on," and kissing
her aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said "Good-bye"
again, and went.  A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if
everyone had sighed.

The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:

"Mr. James Forsyte."

James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat
which gave him a fictitious bulk.

Everyone stood up.  James was so old; and he had not been at
Timothy's for nearly two years.

"It's hot in here," he said.

Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help
admiring the glossy way his father was turned out.  James sat down,
all knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.

"What's the meaning of that?" he said.

Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew that
he was referring to June.  His eyes searched his son's face.

"I thought I'd come and see for myself.  What have they answered
Kruger?"

Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.

"'Instant action by our Government--state of war existing!'"

"Ah!" said James, and sighed.  "I was afraid they'd cut and run
like old Gladstone.  We shall finish with them this time."

All stared at him.  James!  Always fussy, nervous, anxious!  James
with his continual, 'I told you how it would be!' and his pessimism,
and his cautious investments.  There was something uncanny about
such resolution in this the oldest living Forsyte.

"Where's Timothy?" said James.  "He ought to pay attention to
this."

Aunt Juley said she didn't know; Timothy had not said much at lunch
to-day.  Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the room, and
Francie said rather maliciously:

"The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James."

"H'm!" muttered James.  "Where do you get your information?  Nobody
tells me."

Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest)
was now going to drill regularly.

"Ah!" muttered James, and stared before him--his thoughts were on
Val.  "He's got to look after his mother," he said, "he's got no
time for drilling and that, with that father of his."  This cryptic
saying produced silence, until he spoke again.

"What did June want here?"  And his eyes rested with suspicion on
all of them in turn.  "Her father's a rich man now."  The
conversation turned on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last.  It
was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now
that his wife was dead; his water-colours were on the line, and he
was a successful man.  Francie went so far as to say:

"I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear."

Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day,
where James was sitting.  He had always been very amiable; what did
Soames think?

Knowing that Jolyon was Irene's trustee, all felt the delicacy of
this question, and looked at Soames with interest.  A faint pink
had come up in his cheeks.

"He's going grey," he said.

Indeed!  Had Soames seen him?  Soames nodded, and the pink
vanished.

James said suddenly: "Well--I don't know, I can't tell."

It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that
there was something behind everything, that nobody responded.  But
at this moment Aunt Hester returned.

"Timothy," she said in a low voice, "Timothy has bought a map, and
he's put in--he's put in three flags."

Timothy had ....!  A sigh went round the company.

If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well!--it showed
what the nation could do when it was roused.  The war was as good
as over.




CHAPTER XIII

JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS


Jolyon stood at the window in Holly's old night nursery, converted
into a studio, not because it had a north light, but for its view
over the prospect away to the Grand Stand at Epsom.  He shifted to
the side window which overlooked the stableyard, and whistled down
to the dog Balthasar who lay for ever under the clock tower.  The
old dog looked up and wagged his tail.  'Poor old boy!'  thought
Jolyon, shifting back to the other window.

He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to prosecute
trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever acute,
disturbed in his sense of compassion which was easily excited, and
with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty had received
some definite embodiment.  Autumn was getting hold of the old
oak-tree, its leaves were browning.  Sunshine had been plentiful
and hot this summer.  As with trees, so with men's lives!  'I ought
to live long,' thought Jolyon; 'I'm getting mildewed for want of
heat.  If I can't work, I shall be off to Paris.'  But memory of
Paris gave him no pleasure.  Besides, how could he go?  He must
stay and see what Soames was going to do.  'I'm her trustee.  I
can't leave her unprotected,' he thought.  It had been striking him
as curious how very clearly he could still see Irene in her little
drawing-room which he had only twice entered.  Her beauty must have
a sort of poignant harmony!  No literal portrait would ever do her
justice; the essence of her was--ah I what?...  The noise of hoofs
called him back to the other window.  Holly was riding into the
yard on her long-tailed 'palfrey.'  She looked up and he waved to
her.  She had been rather silent lately; getting old, he supposed,
beginning to want her future, as they all did--youngsters!

Time was certainly the devil!  And with the feeling that to waste
this swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took up
his brush.  But it was no use; he could not concentrate his eye--
besides, the light was going.  'I'll go up to town,' he thought.
In the hall a servant met him.

"A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron."

Extraordinary coincidence!  Passing into the picture-gallery, as it
was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window.

She came towards him saying:

"I've been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden.
I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon."

"You couldn't trespass here," replied Jolyon; "history makes that
impossible.  I was just thinking of you."

Irene smiled.  And it was as if something shone through; not mere
spirituality--serener, completer, more alluring.

"History!" she answered; "I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was
for ever.  Well, it isn't.  Only aversion lasts."

Jolyon stared at her.  Had she got over Bosinney at last?

"Yes!" he said, "aversion's deeper than love or hate because it's a
natural product of the nerves, and we don't change them."

"I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me.  He said a
thing that frightened me.  He said: 'You are still my wife!'"

"What!" ejaculated Jolyon.  "You ought not to live alone."  And he
continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where
Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was
why so many people looked on it as immoral.

"What more?"

"He asked me to shake hands.

"Did you?"

"Yes.  When he came in I'm sure he didn't want to; he changed while
he was there."

"Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone."

"I know no woman I could ask; and I can't take a lover to order,
Cousin Jolyon."

"Heaven forbid!" said Jolyon.  "What a damnable position!  Will you
stay to dinner?  No?  Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted
to go up this evening."

"Truly?"

"Truly.  I'll be ready in five minutes."

On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music,
contrasting the English and French characters and the difference in
their attitude to Art.  But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges of
the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept pace
with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the turn of
her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him now and
then, the lure of her whole figure, made a deeper impression than
the remarks they exchanged.  Unconsciously he held himself
straighter, walked with a more elastic step.

In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what she
did with her days.

Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano,
translated from the French.

She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which
supplemented her income a little.  She seldom went out in the
evening.  "I've been living alone so long, you see, that I don't
mind it a bit.  I believe I'm naturally solitary."

"I don't believe that," said Jolyon.  "Do you know many people?"

"Very few."

At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door
of her mansions.  Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:

"You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must let
me know everything that happens.  Good-bye, Irene."

"Good-bye," she answered softly.

Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked
her to dine and go to the theatre with him.  Solitary, starved,
hung-up life that she had!  "Hotch Potch Club," he said through the
trap-door.  As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a man in
top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to the wall
that he seemed to be scraping it.

'By Jove!' thought Jolyon; 'Soames himself!  What's he up to now?'
And, stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and retraced his
steps to where he could see the entrance to the mansions.  Soames
had halted in front of them, and was looking up at the light in her
windows.  'If he goes in,' thought Jolyon, 'what shall I do?  What
have I the right to do?'  What the fellow had said was true.  She
was still his wife, absolutely without protection from annoyance!
'Well, if he goes in,' he thought, 'I follow.'  And he began moving
towards the mansions.  Again Soames advanced; he was in the very
entrance now.  But suddenly he stopped, spun round on his heel, and
came back towards the river.  'What now?' thought Jolyon.  'In a
dozen steps he'll recognise me.'  And he turned tail.  His cousin's
footsteps kept pace with his own.  But he reached his cab, and got
in before Soames had turned the corner.  "Go on!" he said through
the trap.  Soames' figure ranged up alongside.

"Hansom!" he said.  "Engaged?  Hallo!"

"Hallo!" answered Jolyon.  "You?"

The quick suspicion on his cousin's face, white in the lamplight,
decided him.

"I can give you a lift," he said, "if you're going West."

"Thanks," answered Soames, and got in.

"I've been seeing Irene," said Jolyon when the cab had started.

"Indeed!"

"You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand."


"I did," said Soames; "she's my wife, you know."

The tone, the half-lifted sneering lip, roused sudden anger in
Jolyon; but he subdued it.

"You ought to know best," he said, "but if you want a divorce it's
not very wise to go seeing her, is it?  One can't run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds?"

"You're very good to warn me," said Soames, "but I have not made up
my mind."

"She has," said Jolyon, looking straight before him; "you can't
take things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago."

"That remains to be seen."

"Look here!" said Jolyon, "she's in a damnable position, and I am
the only person with any legal say in her affairs."

"Except myself," retorted Soames, "who am also in a damnable
position.  Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made
for me.  I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan't
require her to return to me."

"What!" exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole body.

"I don't know what you may mean by 'what,'" answered Soames coldly;
"your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her income;
please bear that in mind.  In choosing not to disgrace her by a
divorce, I retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at all sure
that I shan't require to exercise them."

"My God!" ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.

"Yes," said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice.
"I've not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, 'The man of
property'!  I'm not called names for nothing."

"This is fantastic," murmured Jolyon.  Well, the fellow couldn't
force his wife to live with him.  Those days were past, anyway!
And he looked around at Soames with the thought: 'Is he real, this
man?' But Soames looked very real, sitting square yet almost
elegant with the clipped moustache on his pale face, and a tooth
showing where a lip was lifted in a fixed smile.  There was a long
silence, while Jolyon thought: 'Instead of helping her, I've made
things worse.'  Suddenly Soames said:

"It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many ways."

At those words such a turmoil began taking place in Jolyon that he
could barely sit still in the cab.  It was as if he were boxed up
with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with that
something in the national character which had always been to him
revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural and yet
which seemed to him inexplicable--their intense belief in contracts
and vested rights, their complacent sense of virtue in the exaction
of those rights.  Here beside him in the cab was the very
embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were, of the possessive
instinct--his own kinsman, too!  It was uncanny and intolerable!
'But there's something more in it than that!' he thought with a
sick feeling.  'The dog, they say, returns to his vomit!  The sight
of her has reawakened something.  Beauty!  The devil's in it!'

"As I say," said Soames, "I have not made up my mind.  I shall be
obliged if you will kindly leave her quite alone."

Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed
the thought of one now.

"I can give you no such promise," he said shortly.

"Very well," said Soames, "then we know where we are.  I'll get
down here."  And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign
of farewell.  Jolyon travelled on to his Club.

The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he
paid no attention.  What could he do to help her?  If only his
father were alive!  He could have done so much!  But why could he
not do all that his father could have done?  Was he not old
enough?--turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters
and a son.  'Queer,' he thought.  'If she were plain I shouldn't be
thinking twice about it.  Beauty is the devil, when you're sen-
sitive to it!'  And into the Club reading-room he went with a
disturbed heart.  In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one
summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and
secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of
June, the diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he had
wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him against.  And
now!  He was almost in want of a warning himself.  'It's deuced
funny!'  he thought, 'really deuced funny!'




CHAPTER XIV


SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS

It is so much easier to say, "Then we know where we are," than to
mean anything particular by the words.  And in saying them Soames
did but vent the jealous rankling of his instincts.  He got out of
the cab in a state of wary anger--with himself for not having seen
Irene, with Jolyon for having seen her; and now with his inability
to tell exactly what he wanted.

He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain seated
beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he thought: 'I
wouldn't trust that fellow Jolyon a yard.  Once outcast, always
outcast!'  The chap had a natural sympathy with--with--laxity (he
had shied at the word sin, because it was too melodramatic for use
by a Forsyte).

Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling.  He was like a child
between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken away
from him; and he was astonished at himself.  Only last Sunday
desire had seemed simple--just his freedom and Annette.  'I'll go
and dine there,' he thought.  To see her might bring back his
singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, clear his mind.

The restaurant was fairly full--a good many foreigners and folk
whom, from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic.
Scraps of conversation came his way through the clatter of plates
and glasses.  He distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the
British Government blamed.  'Don't think much of their clientele,'
he thought.  He went stolidly through his dinner and special coffee
without making his presence known, and when at last he had
finished, was careful not to be seen going towards the sanctum of
Madame Lamotte.  They were, as he entered, having supper--such a
much nicer-looking supper than the dinner he had eaten that he felt
a kind of grief--and they greeted him with a surprise so seemingly
genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion: 'I believe they knew
I was here all the time.'  He gave Annette a look furtive and
searching.  So pretty, seemingly so candid; could she be angling
for him?  He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:

"I've been dining here."

Really!  If she had only known!  There were dishes she could have
recommended; what a pity!  Soames was confirmed in his suspicion.
'I must look out what I'm doing!' he thought sharply.

"Another little cup of very special coffee, monsieur; a liqueur,
Grand Marnier?" and Madame Lamotte rose to order these delicacies.

Alone with Annette Soames said, "Well, Annette?" with a defensive
little smile about his lips.

The girl blushed.  This, which last Sunday would have set his
nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has when
a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him.  He had a curious
sense of power, as if he could have said to her, 'Come and kiss
me,' and she would have come.  And yet--it was strange--but there
seemed another face and form in the room too; and the itch in his
nerves, was it for that--or for this?  He jerked his head towards
the restaurant and said: "You have some queer customers.  Do you
like this life?"

Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played with
her fork.

"No," she said, "I do not like it."

'I've got her,' thought Soames, 'if I want her.  But do I want
her?' She was graceful, she was pretty--very pretty; she was fresh,
she had taste of a kind.  His eyes travelled round the little room;
but the eyes of his mind went another journey--a half-light, and
silvery walls, a satinwood piano, a woman standing against it,
reined back as it were from him--a woman with white shoulders that
he knew, and dark eyes that he had sought to know, and hair like
dull dark amber.  And as in an artist who strives for the
unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose in him at that
moment the thirst of the old passion he had never satisfied.

"Well," he said calmly, "you're young.  There's everything before
you."

Annette shook her head.

"I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work.  I am
not so in love with work as mother."

"Your mother is a wonder," said Soames, faintly mocking; "she will
never let failure lodge in her house."

Annette sighed.  "It must be wonderful to be rich."

"Oh!  You'll be rich some day," answered Soames, still with that
faint mockery; "don't be afraid."

Annette shrugged her shoulders.  "Monsieur is very kind."  And
between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.

'Yes, my dear,' thought Soames, 'they're very pretty.'

Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that
colloquy.  Soames did not stay long.

Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a
feeling of property improperly owned, he mused.  If only Irene had
given him a son, he wouldn't now be squirming after women!  The
thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner
consciousness.  A son--something to look forward to, something to
make the rest of life worth while, something to leave himself to,
some perpetuity of self.  'If I had a son,' he thought bitterly,
'a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used.  One
woman's much the same as another, after all.'  But as he walked he
shook his head.  No!  One woman was not the same as another.  Many
a time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted
married life; and he had always failed.  He was failing now.  He
was trying to think Annette the same as that other.  But she was
not, she had not the lure of that old passion.  'And Irene's my
wife,' he thought, 'my legal wife.  I have done nothing to put her
away from me.  Why shouldn't she come back to me?  It's the right
thing, the lawful thing.  It makes no scandal, no disturbance.  If
it's disagreeable to her--but why should it be?  I'm not a leper,
and she--she's no longer in love!'  Why should he be put to the
shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the
Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only waiting
to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally owned her?
To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry into quiet
possession of his own property with nothing given away to the world
was intensely alluring.  'No,' he mused, 'I'm glad I went to see
that girl.  I know now what I want most.  If only Irene will come
back I'll be as considerate as she wishes; she could live her own
life; but perhaps--perhaps she would come round to me.'  There was
a lump in his throat.  And doggedly along by the railings of the
Green Park, towards his father's house, he went, trying to tread on
his shadow walking before him in the brilliant moonlight.






PART II



CHAPTER I

THE THIRD GENERATION


Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a November
afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up.  Jolly had just changed out
of boating flannels and was on his way to the 'Frying-pan,' to
which he had recently been elected.  Val had just changed out of
riding clothes and was on his way to the fire--a bookmaker's in
Cornmarket.

"Hallo!" said Jolly.

"Hallo!" replied Val.

The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having
invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen
each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.

Over a tailor's in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged
young beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose
parents are dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts
are vicious.  At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers
attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single
bankruptcy is good as a feast.  Already famous for having the only
roulette table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating his
expectations at a dazzling rate.  He out-crummed Crum, though of a
sanguine and rather beefy type which lacked the latter's
fascinating languor.  For Val it had been in the nature of baptism
to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature of confirmation
to get back into college, after hours, through a window whose bars
were deceptive.  Once, during that evening of delight, glancing up
from the seductive green before him, he had caught sight, through a
cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite.  'Rouge gagne,
impair, et manque!'  He had not seen him again.

"Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea," said Jolly, and they went
in.

A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an unseizable
resemblance between these second cousins of the third generations
of Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though Jolly's eyes
were darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.

"Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please," said Jolly.

"Have one of my cigarettes?" said Val.  "I saw you last night.  How
did you do?"

"I didn't play."

"I won fifteen quid."

Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he had
once heard his father make--'When you're fleeced you're sick, and
when you fleece you're sorry--Jolly contented himself with:

"Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap.  He's an
awful fool."

"Oh! I don't know," said Val, as one might speak in defence of a
disparaged god; "he's a pretty good sport."

They exchanged whiffs in silence.

"You met my people, didn't you?" said Jolly.  "They're coming up
to-morrow."

Val grew a little red.

"Really!  I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester
November handicap."

"Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races."

"You can't make any money over them," said Val.

"I hate the ring," said Jolly; "there's such a row and stink.  I
like the paddock."

"I like to back my judgment,"' answered Val.

Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father's.

"I haven't got any.  I always lose money if I bet."

"You have to buy experience, of course."

"Yes, but it's all messed-up with doing people in the eye."

"Of course, or they'll do you--that's the excitement."

Jolly looked a little scornful.

"What do you do with yourself?  Row?"

"No--ride, and drive about.  I'm going to play polo next term, if I
can get my granddad to stump up."

"That's old Uncle James, isn't it?  What's he like?"

"Older than forty hills," said Val, "and always thinking he's going
to be ruined."

"I suppose my granddad and he were brothers."

"I don't believe any of that old lot were sportsmen," said Val;
"they must have worshipped money."

"Mine didn't!" said Jolly warmly.

Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.

"Money's only fit to spend," he said; "I wish the deuce I had
more."

Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had
inherited from old Jolyon: One didn't talk about money!  And again
there was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered buns.

"Where are your people going to stay?" asked Val, elaborately
casual.

"'Rainbow.'  What do you think of the war?"

"Rotten, so far.  The Boers aren't sports a bit.  Why don't they
come out into the open?"

"Why should they?  They've got everything against them except their
way of fighting.  I rather admire them."

"They can ride and shoot," admitted Val, "but they're a lousy lot.
Do you know Crum?"

"Of Merton?  Only by sight.  He's in that fast set too, isn't he?
Rather La-di-da and Brummagem."

Val said fixedly: "He's a friend of mine."

"Oh! Sorry!"  And they sat awkwardly staring past each other,
having pitched on their pet points of snobbery.  For Jolly was
forming himself unconsciously on a set whose motto was:

'We defy you to bore us.  Life isn't half long enough, and we're
going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and
dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine.  We are
"the best"--made of wire and whipcord.'  And Val was unconsciously
forming himself on a set whose motto was: 'We defy you to interest
or excite us.  We have had every sensation, or if we haven't, we
pretend we have.  We are so exhausted with living that no hours are
too small for us.  We will lose our shirts with equanimity.  We
have flown fast and are past everything.  All is cigarette smoke.
Bismillah!'  Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the English, was
obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals; and at the close
of a century ideals are mixed.  The aristocracy had already in the
main adopted the 'jumping-Jesus' principle; though here and there
one like Crum--who was an 'honourable'--stood starkly languid for
that gambler's Nirvana which had been the summum bonum of the old
'dandies' and of 'the mashers' in the eighties.  And round Crum
were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a
plutocratic following.

But there was between the cousins another far less obvious
antipathy--coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which
each perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that old
feud persisting still between their branches of the clan, formed
within them by odd words or half-hints dropped by their elders.
And Jolly, tinkling his teaspoon, was musing: 'His tie-pin and his
waistcoat and his drawl and his betting--good Lord!'

And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: 'He's rather a young
beast!'

"I suppose you'll be meeting your people?" he said, getting up.
"I wish you'd tell them I should like to show them over B.N.C.--not
that there's anything much there--if they'd care to come."

"Thanks, I'll ask them."

"Would they lunch?  I've got rather a decent scout."

Jolly doubted if they would have time.

"You'll ask them, though?"

"Very good of you," said Jolly, fully meaning that they should not
go; but, instinctively polite, he added: "You'd better come and
have dinner with us to-morrow."

"Rather.  What time?"

"Seven-thirty."

"Dress?"

"No."  And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.

Holly and her father arrived by a midday train.  It was her first
visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent,
looking almost shyly at the brother who was part of this wonderful
place.  After lunch she wandered, examining his household gods with
intense curiosity.  Jolly's sitting-room was panelled, and Art
represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which had belonged to old
Jolyon, and by college photographs--of young men, live young men, a
little heroic, and to be compared with her memories of Val.  Jolyon
also scrutinised with care that evidence of his boy's character and
tastes.

Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set
forth to the river.  Holly, between her brother and her father,
felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her.  That
they might see him to the best advantage they left him at the Barge
and crossed the river to the towing-path.  Slight in build--for of
all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were beefy--Jolly was
rowing 'Two' in a trial eight.  He looked very earnest and
strenuous.  With pride Jolyon thought him the best-looking boy of
the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more struck by one or two
of the others, but would not have said so for the world.  The river
was bright that afternoon, the meadows lush, the trees still
beautiful with colour.  Distinguished peace clung around the old
city; Jolyon promised himself a day's sketching if the weather
held.  The Eight passed a second time, spurting home along the
Barges--Jolly's face was very set, so as not to show that he was
blown.  They returned across the river and waited for him.

"Oh!" said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, "I had to ask that
chap Val Dartie to dine with us to-night.  He wanted to give you
lunch and show you B.N.C., so I thought I'd better; then you
needn't go.  I don't like him much."

Holly's rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.

"Why not?"

"Oh! I don't know.  He seems to me rather showy and bad form.  What
are his people like, Dad?  He's only a second cousin, isn't he?"

Jolyon took refuge in a smile.

"Ask Holly," he said; "she saw his uncle."

"I liked Val," Holly answered, staring at the ground before her;
"his uncle looked--awfully different."  She stole a glance at Jolly
from under her lashes.

"Did you ever," said Jolyon with whimsical intention, "hear our
family history, my dears?  It's quite a fairy tale.  The first
Jolyon Forsyte--at all events the first we know anything of, and
that would be your great-great-grandfather--dwelt in the land of
Dorset on the edge of the sea, being by profession an
'agriculturalist,' as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an
agriculturist--farmers, in fact; your grandfather used to call
them, 'Very small beer.'"  He looked at Jolly to see how his
lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly's
malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother's face.

"We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it
was before the Industrial Era began.  The second Jolyon Forsyte--
your great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior Dosset
Forsyte--built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten children,
and migrated to London town.  It is known that he drank sherry.  We
may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon's wars, and
general unrest.  The eldest of his six sons was the third Jolyon,
your grandfather, my dears--tea merchant and chairman of companies,
one of the soundest Englishmen who ever lived--and to me the
dearest."  Jolyon's voice had lost its irony, and his son and
daughter gazed at him solemnly, "He was just and tenacious, tender
and young at heart.  You remember him, and I remember him.  Pass to
the others!  Your great-uncle James, that's young Val's grand-
father, had a son called Soames--whereby hangs a tale of no love
lost, and I don't think I'll tell it you.  James and the other
eight children of 'Superior Dosset,' of whom there are still five
alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, with its
principles of trade and individualism at five per cent. and your
money back--if you know what that means.  At all events they've
turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million between them in
the course of their long lives.  They never did a wild thing--
unless it was your great-uncle Swithin, who I believe was once
swindled at thimble-rig, and was called 'Four-in-hand Forsyte'
because he drove a pair.  Their day is passing, and their type, not
altogether for the advantage of the country.  They were pedestrian,
but they too were sound.  I am the fourth Jolyon Forsyte--a poor
holder of the name--"

"No, Dad," said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.

"Yes," repeated Jolyon, "a poor specimen, representing, I'm afraid,
nothing but the end of the century, unearned income, amateurism,
and individual liberty--a different thing from individualism,
Jolly.  You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man, and you open the
ball of the new century."

As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly
said: "It's fascinating, Dad."

None of them quite knew what she meant.  Jolly was grave.

The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for
lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private sitting-
room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy, and alone,
when the only guest arrived.  Rather as one would touch a moth, Val
took her hand.  And wouldn't she wear this 'measly flower'?  It
would look ripping in her hair.  He removed a gardenia from his
coat.

"Oh!  No, thank you--I couldn't!"  But she took it and pinned it at
her neck, having suddenly remembered that word 'showy'!  Val's
buttonhole would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to like
him.  Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest in her
presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his attraction
for her?

"I never said anything about our ride, Val."

"Rather not!  It's just between us."

By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he was
giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling too--the
wish to make him happy.

"Do tell me about Oxford.  It must be ever so lovely."

Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;
the lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps.
"Only," he added, "of course I wish I was in town, and could come
down and see you."

Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.

"You haven't forgotten," he said, suddenly gathering courage, "that
we're going mad-rabbiting together?"

Holly smiled.

"Oh!  That was only make-believe.  One can't do that sort of thing
after one's grown up, you know."

"Dash it! cousins can," said Val.  "Next Long Vac.--it begins in
June, you know, and goes on for ever--we'll watch our chance."

But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly
shook her head.  "It won't come off," she murmured.

"Won't it!" said Val fervently; "who's going to stop it?  Not your
father or your brother."

At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into
Val's patent leather and Holly's white satin toes, where it itched
and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for open-heartedness.

Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism
between the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became un-
consciously ironical, which is fatal to the expansiveness of youth.
A letter, handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a silence
hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go.  He went out with
them, smoking his cigar, and walked with his son to the gates of
Christ Church.  Turning back, he took out the letter and read it
again beneath a lamp.


"DEAR JOLYON,

"Soames came again to-night--my thirty-seventh birthday.  You were
right, I mustn't stay here.  I'm going to-morrow to the Piedmont
Hotel, but I won't go abroad without seeing you.  I feel lonely and
down-hearted.

"Yours affectionately,

"IRENE."


He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on, astonished
at the violence of his feelings.  What had the fellow said or done?

He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of
spires and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or
darkshadowed in the strong moonlight.  In this very heart of
England's gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely woman
could be importuned or hunted, but what else could her letter mean?
Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him again, with
public opinion and the Law on his side, too!  'Eighteen-ninety-
nine!,' he thought, gazing at the broken glass shining on the top
of a villa garden wall; 'but when it comes to property we're still
a heathen people!  I'll go up to-morrow morning.  I dare say it'll
be best for her to go abroad.'  Yet the thought displeased him.
Why should Soames hunt her out of England!  Besides, he might
follow, and out there she would be still more helpless against the
attentions of her own husband!  'I must tread warily,' he thought;
'that fellow could make himself very nasty.  I didn't like his
manner in the cab the other night.'  His thoughts turned to his
daughter June.  Could she help?  Once on a time Irene had been her
greatest friend, and now she was a 'lame duck,' such as must appeal
to June's nature!  He determined to wire to his daughter to meet
him at Paddington Station.  Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow
he questioned his own sensations.  Would he be upsetting himself
over every woman in like case?  No! he would not.  The candour of
this conclusion discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had gone
up to bed, he sought his own room.  But he could not sleep, and sat
for a long time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the
moonlight on the roofs.

Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and
below Val's eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to
make Jolly like him better.  The scent of the gardenia was strong
in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.

And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was
gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing
instead Holly, slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire
when he first went in.

But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand
beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing a
race against him, while his father was calling from the towpath:
'Two!  Get your hands away there, bless you!'




CHAPTER II

SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH


Of all those radiant firms which emblazon with their windows the
West End of London, Gaves and Cortegal were considered by Soames
the most 'attractive' word just coming into fashion.  He had never
had his Uncle Swithin's taste in precious stones, and the
abandonment by Irene when she left his house in 1887 of all the
glittering things he had given her had disgusted him with this form
of investment.  But he still knew a diamond when he saw one, and
during the week before her birthday he had taken occasion, on his
way into the Poultry or his way out therefrom, to dally a little
before the greater jewellers where one got, if not one's money's
worth, at least a certain cachet with the goods.

Constant cogitation since his drive with Jolyon had convinced him
more and more of the supreme importance of this moment in his life,
the supreme need for taking steps and those not wrong.  And,
alongside the dry and reasoned sense that it was now or never with
his self-preservation, now or never if he were to range himself and
found a family, went the secret urge of his senses roused by the
sight of her who had once been a passionately desired wife, and the
conviction that it was a sin against common sense and the decent
secrecy of Forsytes to waste the wife he had.

In an opinion on Winifred's case, Dreamer, Q.C.--he would much have
preferred Waterbuck, but they had made him a judge (so late in the
day as to rouse the usual suspicion of a political job)--had
advised that they should go forward and obtain restitution of
conjugal rights, a point which to Soames had never been in doubt.
When they had obtained a decree to that effect they must wait to
see if it was obeyed.  If not, it would constitute legal desertion,
and they should obtain evidence of misconduct and file their
petition for divorce.  All of which Soames knew perfectly well.
They had marked him ten and one.  This simplicity in his sister's
case only made him the more desperate about the difficulty in his
own.  Everything, in fact, was driving him towards the simple
solution of Irene's return.  If it were still against the grain
with her, had he not feelings to subdue, injury to forgive, pain to
forget?  He at least had never injured her, and this was a world of
compromise!  He could offer her so much more than she had now.  He
would be prepared to make a liberal settlement on her which could
not be upset.  He often scrutinised his image in these days.  He
had never been a peacock like that fellow Dartie, or fancied
himself a woman's man, but he had a certain belief in his own
appearance--not unjustly, for it was well-coupled and preserved,
neat, healthy, pale, unblemished by drink or excess of any kind.
The Forsyte jaw and the concentration of his face were, in his
eyes, virtues.  So far as he could tell there was no feature of him
which need inspire dislike.

Thoughts and yearnings, with which one lives daily, become natural,
even if far-fetched in their inception.  If he could only give
tangible proof enough of his determination to let bygones be
bygones, and to do all in his power to please her, why should she
not come back to him?

He entered Gaves and Cortegal's therefore, on the morning of
November the 9th, to buy a certain diamond brooch.  "Four
twenty-five and dirt cheap, sir, at the money.  It's a lady's
brooch."  There was that in his mood which made him accept without
demur.  And he went on into the Poultry with the flat green morocco
case in his breast pocket.  Several times that day he opened it to
look at the seven soft shining stones in their velvet oval nest.

"If the lady doesn't like it, sir, happy to exchange it any time.
But there's no fear of that."  If only there were not!  He got
through a vast amount of work, only soother of the nerves he knew.
A cablegram came while he was in the office with details from the
agent in Buenos Aires, and the name and address of a stewardess who
would be prepared to swear to what was necessary.  It was a timely
spur to Soames, with his rooted distaste for the washing of dirty
linen in public.  And when he set forth by Underground to Victoria
Station he received a fresh impetus towards the renewal of his
married life from the account in his evening paper of a fashionable
divorce suit.  The homing instinct of all true Forsytes in anxiety
and trouble, the corporate tendency which kept them strong and
solid, made him choose to dine at Park Lane.  He neither could nor
would breath a word to his people of his intention--too reticent
and proud--but the thought that at least they would be glad if they
knew, and wish him luck, was heartening.

James was in lugubrious mood, for the fire which the impudence of
Kruger's ultimatum had lit in him had been cold-watered by the poor
success of the last month, and the exhortations to effort in The
Times.  He didn't know where it would end.  Soames sought to cheer
him by the continual use of the word Buller.  But James couldn't
tell!  There was Colley--and he got stuck on that hill, and this
Ladysmith was down in a hollow, and altogether it looked to him a
'pretty kettle of fish'; he thought they ought to be sending the
sailors--they were the chaps, they did a lot of good in the Crimea.
Soames shifted the ground of consolation.  Winifred had heard from
Val that there had been a 'rag' and a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day at
Oxford, and that he had escaped detection by blacking his face.

"Ah!" James muttered, "he's a clever little chap."  But he shook
his head shortly afterwards and remarked that he didn't know what
would become of him, and looking wistfully at his son, murmured on
that Soames had never had a boy.  He would have liked a grandson of
his own name.  And now--well, there it was!

Soames flinched.  He had not expected such a challenge to disclose
the secret in his heart.  And Emily, who saw him wince, said:

"Nonsense, James; don't talk like that!"

But James, not looking anyone in the face, muttered on.  There were
Roger and Nicholas and Jolyon; they all had grandsons.  And Swithin
and Timothy had never married.  He had done his best; but he would
soon be gone now.  And, as though he had uttered words of profound
consolation, he was silent, eating brains with a fork and a piece
of bread, and swallowing the bread.

Soames excused himself directly after dinner.  It was not really
cold, but he put on his fur coat, which served to fortify him
against the fits of nervous shivering to which he had been subject
all day.  Subconsciously, he knew that he looked better thus than
in an ordinary black overcoat.  Then, feeling the morocco case flat
against his heart, he sallied forth.  He was no smoker, but he lit
a cigarette, and smoked it gingerly as he walked along.  He moved
slowly down the Row towards Knightsbridge, timing himself to get to
Chelsea at nine-fifteen.  What did she do with herself evening
after evening in that little hole?  How mysterious women were!  One
lived alongside and knew nothing of them.  What could she have seen
in that fellow Bosinney to send her mad?  For there was madness
after all in what she had done--crazy moonstruck madness, in which
all sense of values had been lost, and her life and his life
ruined!  And for a moment he was filled with a sort of exaltation,
as though he were a man read of in a story who, possessed by the
Christian spirit, would restore to her all the prizes of existence,
forgiving and forgetting, and becoming  the godfather of her
future.  Under a tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the
moon-light struck down clear and white, he took out once more the
morocco case, and let the beams draw colour from those stones.
Yes, they were of the first water!  But, at the hard closing snap
of the case, another cold shiver ran through his nerves; and he
walked on faster, clenching his gloved hands in the pockets of his
coat, almost hoping she would not be in.  The thought of how
mysterious she was again beset him.  Dining alone there night after
night--in an evening dress, too, as if she were making believe to
be in society!  Playing the piano--to herself!  Not even a dog or
cat, so far as he had seen.  And that reminded him suddenly of the
mare he kept for station work at Mapledurham.  If ever he went to
the stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her
home journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if longing
to be back and lonely in her stable!  'I would treat her well,' he
thought incoherently.  'I would be very careful.'  And all that
capacity for home life of which a mocking Fate seemed for ever to
have deprived him swelled suddenly in Soames, so that he dreamed
dreams opposite South Kensington Station.  In the King's Road a man
came slithering out of a public house playing a concertina.  Soames
watched him for a moment dance crazily on the pavement to his own
drawling jagged sounds, then crossed over to avoid contact with
this piece of drunken foolery.  A night in the lock-up!  What asses
people were!  But the man had noticed his movement of avoidance,
and streams of genial blasphemy followed him across the street.
'I hope they'll run him in,' thought Soames viciously.  'To have
ruffians like that about, with women out alone!'  A woman's figure
in front had induced this thought.  Her walk seemed oddly familiar,
and when she turned the corner for which he was bound, his heart
began to beat.  He hastened on to the corner to make certain.
Yes!  It was Irene; he could not mistake her walk in that little
drab street.  She threaded two more turnings, and from the last
corner he saw her enter her block of flats.  To make sure of her
now, he ran those few paces, hurried up the stairs, and caught her
standing at her door.  He heard the latchkey in the lock, and
reached her side just as she turned round, startled, in the open
doorway.

"Don't be alarmed," he said, breathless.  "I happened to see you.
Let me come in a minute."

She had put her hand up to her breast, her face was colourless, her
eyes widened by alarm.  Then seeming to master herself, she
inclined her head, and said: "Very well."

Soames closed the door.  He, too, had need to recover, and when she
had passed into the sitting-room, waited a full minute, taking deep
breaths to still the beating of his heart.  At this moment, so
fraught with the future, to take out that morocco case seemed
crude.  Yet, not to take it out left him there before her with no
preliminary excuse for coming.  And in this dilemma he was seized
with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and
justification.  This was a scene--it could be nothing else, and he
must face it.  He heard her voice, uncomfortably, pathetically
soft:

"Why have you come again?  Didn't you understand that I would
rather you did not?"

He noticed her clothes--a dark brown velvet corduroy, a sable boa,
a small round toque of the same.  They suited her admirably.  She
had money to spare for dress, evidently!  He said abruptly:

"It's your birthday.  I brought you this," and he held out to her
the green morocco case.

"Oh!  No-no!"

Soames pressed the clasp; the seven stones gleamed out on the pale
grey velvet.

"Why not?" he said.  "Just as a sign that you don't bear me ill-
feeling any longer."

"I couldn't."

Soames took it out of the case.

"Let me just see how it looks."

She shrank back.

He followed, thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the
front of her dress.  She shrank again.

Soames dropped his hand.

"Irene," he said, "let bygones be bygones.  If I can, surely you
might.  Let's begin again, as if nothing had been.  Won't you?"
His voice was wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in
them a sort of supplication.

She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall,
gave a little gulp, and that was all her answer.  Soames went on:

"Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this little
hole?  Come back to me, and I'll give you all you want.  You shall
live your own life; I swear it."

He saw her face quiver ironically.

"Yes," he repeated, "but I mean it this time.  I'll only ask one
thing.  I just want--I just want a son.  Don't look like that!  I
want one.  It's hard."  His voice had grown hurried, so that he
hardly knew it for his own, and twice he jerked his head back as if
struggling for breath.  It was the sight of her eyes fixed on him,
dark with a sort of fascinated fright, which pulled him together
and changed that painful incoherence to anger.

"Is it so very unnatural?" he said between his teeth, "Is it
unnatural to want a child from one's own wife?  You wrecked our
life and put this blight on everything.  We go on only half alive,
and without any future.  Is it so very unflattering to you that in
spite of everything I--I still want you for my wife?  Speak, for
Goodness' sake! do speak."

Irene seemed to try, but did not succeed.

"I don't want to frighten you," said Soames more gently.  "Heaven
knows.  I only want you to see that I can't go on like this.  I
want you back.  I want you."

Irene raised one hand and covered the lower part of her face, but
her eyes never moved from his, as though she trusted in them to
keep him at bay.  And all those years, barren and bitter, since--
ah! when?--almost since he had first known her, surged up in one
great wave of recollection in Soames; and a spasm that for his life
he could not control constricted his face.

"It's not too late," he said; "it's not--if you'll only believe
it."

Irene uncovered her lips, and both her hands made a writhing
gesture in front of her breast.  Soames seized them.

"Don't!" she said under her breath.  But he stood holding on to
them, trying to stare into her eyes which did not waver.  Then she
said quietly:

"I am alone here.  You won't behave again as you once behaved."

Dropping her hands as though they had been hot irons, he turned
away.  Was it possible that there could be such relentless
unforgiveness!  Could that one act of violent possession be still
alive within her?  Did it bar him thus utterly?  And doggedly he
said, without looking up:

"I am not going till you've answered me.  I am offering what few
men would bring themselves to offer, I want a--a reasonable
answer."

And almost with surprise he heard her say:

"You can't have a reasonable answer.  Reason has nothing to do with
it.  You can only have the brutal truth: I would rather die."

Soames stared at her.

"Oh!" he said.  And there intervened in him a sort of paralysis of
speech and movement, the kind of quivering which comes when a man
has received a deadly insult, and does not yet know how he is going
to take it, or rather what it is going to do with him.

"Oh!" he said again, "as bad as that?  Indeed!  You would rather
die.  That's pretty!"

"I am sorry.  You wanted me to answer.  I can't help the truth, can
I?"

At that queer spiritual appeal Soames turned for relief to
actuality.  He snapped the brooch back into its case and put it in
his pocket.

"The truth!" he said; "there's no such thing with women.  It's
nerves--nerves."

He heard the whisper:

"Yes; nerves don't lie.  Haven't you discovered that?" He was
silent, obsessed by the thought: 'I will hate this woman.  I will
hate her.'  That was the trouble!  If only he could!  He shot a
glance at her who stood unmoving against the wall with her head up
and her hands clasped, for all the world as if she were going to be
shot.  And he said quickly:

"I don't believe a word of it.  You have a lover.  If you hadn't,
you wouldn't be such a--such a little idiot."  He was conscious,
before the expression in her eyes, that he had uttered something of
a non-sequitur, and dropped back too abruptly into the verbal
freedom of his connubial days.  He turned away to the door.  But he
could not go out.  Something within him--that most deep and secret
Forsyte quality, the impossibility of letting go, the impossibility
of seeing the fantastic and forlorn nature of his own tenacity--
prevented him.  He turned about again, and there stood, with his
back against the door, as hers was against the wall opposite, quite
unconscious of anything ridiculous in this separation by the whole
width of the room.

"Do you ever think of anybody but yourself?" he said.

Irene's lips quivered; then she answered slowly:

"Do you ever think that I found out my mistake--my hopeless,
terrible mistake--the very first week of our marriage; that I went
on trying three years--you know I went on trying?  Was it for
myself?"

Soames gritted his teeth.  "God knows what it was.  I've never
understood you; I shall never understand you.  You had everything
you wanted; and you can have it again, and more.  What's the matter
with me?  I ask you a plain question: What is it?"  Unconscious of
the pathos in that enquiry, he went on passionately: "I'm not lame,
I'm not loathsome, I'm not a boor, I'm not a fool.  What is it?
What's the mystery about me?"

Her answer was a long sigh.

He clasped his hands with a gesture that for him was strangely full
of expression.  "When I came here to-night I was--I hoped--I meant
everything that I could to do away with the past, and start fair
again.  And you meet me with 'nerves,' and silence, and sighs.
There's nothing tangible.  It's like--it's like a spider's web."

"Yes."

That whisper from across the room maddened Soames afresh.

"Well, I don't choose to be in a spider's web.  I'll cut it."  He
walked straight up to her.  "Now!"  What he had gone up to her to
do he really did not know.  But when he was close, the old familiar
scent of her clothes suddenly affected him.  He put his hands on
her shoulders and bent forward to kiss her.  He kissed not her
lips, but a little hard line where the lips had been drawn in; then
his face was pressed away by her hands; he heard her say: "Oh!
No!"  Shame, compunction, sense of futility flooded his whole
being, he turned on his heel and went straight out.




CHAPTER III

VISIT TO IRENE


Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at Paddington.  She had
received his telegram while at breakfast.  Her abode--a studio and
two bedrooms in a St. John's Wood garden--had been selected by her
for the complete independence which it guaranteed.  Unwatched by
Mrs. Grundy, unhindered by permanent domestics, she could receive
lame ducks at any hour of day or night, and not seldom had a duck
without studio of its own made use of June's.  She enjoyed her
freedom, and possessed herself with a sort of virginal passion; the
warmth which she would have lavished on Bosinney, and of which--
given her Forsyte tenacity--he must surely have tired, she now
expended in championship of the underdogs and budding 'geniuses' of
the artistic world.  She lived, in fact, to turn ducks into the
swans she believed they were.  The very fervour of her protection
warped her judgments.  But she was loyal and liberal; her small
eager hand was ever against the oppressions of academic and
commercial opinion, and though her income was considerable, her
bank balance was often a minus quantity.

She had come to Paddington Station heated in her soul by a visit to
Eric Cobbley.  A miserable Gallery had refused to let that
straight-haired genius have his one-man show after all.  Its
impudent manager, after visiting his studio, had expressed the
opinion that it would only be a 'one-horse show from the selling
point of view.'  This crowning example of commercial cowardice
towards her favourite lame duck--and he so hard up, with a wife and
two children, that he had caused her account to be overdrawn--was
still making the blood glow in her small, resolute face, and her
red-gold hair to shine more than ever.  She gave her father a hug,
and got into a cab with him, having as many fish to fry with him as
he with her.  It became at once a question which would fry them
first.

Jolyon had reached the words: "My dear, I want you to come with
me," when, glancing at her face, he perceived by her blue eyes
moving from side to side--like the tail of a preoccupied cat--that
she was not attending.  "Dad, is it true that I absolutely can't
get at any of my money?"

"Only the income, fortunately, my love."

"How perfectly beastly!  Can't it be done somehow?  There must be a
way.  I know I could buy a small Gallery for ten thousand pounds."

"A small Gallery," murmured Jolyon, "seems a modest desire.  But
your grandfather foresaw it."

"I think," cried June vigorously, "that all this care about money
is awful, when there's so much genius in the world simply crushed
out for want of a little.  I shall never marry and have children;
why shouldn't I be able to do some good instead of having it all
tied up in case of things which will never come off?"

"Our name is Forsyte, my dear," replied Jolyon in the ironical
voice to which his impetuous daughter had never quite grown
accustomed; "and Forsytes, you know, are people who so settle their
property that their grandchildren, in case they should die before
their parents, have to make wills leaving the property that will
only come to themselves when their parents die.  Do you follow
that?  Nor do I, but it's a fact, anyway; we live by the principle
that so long as there is a possibility of keeping wealth in the
family it must not go out; if you die unmarried, your money goes to
Jolly and Holly and their children if they marry.  Isn't it
pleasant to know that whatever you do you can none of you be
destitute?"

"But can't I borrow the money?"

Jolyon shook his head.  "You could rent a Gallery, no doubt, if you
could manage it out of your income."

June uttered a contemptuous sound.

"Yes; and have no income left to help anybody with."

"My dear child," murmured Jolyon, "wouldn't it come to the same
thing?"

"No," said June shrewdly, "I could buy for ten thousand; that would
only be four hundred a year.  But I should have to pay a thousand a
year rent, and that would only leave me five hundred.  If I had the
Gallery, Dad, think what I could do.  I could make Eric Cobbley's
name in no time, and ever so many others."

"Names worth making make themselves in time."

"When they're dead."

"Did you ever know anybody living, my dear, improved by having his
name made?"

"Yes, you," said June, pressing his arm.

Jolyon started.  'I?' he thought.  'Oh!  Ah!  Now she's going to
ask me to do something.  We take it out, we Forsytes, each in our
different ways.'

June came closer to him in the cab.

"Darling," she said, "you buy the Gallery, and I'll pay you four
hundred a year for it.  Then neither of us will be any the worse
off.  Besides, it's a splendid investment."

Jolyon wriggled.  "Don't you think," he said, "that for an artist
to buy a Gallery is a bit dubious?  Besides, ten thousand pounds is
a lump, and I'm not a commercial character."

June looked at him with admiring appraisement.

"Of course you're not, but you're awfully businesslike.  And I'm
sure we could make it pay.  It'll be a perfect way of scoring off
those wretched dealers and people."  And again she squeezed her
father's arm.

Jolyon's face expressed quizzical despair.

"Where is this desirable Gallery?  Splendidly situated, I suppose?"

"Just off Cork Street."

'Ah!'  thought Jolyon, 'I knew it was just off somewhere.  Now for
what I want out of her!'

"Well, I'll think of it, but not just now.  You remember Irene?  I
want you to come with me and see her.  Soames is after her again.
She might be safer if we could give her asylum somewhere."

The word asylum, which he had used by chance, was of all most
calculated to rouse June's interest.

"Irene!  I haven't seen her since!  Of course!  I'd love to help
her."

It was Jolyon's turn to squeeze her arm, in warm admiration for
this spirited, generous-hearted little creature of his begetting.

"Irene is proud," he said, with a sidelong glance, in sudden doubt
of June's discretion; "she's difficult to help.  We must tread
gently.  This is the place.  I wired her to expect us.  Let's send
up our cards."

"I can't bear Soames," said June as she got out; "he sneers at
everything that isn't successful"

Irene was in what was called the 'Ladies' drawing-room' of the
Piedmont Hotel.

Nothing if not morally courageous, June walked straight up to her
former friend, kissed her cheek, and the two settled down on a sofa
never sat on since the hotel's foundation.  Jolyon could see that
Irene was deeply affected by this simple forgiveness.

"So Soames has been worrying you?" he said.

"I had a visit from him last night; he wants me to go back to him."

"You're not going, of course?" cried June.

Irene smiled faintly and shook her head.  "But his position is
horrible," she murmured.

"It's his own fault; he ought to have divorced you when he could."

Jolyon remembered how fervently in the old days June had hoped
that no divorce would smirch her dead and faithless lover's name.

"Let us hear what Irene is going to do," he said.

Irene's lips quivered, but she spoke calmly.

"I'd better give him fresh excuse to get rid of me."

"How horrible!"  cried June.

"What else can I do?"

"Out of the question," said Jolyon very quietly, "sans amour."

He thought she was going to cry; but, getting up quickly, she half
turned her back on them, and stood regaining control of herself.

June said suddenly:

"Well, I shall go to Soames and tell him he must leave you alone.
What does he want at his age?"

"A child.  It's not unnatural"

"A child!" cried June scornfully.  "Of course!  To leave his money
to.  If he wants one badly enough let him take somebody and have
one; then you can divorce him, and he can marry her."

Jolyon perceived suddenly that he had made a mistake to bring June-
-her violent partizanship was fighting Soames' battle.

"It would be best for Irene to come quietly to us at Robin Hill,
and see how things shape."

"Of course," said June; "only...."

Irene looked full at Jolyon--in all his many attempts afterwards to
analyze that glance he never could succeed.

"No!  I should only bring trouble on you all.  I will go abroad."

He knew from her voice that this was final.  The irrelevant thought
flashed through him: 'Well, I could see her there.'  But he said:

"Don't you think you would be more helpless abroad, in case he
followed?"

"I don't know.  I can but try."

June sprang up and paced the room.  "It's all horrible," she said.
"Why should people be tortured and kept miserable and helpless year
after year by this disgusting sanctimonious law?"  But someone had
come into the room, and June came to a standstill.  Jolyon went up
to Irene:

"Do you want money?"

"No."

"And would you like me to let your flat?"

"Yes, Jolyon, please."

"When shall you be going?"

"To-morrow."

"You won't go back there in the meantime, will you?"  This he said
with an anxiety strange to himself.

"No; I've got all I want here."

"You'll send me your address?"

She put out her hand to him.  "I feel you're a rock."

"Built on sand," answered Jolyon, pressing her hand hard; "but it's
a pleasure to do anything, at any time, remember that.  And if you
change your mind....!  Come along, June; say good-bye."

June came from the window and flung her arms round Irene.

"Don't think of him," she said under her breath; "enjoy yourself,
and bless you!"

With a memory of tears in Irene's eyes, and of a smile on her lips,
they went away extremely silent, passing the lady who had
interrupted the interview and was turning over the papers on the
table.

Opposite the National Gallery June exclaimed:

"Of all undignified beasts and horrible laws!"

But Jolyon did not respond.  He had something of his father's
balance, and could see things impartially even when his emotions
were roused.  Irene was right; Soames' position was as bad or worse
than her own.  As for the law--it catered for a human nature of
which it took a naturally low view.  And, feeling that if he stayed
in his daughter's company he would in one way or another commit an
indiscretion, he told her he must catch his train back to Oxford;
and hailing a cab, left her to Turner's water-colours, with the
promise that he would think over that Gallery.

But he thought over Irene instead.  Pity, they said, was akin to
love!  If so he was certainly in danger of loving her, for he
pitied her profoundly.  To think of her drifting about Europe so
handicapped and lonely!  'I hope to goodness she'll keep her head!'
he thought; 'she might easily grow desperate.'  In fact, now that
she had cut loose from her poor threads of occupation, he couldn't
imagine how she would go on--so beautiful a creature, hopeless, and
fair game for anyone!  In his exasperation was more than a little
fear and jealousy.  Women did strange things when they were driven
into corners.  'I wonder what Soames will do now!'  he thought.  'A
rotten, idiotic state of things!  And I suppose they would say it
was her own fault.'  Very preoccupied and sore at heart, he got
into his train, mislaid his ticket, and on the platform at Oxford
took his hat off to a lady whose face he seemed to remember without
being able to put a name to her, not even when he saw her having
tea at the Rainbow.




CHAPTER IV

WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD


Quivering from the defeat of his hopes, with the green morocco case
still flat against his heart, Soames revolved thoughts bitter as
death.  A spider's web!  Walking fast, and noting nothing in the
moonlight, he brooded over the scene he had been through, over the
memory of her figure rigid in his grasp.  And the more he brooded,
the more certain he became that she had a lover--her words, 'I
would sooner die!' were ridiculous if she had not.  Even if she had
never loved him, she had made no fuss until Bosinney came on the
scene.  No; she was in love again, or she would not have made that
melodramatic answer to his proposal, which in all the circumstances
was reasonable!  Very well!  That simplified matters.

'I'll take steps to know where I am,' he thought; 'I'll go to
Polteed's the first thing tomorrow morning.'

But even in forming that resolution he knew he would have trouble
with himself.  He had employed Polteed's agency several times in
the routine of his profession, even quite lately over Dartie's
case, but he had never thought it possible to employ them to watch
his own wife.

It was too insulting to himself!

He slept over that project and his wounded pride--or rather, kept
vigil.  Only while shaving did he suddenly remember that she called
herself by her maiden name of Heron.  Polteed would not know, at
first at all events, whose wife she was, would not look at him
obsequiously and leer behind his back.  She would just be the wife
of one of his clients.  And that would be true--for was he not his
own solicitor?

He was literally afraid not to put his design into execution at the
first possible moment, lest, after all, he might fail himself.  And
making Warmson bring him an early cup of coffee; he stole out of
the house before the hour of breakfast.  He walked rapidly to one
of those small West End streets where Polteed's and other firms
ministered to the virtues of the wealthier classes.  Hitherto he
had always had Polteed to see him in the Poultry; but he well knew
their address, and reached it at the opening hour.  In the outer
office, a room furnished so cosily that it might have been a
money-lender's, he was attended by a lady who might have been a
schoolmistress.

"I wish to see Mr. Claud Polteed.  He knows me--never mind my
name."

To keep everybody from knowing that he, Soames Forsyte, was reduced
to having his wife spied on, was the overpowering consideration.

Mr. Claud Polteed--so different from Mr. Lewis Polteed--was one of
those men with dark hair, slightly curved noses, and quick brown
eyes, who might be taken for Jews but are really Phoenicians; he
received Soames in a room hushed by thickness of carpet and
curtains.  It was, in fact, confidentially furnished, without trace
of document anywhere to be seen.

Greeting Soames deferentially, he turned the key in the only door
with a certain ostentation.

"If a client sends for me," he was in the habit of saying, "he
takes what precaution he likes.  If he comes here, we convince him
that we have no leakages.  I may safely say we lead in security, if
in nothing else....Now, sir, what can I do for you?"

Soames' gorge had risen so that he could hardly speak.  It was
absolutely necessary to hide from this man that he had any but
professional interest in the matter; and, mechanically, his face
assumed its sideway smile.

"I've come to you early like this because there's not an hour to
lose"--if he lost an hour he might fail himself yet!  "Have you a
really trustworthy woman free?"

Mr. Polteed unlocked a drawer, produced a memorandum, ran his eyes
over it, and locked the drawer up again.

"Yes," he said; "the very woman."

Soames had seated himself and crossed his legs--nothing but a faint
flush, which might have been his normal complexion, betrayed him.

"Send her off at once, then, to watch a Mrs. Irene Heron of Flat C,
Truro Mansions, Chelsea, till further notice."

"Precisely," said Mr. Polteed; "divorce, I presume?" and he blew
into a speaking-tube.  "Mrs. Blanch in?  I shall want to speak to
her in ten minutes."

"Deal with any reports yourself," resumed Soames, "and send them to
me personally, marked confidential, sealed and registered.  My
client exacts the utmost secrecy."

Mr. Polteed smiled, as though saying, 'You are teaching your
grandmother, my dear sir;' and his eyes slid over Soames' face for
one unprofessional instant.

"Make his mind perfectly easy," he said.  "Do you smoke?"

"No," said Soames.  "Understand me: Nothing may come of this.  If a
name gets out, or the watching is suspected, it may have very
serious consequences."

Mr. Polteed nodded.  "I can put it into the cipher category.  Under
that system a name is never mentioned; we work by numbers."

He unlocked another drawer and took out two slips of paper, wrote
on them, and handed one to Soames.

"Keep that, sir; it's your key.  I retain this duplicate.  The case
we'll call 7x.  The party watched will be 17; the watcher 19; the
Mansions 25; yourself--I should say, your firm--31; my firm 32,
myself 2.  In case you should have to mention your client in
writing I have called him 43; any person we suspect will be 47;
a second person 51.  Any special hint or instruction while we're
about it?"

"No," said Soames; "that is--every consideration compatible."

Again Mr. Polteed nodded.  "Expense?"

Soames shrugged.  "In reason," he answered curtly, and got up.
"Keep it entirely in your own hands."

"Entirely," said Mr. Polteed, appearing suddenly between him and
the door.  "I shall be seeing you in that other case before long.
Good morning, sir."  His eyes slid unprofessionally over Soames
once more, and he unlocked the door.

"Good morning," said Soames, looking neither to right nor left.

Out in the street he swore deeply, quietly, to himself.  A spider's
web, and to cut it he must use this spidery, secret, unclean
method, so utterly repugnant to one who regarded his private life
as his most sacred piece of property.  But the die was cast, he
could not go back.  And he went on into the Poultry, and locked
away the green morocco case and the key to that cipher destined to
make crystal-clear his domestic bankruptcy.

Odd that one whose life was spent in bringing to the public eye all
the private coils of property, the domestic disagreements of
others, should dread so utterly the public eye turned on his own;
and yet not odd, for who should know so well as he the whole
unfeeling process of legal regulation.

He worked hard all day.  Winifred was due at four o'clock; he was
to take her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C.,
and waiting for her he re-read the letter he  had caused her to
write the day of Dartie's departure, requiring him to return.


"DEAR MONTAGUE,

"I have received your letter with the news that you have left me
for ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires.  It has naturally
been a great shock.  I am taking this earliest opportunity of
writing to tell you that I am prepared to let bygones be bygones if
you will return to me at once.  I beg you to do so.  I am very much
upset, and will not say any more now.  I am sending this letter
registered to the address you left at your Club.  Please cable to
me.

"Your still affectionate wife,

"WINIFRED DARTIE."


Ugh!  What bitter humbug!  He remembered leaning over Winifred
while she copied what he had pencilled, and how she had said,
laying down her pen, "Suppose he comes, Soames!"  in such a strange
tone of voice, as if she did not know her own mind.  "He won't
come," he had answered, "till he's spent his money.  That's why we
must act at once."  Annexed to the copy of that letter was the
original of Dartie's drunken scrawl from the Iseeum Club.  Soames
could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in liquor.
Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on.  He seemed to hear
the Judge's voice say: "You took this seriously!  Seriously enough
to write him as you did?  Do you think he meant it?"  Never mind!
The fact was clear that Dartie had sailed and had not returned.
Annexed also was his cabled answer: "Impossible return.  Dartie."
Soames shook his head.  If the whole thing were not disposed of
within the next few months the fellow would turn up again like a
bad penny.  It saved a thousand a year at least to get rid of him,
besides all the worry to Winifred and his father.  'I must stiffen
Dreamer's back,' he thought; 'we must push it on.'

Winifred, who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became her
fair hair and tall figure very well, arrived in James' barouche
drawn by James' pair.  Soames had not seen it in the City since his
father retired from business five years ago, and its incongruity
gave him a shock.  'Times are changing,' he thought; 'one doesn't
know what'll go next!'  Top hats even were scarcer.  He enquired
after Val.  Val, said Winifred, wrote that he was going to play
polo next term.  She thought he was in a very good set.  She added
with fashionably disguised anxiety: "Will there be much publicity
about my affair, Soames?  Must it be in the papers?  It's so bad
for him, and the girls."

With his own calamity all raw within him, Soames answered:

"The papers are a pushing lot; it's very difficult to keep things
out.  They pretend to be guarding the public's morals, and they
corrupt them with their beastly reports.  But we haven't got to
that yet.  We're only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution
question.  Of course he understands that it's to lead to a divorce;
but you must seem genuinely anxious to get Dartie back--you might
practice that attitude to-day."

Winifred sighed.

"Oh!  What a clown Monty's been!"  she said.

Soames gave her a sharp look.  It was clear to him that she could
not take her Dartie seriously, and would go back on the whole thing
if given half a chance.  His own instinct had been firm in this
matter from the first.  To save a little scandal now would only
bring on his sister and her children real disgrace and perhaps ruin
later on if Dartie were allowed to hang on to them, going down-hill
and spending the money James would leave his daughter.  Though it
was all tied up, that fellow would milk the settlements somehow,
and make his family pay through the nose to keep him out of
bankruptcy or even perhaps gaol!  They left the shining carriage,
with the shining horses and the shining-hatted servants on the
Embankment, and walked up to Dreamer Q.C.'s Chambers in Crown
Office Row.

"Mr. Bellby is here, sir," said the clerk; "Mr. Dreamer will be ten
minutes."

Mr. Bellby, the junior--not as junior as he might have been, for
Soames only employed barristers of established reputation; it was,
indeed, something of a mystery to him how barristers ever managed
to establish that which made him employ them--Mr. Bellby was
seated, taking a final glance through his papers.  He had come from
Court, and was in wig and gown, which suited a nose jutting out
like the handle of a tiny pump, his small shrewd blue eyes, and
rather protruding lower lip--no better man to supplement and
stiffen Dreamer.

The introduction to Winifred accomplished, they leaped the weather
and spoke of the war.  Soames interrupted suddenly:

"If he doesn't comply we can't bring proceedings for six months.  I
want to get on with the matter, Bellby."

Mr. Bellby, who had the ghost of an Irish brogue, smiled at
Winifred and murmured: "The Law's delays, Mrs. Dartie."

"Six months!" repeated Soames; "it'll drive it up to June!  We
shan't get the suit on till after the long vacation.  We must put
the screw on, Bellby"--he would have all his work cut out to keep
Winifred up to the scratch.

"Mr. Dreamer will see you now, sir."

They filed in, Mr. Bellby going first, and Soames escorting
Winifred after an interval of one minute by his watch.

Dreamer Q.C., in a gown but divested of wig, was standing before
the fire, as if this conference were in the nature of a treat; he
had the leathery, rather oily complexion which goes with great
learning, a considerable nose with glasses perched on it, and
little greyish whiskers; he luxuriated in the perpetual cocking of
one eye, and the concealment of his lower with his upper lip, which
gave a smothered turn to his speech.  He had a way, too, of coming
suddenly round the corner on the person he was talking to; this,
with a disconcerting tone of voice, and a habit of growling before
he began to speak--had secured a reputation second in Probate and
Divorce to very few.  Having listened, eye cocked, to Mr. Bellby's
breezy recapitulation of the facts, he growled, and said:

"I know all that;" and coming round the corner at Winifred,
smothered the words:

"We want to get him back, don't we, Mrs. Dartie?"

Soames interposed sharply:

"My sister's position, of course, is intolerable."

Dreamer growled.  "Exactly.  Now, can we rely on the cabled
refusal, or must we wait till after Christmas to give him a chance
to have written--that's the point, isn't it?"

"The sooner...."  Soames began.

"What do you say, Bellby?" said Dreamer, coming round his corner.

Mr. Bellby seemed to sniff the air like a hound.

"We won't be on till the middle of December.  We've no need to give
um more rope than that."

"No," said Soames, "why should my sister be incommoded by his
choosing to go..."

"To Jericho!" said Dreamer, again coming round his corner; "quite
so.  People oughtn't to go to Jericho, ought they, Mrs. Dartie?"
And he raised his gown into a sort of fantail.  "I agree.  We can
go forward.  Is there anything more?"

"Nothing at present," said Soames meaningly; "I wanted you to see
my sister."

Dreamer growled softly: "Delighted.  Good evening!"  And let fall
the protection of his gown.

They filed out.  Winifred went down the stairs.  Soames lingered.
In spite of himself he was impressed by Dreamer.

"The evidence is all right, I think," he said to Bellby.  "Between
ourselves, if we don't get the thing through quick, we never may.
D'you think he understands that?"

"I'll make um," said Bellby.  "Good man though--good man."

Soames nodded and hastened after his sister.  He found her in a
draught, biting her lips behind her veil, and at once said:

"The evidence of the stewardess will be very complete."

Winifred's face hardened; she drew herself up, and they walked to
the carriage.  And, all through that silent drive back to Green
Street, the souls of both of them revolved a single thought: 'Why,
oh! why should I have to expose my misfortune to the public like
this?  Why have to employ spies to peer into my private troubles?
They were not of my making.'




CHAPTER V

JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT


The possessive instinct, which, so determinedly balked, was
animating two members of the Forsyte family towards riddance of
what they could no longer possess, was hardening daily in the
British body politic.  Nicholas, originally so doubtful concerning
a war which must affect property, had been heard to say that these
Boers were a pig-headed lot; they were causing a lot of expense,
and the sooner they had their lesson the better.  He would send out
Wolseley!  Seeing always a little further than other people--whence
the most considerable fortune of all the Forsytes--he had perceived
already that Buller was not the man--'a bull of a chap, who just
went butting, and if they didn't look out Ladysmith would fall.'
This was early in December, so that when Black Week came, he was
enabled to say to everybody: 'I told you so.'  During that week of
gloom such as no Forsyte could remember, very young Nicholas
attended so many drills in his corps, 'The Devil's Own,' that young
Nicholas consulted the family physician about his son's health and
was alarmed to find that he was perfectly sound.  The boy had only
just eaten his dinners and been called to the bar, at some expense,
and it was in a way a nightmare to his father and mother that he
should be playing with military efficiency at a time when military
efficiency in the civilian population might conceivably be wanted.
His grandfather, of course, pooh-poohed the notion, too thoroughly
educated in the feeling that no British war could be other than
little and professional, and profoundly distrustful of Imperial
commitments, by which, moreover, he stood to lose, for he owned De
Beers, now going down fast, more than a sufficient sacrifice on the
part of his grandson.

At Oxford, however, rather different sentiments prevailed.  The
inherent effervescence of conglomerate youth had, during the two
months of the term before Black Week, been gradually crystallising
out into vivid oppositions.  Normal adolescence, ever in England of
a conservative tendency though not taking things too seriously, was
vehement for a fight to a finish and a good licking for the Boers.
Of this larger faction Val Dartie was naturally a member.  Radical
youth, on the other hand, a small but perhaps more vocal body, was
for stopping the war and giving the Boers autonomy.  Until Black
Week, however, the groups were amorphous, without sharp edges, and
argument remained but academic.  Jolly was one of those who knew
not where he stood.  A streak of his grandfather old Jolyon's love
of justice prevented, him from seeing one side only.  Moreover, in
his set of 'the best' there was a 'jumping-Jesus' of extremely
advanced opinions and some personal magnetism.  Jolly wavered.  His
father, too, seemed doubtful in his views.  And though, as was
proper at the age of twenty, he kept a sharp eye on his father,
watchful for defects which might still be remedied, still that
father had an 'air' which gave a sort of glamour to his creed of
ironic tolerance.  Artists of course; were notoriously Hamlet-like,
and to this extent one must discount for one's father, even if one
loved him.  But Jolyon's original view, that to 'put your nose in
where you aren't wanted' (as the Uitlanders had done) 'and then
work the oracle till you get on top is not being quite the clean
potato,' had, whether founded in fact or no, a certain attraction
for his son, who thought a deal about gentility.  On the other hand
Jolly could not abide such as his set called 'cranks,' and Val's
set called 'smugs,' so that he was still balancing when the clock
of Black Week struck.  One--two--three, came those ominous repulses
at Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso.  The sturdy English soul
reacting after the first cried, 'Ah! but Methuen!' after the
second: 'Ah! but Buller!' then, in inspissated gloom, hardened.
And Jolly said to himself: 'No, damn it!  We've got to lick the
beggars now; I don't care whether we're right or wrong.'  And, if
he had known it, his father was thinking the same thought.

That next Sunday, last of the term, Jolly was bidden to wine with
'one of the best.'  After the second toast, 'Buller and damnation
to the Boers,' drunk--no heel taps--in the college Burgundy, he
noticed that Val Dartie, also a guest, was looking at him with a
grin and saying something to his neighbour.  He was sure it was
disparaging.  The last boy in the world to make himself conspicuous
or cause public disturbance, Jolly grew rather red and shut his
lips.  The queer hostility he had always felt towards his second-
cousin was strongly and suddenly reinforced.  'All right!'  he
thought, 'you wait, my friend!'  More wine than was good for him,
as the custom was, helped him to remember, when they all trooped
forth to a secluded spot, to touch Val on the arm.

"What did you say about me in there?"

"Mayn't I say what I like?"

"No."

"Well, I said you were a pro-Boer--and so you are!"

"You're a liar!"

"D'you want a row?"

"Of course, but not here; in the garden."

"All right.  Come on."

They went, eyeing each other askance, unsteady, and unflinching;
they climbed the garden railings.  The spikes on the top slightly
ripped Val's sleeve, and occupied his mind.  Jolly's mind was
occupied by the thought that they were going to fight in the
precincts of a college foreign to them both.  It was not the thing,
but never mind--the young beast!

They passed over the grass into very nearly darkness, and took off
their coats.

"You're not screwed, are you?" said Jolly suddenly.  "I can't fight
you if you're screwed."

"No more than you."

"All right then."

Without shaking hands, they put themselves at once into postures of
defence.  They had drunk too much for science, and so were
especially careful to assume correct attitudes, until Jolly smote
Val almost accidentally on the nose.  After that it was all a dark
and ugly scrimmage in the deep shadow of the old trees, with no one
to call 'time,' till, battered and blown, they unclinched and
staggered back from each other, as a voice said:

"Your names, young gentlemen?"

At this bland query spoken from under the lamp at the garden gate,
like some demand of a god, their nerves gave way, and snatching up
their coats, they ran at the railings, shinned up them, and made
for the secluded spot whence they had issued to the fight.  Here,
in dim light, they mopped their faces, and without a word walked,
ten paces apart, to the college gate.  They went out silently, Val
going towards the Broad along the Brewery, Jolly down the lane
towards the High.  His head, still fumed, was busy with regret that
he had not displayed more science, passing in review the counters
and knockout blows which he had not delivered.  His mind strayed on
to an imagined combat, infinitely unlike that which he had just
been through, infinitely gallant, with sash and sword, with thrust
and parry, as if he were in the pages of his beloved Dumas.  He
fancied himself La Mole, and Aramis, Bussy, Chicot, and D'Artagnan
rolled into one, but he quite failed to envisage Val as Coconnas,
Brissac, or Rochefort.  The fellow was just a confounded cousin who
didn't come up to Cocker.  Never mind!  He had given him one or
two.  'Pro-Boer!'  The word still rankled, and thoughts of en-
listing jostled his aching head; of riding over the veldt, firing
gallantly, while the Boers rolled over like rabbits.  And, turning
up his smarting eyes, he saw the stars shining between the house-
tops of the High, and himself lying out on the Karoo (whatever that
was) rolled in a blanket, with his rifle ready and his gaze fixed
on a glittering heaven.

He had a fearful 'head' next morning, which he doctored, as became
one of 'the best,' by soaking it in cold water, brewing strong
coffee which he could not drink, and only sipping a little Hock at
lunch.  The legend that 'some fool' had run into him round a corner
accounted for a bruise on his cheek.  He would on no account have
mentioned the fight, for, on second thoughts, it fell far short of
his standards.

The next day he went 'down,' and travelled through to Robin Hill.
Nobody was there but June and Holly, for his father had gone to
Paris.  He spent a restless and unsettled Vacation, quite out of
touch with either of his sisters.  June, indeed, was occupied with
lame ducks, whom, as a rule, Jolly could not stand, especially that
Eric Cobbley and his family, 'hopeless outsiders,' who were always
littering up the house in the Vacation.  And between Holly and
himself there was a strange division, as if she were beginning to
have opinions of her own, which was so--unnecessary.  He punched
viciously at a ball, rode furiously but alone in Richmond Park,
making a point of jumping the stiff, high hurdles put up to close
certain worn avenues of grass--keeping his nerve in, he called it.
Jolly was more afraid of being afraid than most boys are.  He
bought a rifle, too, and put a range up in the home field, shooting
across the pond into the kitchen-garden wall, to the peril of
gardeners, with the thought that some day, perhaps, he would enlist
and save South Africa for his country.  In fact, now that they were
appealing for Yeomanry recruits the boy was thoroughly upset.
Ought he to go?  None of 'the best,' so far as he knew--and he was
in correspondence with several--were thinking of joining.  If they
had been making a move he would have gone at once--very compet-
itive, and with a strong sense of form, he could not bear to be
left behind in anything--but to do it off his own bat might look
like 'swagger'; because of course it wasn't really necessary.
Besides, he did not want to go, for the other side of this young
Forsyte recoiled from leaping before he looked.  It was altogether
mixed pickles within him, hot and sickly pickles, and he became
quite unlike his serene and rather lordly self.

And then one day he saw that which moved him to uneasy wrath--two
riders, in a glade of the Park close to the Ham Gate, of whom she
on the left-hand was most assuredly Holly on her silver roan, and
he on the right-hand as assuredly that 'squirt' Val Dartie.  His
first impulse was to urge on his own horse and demand the meaning
of this portent, tell the fellow to 'bunk,' and take Holly home.
His second--to feel that he would look a fool if they refused.  He
reined his horse in behind a tree, then perceived that it was
equally impossible to spy on them.  Nothing for it but to go home
and await her coming!  Sneaking out with that young bounder!  He
could not consult with June, because she had gone up that morning
in the train of Eric Cobbley and his lot.  And his father was still
in 'that rotten Paris.'  He felt that this was emphatically one of
those moments for which he had trained himself, assiduously, at
school, where he and a boy called Brent had frequently set fire to
newspapers and placed them in the centre of their studies to
accustom them to coolness in moments of danger.  He did not feel at
all cool waiting in the stable-yard, idly stroking the dog
Balthasar, who queasy as an old fat monk, and sad in the absence of
his master, turned up his face, panting with gratitude for this
attention.  It was half an hour before Holly came, flushed and ever
so much prettier than she had any right to look.  He saw her look
at him quickly--guiltily of course--then followed her in, and,
taking her arm, conducted her into what had been their grand-
father's study.  The room, not much used now, was still vaguely
haunted for them both by a presence with which they associated
tenderness, large drooping white moustaches, the scent of cigar
smoke, and laughter.  Here Jolly, in the prime of his youth, before
he went to school at all, had been wont to wrestle with his grand-
father, who even at eighty had an irresistible habit of crooking
his leg.  Here Holly, perched on the arm of the great leather
chair, had stroked hair curving silvery over an ear into which she
would whisper secrets.  Through that window they had all three
sallied times without number to cricket on the lawn, and a
mysterious game called 'Wopsy-doozle,' not to be understood by
outsiders, which made old Jolyon very hot.  Here once on a warm
night Holly had appeared in her 'nighty,' having had a bad dream,
to have the clutch of it released.  And here Jolly, having begun
the day badly by introducing fizzy magnesia into Mademoiselle
Beauce's new-laid egg, and gone on to worse, had been sent down (in
the absence of his father) to the ensuing dialogue:

"Now, my boy, you mustn't go on like this."

"Well, she boxed my ears, Gran, so I only boxed hers, and then she
boxed mine again."

"Strike a lady?  That'll never do!  Have you begged her pardon?"

"Not yet."

"Then you must go and do it at once.  Come along."

"But she began it, Gran; and she had two to my one."

"My dear, it was an outrageous thing to do."

"Well, she lost her temper; and I didn't lose mine."

"Come along."

"You come too, then, Gran."

"Well--this time only."

And they had gone hand in hand.

Here--where the Waverley novels and Byron's works and Gibbon's
Roman Empire and Humboldt's Cosmos, and the bronzes on the
mantelpiece, and that masterpiece of the oily school, 'Dutch
Fishing-Boats at Sunset,' were fixed as fate, and for all sign of
change old Jolyon might have been sitting there still, with legs
crossed, in the arm chair, and domed forehead and deep eyes grave
above The Times--here they came, those two grandchildren.  And
Jolly said:

"I saw you and that fellow in the Park."

The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some
satisfaction; she ought to be ashamed!

"Well?" she said.

Jolly was surprised; he had expected more, or less.

"Do you know," he said weightily, "that he called me a pro-Boer
last term?  And I had to fight him."

"Who won?"

Jolly wished to answer: 'I should have,' but it seemed beneath him.

"Look here!" he said, "what's the meaning of it?  Without telling
anybody!"

"Why should I?  Dad isn't here; why shouldn't I ride with him?"

"You've got me to ride with.  I think he's an awful young rotter."

Holly went pale with anger.

"He isn't.  It's your own fault for not liking him."

And slipping past her brother she went out, leaving him staring at
the bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise, which had been shielded
from him so far by his sister's dark head under her soft felt
riding hat.  He felt queerly disturbed, shaken to his young
foundations.  A lifelong domination lay shattered round his feet.
He went up to the Venus and mechanically inspected the tortoise.

Why didn't he like Val Dartie?  He could not tell.  Ignorant of
family history, barely aware of that vague feud which had started
thirteen years before with Bosinney's defection from June in favour
of Soames' wife, knowing really almost nothing about Val he was at
sea.  He just did dislike him.  The question, however, was: What
should he do?  Val Dartie, it was true, was a second-cousin, but it
was not the thing for Holly to go about with him.  And yet to
'tell' of what he had chanced on was against his creed.  In this
dilemma he went and sat in the old leather chair and crossed his
legs.  It grew dark while he sat there staring out through the long
window at the old oak-tree, ample yet bare of leaves, becoming
slowly just a shape of deeper dark printed on the dusk.

'Grandfather!' he thought without sequence, and took out his watch.
He could not see the hands, but he set the repeater going.  'Five
o'clock!'  His grandfather's first gold hunter watch, butter-smooth
with age--all the milling worn from it, and dented with the mark of
many a fall.  The chime was like a little voice from out of that
golden age, when they first came from St.  John's Wood, London, to
this house--came driving with grandfather in his carriage, and
almost instantly took to the trees.  Trees to climb, and grand-
father watering the geranium-beds below!  What was to be done?
Tell Dad he must come home?  Confide in June?--only she was so--so
sudden!  Do nothing and trust to luck?  After all, the Vac.  would
soon be over.  Go up and see Val and warn him off?  But how get his
address?  Holly wouldn't give it him!  A maze of paths, a cloud of
possibilities!  He lit a cigarette.  When he had smoked it halfway
through his brow relaxed, almost as if some thin old hand had been
passed gently over it; and in his ear something seemed to whisper:
'Do nothing; be nice to Holly, be nice to her, my dear!'  And Jolly
heaved a sigh of contentment, blowing smoke through his nostrils....

But up in her room, divested of her habit, Holly was still
frowning.  'He is not--he is not!'  were the words which kept
forming on her lips.




CHAPTER VI

JOLYON IN TWO MINDS


A little private hotel over a well-known restaurant near the Gare
St. Lazare was Jolyon's haunt in Paris.  He hated his fellow
Forsytes abroad--vapid as fish out of water in their well-trodden
runs, the Opera, Rue de Rivoli, and Moulin Rouge.  Their air of
having come because they wanted to be somewhere else as soon as
possible annoyed him.  But no other Forsyte came near this haunt,
where he had a wood fire in his bedroom and the coffee was excel-
lent.  Paris was always to him more attractive in winter.  The
acrid savour from woodsmoke and chestnut-roasting braziers, the
sharpness of the wintry sunshine on bright rays, the open cafes
defying keen-aired winter, the self-contained brisk boulevard
crowds, all informed him that in winter Paris possessed a soul
which, like a migrant bird, in high summer flew away.

He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places where
pleasant dishes could be met with, queer types observed.  He felt
philosophic in Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a
subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a
darkness shot with shifting gleams of light.

When in the first week of December he decided to go to Paris, he
was far from admitting that Irene's presence was influencing him.
He had not been there two days before he owned that the wish to see
her had been more than half the reason.  In England one did not
admit what was natural.  He had thought it might be well to speak
to her about the letting of her flat and other matters, but in
Paris he at once knew better.  There was a glamour over the city.
On the third day he wrote to her, and received an answer which
procured him a pleasurable shiver of the nerves:


"MY DEAR JOLYON,

"It will be a happiness for me to see you.

" IRENE."


He took his way to her hotel on a bright day with a feeling such as
he had often had going to visit an adored picture.  No woman, so
far as he remembered, had ever inspired in him this special sen-
suous and yet impersonal sensation.  He was going to sit and feast
his eyes, and come away knowing her no better, but ready to go and
feast his eyes again to-morrow.  Such was his feeling, when in the
tarnished and ornate little lounge of a quiet hotel near the river
she came to him preceded by a small page-boy who uttered the word,
"Madame," and vanished.  Her face, her smile, the poise of her
figure, were just as he had pictured, and the expression of her
face said plainly: 'A friend!'

"Well," he said, "what news, poor exile?"

"None."

"Nothing from Soames?"

"Nothing."

"I have let the flat for you, and like a good steward I bring you
some money.  How do you like Paris?"

While he put her through this catechism, it seemed to him that he
had never seen lips so fine and sensitive, the lower lip curving
just a little upwards, the upper touched at one corner by the least
conceivable dimple.  It was like discovering a woman in what had
hitherto been a sort of soft and breathed-on statue, almost
impersonally admired.  She owned that to be alone in Paris was a
little difficult; and yet, Paris was so full of its own life that
it was often, she confessed, as innocuous as a desert.  Besides,
the English were not liked just now!

"That will hardly be your case," said Jolyon; "you should appeal to
the French."

"It has its disadvantages."

Jolyon nodded.

"Well, you must let me take you about while I'm here.  We'll start
to-morrow.  Come and dine at my pet restaurant; and we'll go to the
Opera-Comique."

It was the beginning of daily meetings.

Jolyon soon found that for those who desired a static condition of
the affections, Paris was at once the first and last place in which
to be friendly with a pretty woman.  Revelation was alighting like
a bird in his heart, singing: 'Elle est ton reve!  Elle est ton
reve!  Sometimes this seemed natural, sometimes ludicrous--a bad
case of elderly rapture.  Having once been ostracised by Society,
he had never since had any real regard for conventional morality;
but the idea of a love which she could never return--and how could
she at his age?--hardly mounted beyond his subconscious mind.  He
was full, too, of resentment, at the waste and loneliness of her
life.  Aware of being some comfort to her, and of the pleasure she
clearly took in their many little outings, he was amiably desirous
of doing and saying nothing to destroy that pleasure.  It was like
watching a starved plant draw up water, to see her drink in his
companionship.  So far as they could tell, no one knew her address
except himself; she was unknown in Paris, and he but little known,
so that discretion seemed unnecessary in those walks, talks, visits
to concerts, picture-galleries, theatres, little dinners,
expeditions to Versailles, St. Cloud, even Fontainebleau.  And time
fled--one of those full months without past to it or future.  What
in his youth would certainly have been headlong passion, was now
perhaps as deep a feeling, but far gentler, tempered to protective
companionship by admiration, hopelessness, and a sense of chivalry-
-arrested in his veins at least so long as she was there, smiling
and happy in their friendship, and always to him more beautiful and
spiritually responsive: for her philosophy of life seemed to march
in admirable step with his own, conditioned by emotion more than by
reason, ironically mistrustful, susceptible to beauty, almost
passionately humane and tolerant, yet subject to instinctive
rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable.  And during
all this companionable month he never quite lost that feeling with
which he had set out on the first day as if to visit an adored work
of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire.  The future--inexorable
pendant to the present he took care not to face, for fear of
breaking up his untroubled manner; but he made plans to renew this
time in places still more delightful, where the sun was hot and
there were strange things to see and paint.  The end came swiftly
on the 20th of January with a telegram:


"Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry.
JOLLY."


Jolyon received it just as he was setting out to meet her at the
Louvre.  It brought him up with a round turn.  While he was lotus-
eating here, his boy, whose philosopher and guide he ought to be,
had taken this great step towards danger, hardship, perhaps even
death.  He felt disturbed to the soul, realising suddenly how Irene
had twined herself round the roots of his being.  Thus threatened
with severance, the tie between them--for it had become a kind of
tie--no longer had impersonal quality.  The tranquil enjoyment of
things in common, Jolyon perceived, was gone for ever.  He saw his
feeling as it was, in the nature of an infatuation.  Ridiculous,
perhaps, but so real that sooner or later it must disclose itself.
And now, as it seemed to him, he could not, must not, make any such
disclosure.  The news of Jolly stood inexorably in the way.  He was
proud of this enlistment; proud of his boy for going off to fight
for the country; for on Jolyon's pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had
left its mark.  And so the end was reached before the beginning!
Well, luckily he had never made a sign!

When he came into the Gallery she was standing before the 'Virgin
of the Rocks,' graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious.  'Have
I to give up seeing that?' he thought.  'It's unnatural, so long as
she's willing that I should see her.'  He stood, unnoticed,
watching her, storing up the image of her figure, envying the
picture on which she was bending that long scrutiny.  Twice she
turned her head towards the entrance, and he thought: 'That's for
me!'  At last he went forward.

"Look!" he said.

She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.

That sigh, too, was for him!  His position was really cruel!  To be
loyal to his son he must just shake her hand and go.  To be loyal
to the feeling in his heart he must at least tell her what that
feeling was.  Could she, would she understand the silence in which
he was gazing at that picture?

"I'm afraid I must go home at once," he said at last.  "I shall
miss all this awfully."

"So shall I; but, of course, you must go."

"Well!" said Jolyon holding out his hand.

Meeting her eyes, a flood of feeling nearly mastered him.

"Such is life!" he said.  "Take care of yourself, my dear!"

He had a stumbling sensation in his legs and feet, as if his brain
refused to steer him away from her.  From the doorway, he saw her
lift her hand and touch its fingers with her lips.  He raised his
hat solemnly, and did not look back again.




CHAPTER VII

DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE


The suit--Dartie versus Dartie--for restitution of those conjugal
rights concerning which Winifred was at heart so deeply undecided,
followed the laws of subtraction towards day of judgment.  This was
not reached before the Courts rose for Christmas, but the case was
third on the list when they sat again.  Winifred spent the
Christmas holidays a thought more fashionably than usual, with the
matter locked up in her low-cut bosom.  James was particularly
liberal to her that Christmas, expressing thereby his sympathy, and
relief, at the approaching dissolution of her marriage with that
'precious rascal,' which his old heart felt but his old lips could
not utter.

The disappearance of Dartie made the fall in Consols a
comparatively small matter; and as to the scandal--the real animus
he felt against that fellow, and the increasing lead which property
was attaining over reputation in a true Forsyte about to leave this
world, served to drug a mind from which all allusions to the matter
(except his own) were studiously kept.  What worried him as a
lawyer and a parent was the fear that Dartie might suddenly turn up
and obey the Order of the Court when made.  That would be a pretty
how-de-do!  The fear preyed on him in fact so much that, in
presenting Winifred with a large Christmas cheque, he said: "It's
chiefly for that chap out there; to keep him from coming back."  It
was, of course, to pitch away good money, but all in the nature of
insurance against that bankruptcy which would no longer hang over
him if only the divorce went through; and he questioned Winifred
rigorously until she could assure him that the money had been sent.
Poor woman!--it cost her many a pang to send what must find its way
into the vanity-bag of 'that creature!'  Soames, hearing of it,
shook his head.  They were not dealing with a Forsyte, reasonably
tenacious of his purpose.  It was very risky without knowing how
the land lay out there.  Still, it would look well with the Court;
and he would see that Dreamer brought it out.  "I wonder," he said
suddenly, "where that ballet goes after the Argentine"; never
omitting a chance of reminder; for he knew that Winifred still had
a weakness, if not for Dartie, at least for not laundering him in
public.  Though not good at showing admiration, he admitted that
she was behaving extremely well, with all her children at home
gaping like young birds for news of their father--Imogen just on
the point of coming out, and Val very restive about the whole
thing.  He felt that Val was the real heart of the matter to
Winifred, who certainly loved him beyond her other children.  The
boy could spoke the wheel of this divorce yet if he set his mind to
it.  And Soames was very careful to keep the proximity of the
preliminary proceedings from his nephew's ears.  He did more.  He
asked him to dine at the Remove, and over Val's cigar introduced
the subject which he knew to be nearest to his heart.

"I hear," he said, "that you want to play polo up at Oxford."

Val became less recumbent in his chair.

"Rather!" he said.

"Well," continued Soames, "that's a very expensive business.  Your
grandfather isn't likely to consent to it unless he can make sure
that he's not got any other drain on him."  And he paused to see
whether the boy understood his meaning.

Val's thick dark lashes concealed his eyes, but a slight grimace
appeared on his wide mouth, and he muttered:

"I suppose you mean my Dad!"

"Yes," said Soames; "I'm afraid it depends on whether he continues
to be a drag or not;" and said no more, letting the boy dream it
over.

But Val was also dreaming in those days of a silver-roan palfrey
and a girl riding it.  Though Crum was in town and an introduction
to Cynthia Dark to be had for the asking, Val did not ask; indeed,
he shunned Crum and lived a life strange even to himself, except in
so far as accounts with tailor and livery stable were concerned.
To his mother, his sisters, his young brother, he seemed to spend
this Vacation in 'seeing fellows,' and his evenings sleepily at
home.  They could not propose anything in daylight that did not
meet with the one response: "Sorry; I've got to see a fellow"; and
he was put to extraordinary shifts to get in and out of the house
unobserved in riding clothes; until, being made a member of the
Goat's Club, he was able to transport them there, where he could
change unregarded and slip off on his hack to Richmond Park.  He
kept his growing sentiment religiously to himself.  Not for a world
would he breathe to the 'fellows,' whom he was not 'seeing,'
anything so ridiculous from the point of view of their creed and
his.  But he could not help its destroying his other appetites.  It
was coming between him and the legitimate pleasures of youth at
last on its own in a way which must, he knew, make him a milksop in
the eyes of Crum.  All he cared for was to dress in his last-
created riding togs, and steal away to the Robin Hill Gate, where
presently the silver roan would come demurely sidling with its slim
and dark-haired rider, and in the glades bare of leaves they would
go off side by side, not talking very much, riding races sometimes,
and sometimes holding hands.  More than once of an evening, in a
moment of expansion, he had been tempted to tell his mother how
this shy sweet cousin had stolen in upon him and wrecked his
'life.'  But bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five
were spoil-sports, prevented him.  After all, he supposed he would
have to go through with College, and she would have to 'come out,'
before they could be married; so why complicate things, so long as
he could see her?  Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic beings, a
brother worse, so there was no one to confide in.  Ah!  And this
beastly divorce business!  What a misfortune to have a name which
other people hadn't!  If only he had been called Gordon or Scott or
Howard or something fairly common!  But Dartie--there wasn't
another in the directory!  One might as well have been named Morkin
for all the covert it afforded!  So matters went on, till one day
in the middle of January the silver-roan palfrey and its rider were
missing at the tryst.  Lingering in the cold, he debated whether he
should ride on to the house: But Jolly might be there, and the
memory of their dark encounter was still fresh within him.  One
could not be always fighting with her brother!  So he returned
dismally to town and spent an evening plunged in gloom.  At
breakfast next day he noticed that his mother had on an unfamiliar
dress and was wearing her hat.  The dress was black with a glimpse
of peacock blue, the hat black and large--she looked exceptionally
well.  But when after breakfast she said to him, "Come in here,
Val," and led the way to the drawing-room, he was at once beset by
qualms.  Winifred carefully shut the door and passed her
handkerchief over her lips; inhaling the violette de Parme with
which it had been soaked, Val thought: 'Has she found out about
Holly?'

Her voice interrupted

"Are you going to be nice to me, dear boy?"

Val grinned doubtfully.

"Will you come with me this morning...."

"I've got to see...."  began Val, but something in her face stopped
him.  "I say," he said, "you don't mean ...."

"Yes, I have to go to the Court this morning."  Already!--that
d---d business which he had almost succeeded in forgetting, since
nobody ever mentioned it.  In self-commiseration he stood picking
little bits of skin off his fingers.  Then noticing that his
mother's lips were all awry, he said impulsively: "All right,
mother; I'll come.  The brutes!"  What brutes he did not know, but
the expression exactly summed up their joint feeling, and restored
a measure of equanimity.

"I suppose I'd better change into a 'shooter,"' he muttered,
escaping to his room.  He put on the 'shooter,' a higher collar, a
pearl pin, and his neatest grey spats, to a somewhat blasphemous
accompaniment.  Looking at himself in the glass, he said, "Well,
I'm damned if I'm going to show anything!" and went down.  He found
his grandfather's carriage at the door, and his mother in furs,
with the appearance of one going to a Mansion House Assembly.  They
seated themselves side by side in the closed barouche, and all the
way to the Courts of Justice Val made but one allusion to the
business in hand.  "There'll be nothing about those pearls, will
there?"

The little tufted white tails of Winifred's muff began to shiver.

"Oh, no," she said, "it'll be quite harmless to-day.  Your
grandmother wanted to come too, but I wouldn't let her.  I thought
you could take care of me.  You look so nice, Val.  Just pull your
coat collar up a little more at the back--that's right."

"If they bully you...."  began Val.

"Oh! they won't.  I shall be very cool.  It's the only way."

"They won't want me to give evidence or anything?"

"No, dear; it's all arranged."  And she patted his hand.  The
determined front she was putting on it stayed the turmoil in Val's
chest, and he busied himself in drawing his gloves off and on.  He
had taken what he now saw was the wrong pair to go with his spats;
they should have been grey, but were deerskin of a dark tan;
whether to keep them on or not he could not decide.  They arrived
soon after ten.  It was his first visit to the Law Courts, and the
building struck him at once.

"By Jove!" he said as they passed into the hall, "this'd make four
or five jolly good racket courts."

Soames was awaiting them at the foot of some stairs.

"Here you are!" he said, without shaking hands, as if the event had
made them too familiar for such formalities.  "It's Happerly
Browne, Court I.  We shall be on first."

A sensation such as he had known when going in to bat was playing
now in the top of Val's chest, but he followed his mother and uncle
doggedly, looking at no more than he could help, and thinking that
the place smelled 'fuggy.'  People seemed to be lurking everywhere,
and he plucked Soames by the sleeve.

"I say, Uncle, you're not going to let those beastly papers in, are
you?"

Soames gave him the sideway look which had reduced many to silence
in its time.

"In here," he said.  "You needn't take off your furs, Winifred."

Val entered behind them, nettled and with his head up.  In this
confounded hole everybody--and there were a good many of them--
seemed sitting on everybody else's knee, though really divided from
each other by pews; and Val had a feeling that they might all slip
down together into the well.  This, however, was but a momentary
vision--of mahogany, and black gowns, and white blobs of wigs and
faces and papers, all rather secret and whispery--before he was
sitting next his mother in the front row, with his back to it all,
glad of her violette de Parme, and taking off his gloves for the
last time.  His mother was looking at him; he was suddenly
conscious that she had really wanted him there next to her, and
that he counted for something in this business.

All right!  He would show them!  Squaring his shoulders, he crossed
his legs and gazed inscrutably at his spats.  But just then an 'old
Johnny' in a gown and long wig, looking awfully like a funny
raddled woman, came through a door into the high pew opposite, and
he had to uncross his legs hastily, and stand up with everybody
else.

'Dartie versus Dartie!'

It seemed to Val unspeakably disgusting to have one's name called
out like this in public!  And, suddenly conscious that someone
nearly behind him had begun talking about his family, he screwed
his face round to see an old be-wigged buffer, who spoke as if he
were eating his own words--queer-looking old cuss, the sort of man
he had seen once or twice dining at Park Lane and punishing the
port; he knew now where they 'dug them up.'  All the same he found
the old buffer quite fascinating, and would have continued to stare
if his mother had not touched his arm.  Reduced to gazing before
him, he fixed his eyes on the Judge's face instead.  Why should
that old 'sportsman' with his sarcastic mouth and his quick-moving
eyes have the power to meddle with their private affairs--hadn't he
affairs of his own, just as many, and probably just as nasty?  And
there moved in Val, like an illness, all the deep-seated
individualism of his breed.  The voice behind him droned along:
"Differences about money matters--extravagance of the respondent"
(What a word!  Was that his father?)--"strained situation--frequent
absences on the part of Mr. Dartie.  My client, very rightly, your
Ludship will agree, was anxious to check a course--but lead to
ruin--remonstrated--gambling at cards and on the racecourse--"
('That's right!' thought Val, 'pile it on!') "Crisis early in
October, when the respondent wrote her this letter from his Club."
Val sat up and his ears burned.  "I propose to read it with the
emendations necessary to the epistle of a gentleman who has been--
shall we say dining, me Lud?"

'Old brute!' thought Val, flushing deeper; 'you're not paid to make
jokes!'

"'You will not get the chance to insult me again in my own house.
I am leaving the country to-morrow.  It's played out'--an
expression, your Ludship, not unknown in the mouths of those who
have not met with conspicuous success."

'Sniggering owls!' thought Val, and his flush deepened.

"'I am tired of being insulted by you.'  My client will tell your
Ludship that these so-called insults consisted in her calling him
'the limit',--a very mild expression, I venture to suggest, in all
the circumstances."

Val glanced sideways at his mother's impassive face, it had a
hunted look in the eyes.  'Poor mother,' he thought, and touched
her arm with his own.  The voice behind droned on.

"'I am going to live a new life.  M.  D.'"

"And next day, me Lud, the respondent left by the steamship
Tuscarora for Buenos Aires.  Since then we have nothing from him
but a cabled refusal in answer to the letter which my client wrote
the following day in great distress, begging him to return to her.
With your Ludship's permission.  I shall now put Mrs. Dartie in the
box."

When his mother rose, Val had a tremendous impulse to rise too and
say: 'Look here!  I'm going to see you jolly well treat her
decently.'  He subdued it, however; heard her saying, 'the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' and looked up.  She
made a rich figure of it, in her furs and large hat, with a slight
flush on her cheek-bones, calm, matter-of-fact; and he felt proud
of her thus confronting all these 'confounded lawyers.'  The
examination began.  Knowing that this was only the preliminary to
divorce, Val followed with a certain glee the questions framed so
as to give the impression that she really wanted his father back.
It seemed to him that they were 'foxing Old Bagwigs finely.'

And he received a most unpleasant jar when the Judge said suddenly:

"Now, why did your husband leave you--not because you called him
'the limit,' you know?"

Val saw his uncle lift his eyes to the witness box, without moving
his face; heard a shuffle of papers behind him; and instinct told
him that the issue was in peril.  Had Uncle Soames and the old
buffer behind made a mess of it?  His mother was speaking with a
slight drawl.

"No, my Lord, but it had gone on a long time."

"What had gone on?"

"Our differences about money."

"But you supplied the money.  Do you suggest that he left you to
better his position?"

'The brute!  The old brute, and nothing but the brute!'  thought
Val suddenly.  'He smells a rat he's trying to get at the pastry!'
And his heart stood still.  If--if he did, then, of course, he
would know that his mother didn't really want his father back.  His
mother spoke again, a thought more fashionably.

"No, my Lord, but you see I had refused to give him any more money.
It took him a long time to believe that, but he did at last--and
when he did...."

"I see, you had refused.  But you've sent him some since."

"My Lord, I wanted him back."

"And you thought that would bring him?"

"I don't know, my Lord, I acted on my father's advice."

Something in the Judge's face, in the sound of the papers behind
him, in the sudden crossing of his uncle's legs, told Val that she
had made just the right answer.  'Crafty!'  he thought; 'by Jove,
what humbug it all is!'

The Judge was speaking:

"Just one more question, Mrs. Dartie.  Are you still fond of your
husband?"

Val's hands, slack behind him, became fists.  What business had
that Judge to make things human suddenly?  To make his mother speak
out of her heart, and say what, perhaps, she didn't know herself,
before all these people!  It wasn't decent.  His mother answered,
rather low: "Yes, my Lord."  Val saw the Judge nod.  'Wish I could
take a cock-shy at your head!' he thought irreverently, as his
mother came back to her seat beside him.  Witnesses to his father's
departure and continued absence followed--one of their own maids
even, which struck Val as particularly beastly; there was more
talking, all humbug; and then the Judge pronounced the decree for
restitution, and they got up to go.  Val walked out behind his
mother, chin squared, eyelids drooped, doing his level best to
despise everybody.  His mother's voice in the corridor roused him
from an angry trance.

"You behaved beautifully, dear.  It was such a comfort to have you.
Your uncle and I are going to lunch."

"All right," said Val; "I shall have time to go and see that
fellow."  And, parting from them abruptly, he ran down the stairs
and out into the air.  He bolted into a hansom, and drove to the
Goat's Club.  His thoughts were on Holly and what he must do before
her brother showed her this thing in to-morrow's paper.

             *******************************

When Val had left them Soames and Winifred made their way to the
Cheshire Cheese.  He had suggested it as a meeting place with Mr.
Bellby.  At that early hour of noon they would have it to
themselves, and Winifred had thought it would be 'amusing' to see
this far-famed hostelry.  Having ordered a light repast, to the
consternation of the waiter, they awaited its arrival together with
that of Mr. Bellby, in silent reaction after the hour and a half's
suspense on the tenterhooks of publicity.  Mr. Bellby entered
presently, preceded by his nose, as cheerful as they were glum.
Well! they had got the decree of restitution, and what was the
matter with that!

"Quite," said Soames in a suitably low voice, "but we shall have to
begin again to get evidence.  He'll probably try the divorce--it
will look fishy if it comes out that we knew of misconduct from the
start.  His questions showed well enough that he doesn't like this
restitution dodge."

"Pho!" said Mr. Bellby cheerily, "he'll forget!  Why, man, he'll
have tried a hundred cases between now and then.  Besides, he's
bound by precedent to give ye your divorce, if the evidence is
satisfactory.  We won't let um know that Mrs. Dartie had knowledge
of the facts.  Dreamer did it very nicely--he's got a fatherly
touch about um!"

Soames nodded.

"And I compliment ye, Mrs. Dartie," went on Mr. Bellby; "ye've a
natural gift for giving evidence.  Steady as a rock."

Here the, waiter arrived with three plates balanced on one arm, and
the remark: "I 'urried up the pudden, sir.  You'll find plenty o'
lark in it to-day."

Mr. Bellby applauded his forethought with a dip of his nose.  But
Soames and Winifred looked with dismay at their light lunch of
gravified brown masses, touching them gingerly with their forks in
the hope of distinguishing the bodies of the tasty little song-
givers.  Having begun, however, they found they were hungrier than
they thought, and finished the lot, with a glass of port apiece.
Conversation turned on the war.  Soames thought Ladysmith would
fall, and it might last a year.  Bellby thought it would be over by
the summer.  Both agreed that they wanted more men.  There was
nothing for it but complete victory, since it was now a question of
prestige.  Winifred brought things back to more solid ground by
saying that she did not want the divorce suit to come on till after
the summer holidays had begun at Oxford, then the boys would have
forgotten about it before Val had to go up again; the London season
too would be over.  The lawyers reassured her, an interval of six
months was necessary--after that the earlier the better.  People
were now beginning to come in, and they parted--Soames to the city,
Bellby to his chambers, Winifred in a hansom to Park Lane to let
her mother know how she had fared.  The issue had been so
satisfactory on the whole that it was considered advisable to tell
James, who never failed to say day after day that he didn't know
about Winifred's affair, he couldn't tell.  As his sands ran out;
the importance of mundane matters became increasingly grave to him,
as if he were feeling: 'I must make the most of it, and worry well;
I shall soon have nothing to worry about.'

He received the report grudgingly.  It was a new-fangled way of
going about things, and he didn't know!  But he gave Winifred a
cheque, saying:

"I expect you'll have a lot of expense.  That's a new hat you've
got on.  Why doesn't Val come and see us?"

Winifred promised to bring him to dinner soon.  And, going home,
she sought her bedroom where she could be alone.  Now that her
husband had been ordered back into her custody with a view to
putting him away from her for ever, she would try once more to find
out from her sore and lonely heart what she really wanted.




CHAPTER VIII

THE CHALLENGE


The morning had been misty, verging on frost, but the sun came out
while Val was jogging towards the Roehampton Gate, whence he would
canter on to the usual tryst.  His spirits were rising rapidly.
There had been nothing so very terrible in the morning's
proceedings beyond the general disgrace of violated privacy.  'If
we were engaged!'  he thought, 'what happens wouldn't matter.'  He
felt, indeed, like human society, which kicks and clamours at the
results of matrimony, and hastens to get married.  And he galloped
over the winter-dried grass of Richmond Park, fearing to be late.
But again he was alone at the trysting spot, and this second
defection on the part of Holly upset him dreadfully.  He could not
go back without seeing her to-day!  Emerging from the Park, he
proceeded towards Robin Hill.  He could not make up his mind for
whom to ask.  Suppose her father were back, or her sister or
brother were in!  He decided to gamble, and ask for them all first,
so that if he were in luck and they were not there, it would be
quite natural in the end to ask for Holly; while if any of them
were in--an 'excuse for a ride' must be his saving grace.

"Only Miss Holly is in, sir."

"Oh! thanks.  Might I take my horse round to the stables?  And
would you say--her cousin, Mr. Val Dartie."

When he returned she was in the hall, very flushed and shy.  She
led him to the far end, and they sat down on a wide window-seat.

"I've been awfully anxious," said Val in a low voice.  "What's the
matter?"

"Jolly knows about our riding."

"Is he in?"

"No; but I expect he will be soon."

"Then!" cried Val, and diving forward, he seized her hand.  She
tried to withdraw it, failed, gave up the attempt, and looked at
him wistfully.

"First of all," he said, "I want to tell you something about my
family.  My Dad, you know, isn't altogether--I mean, he's left my
mother and they're trying to divorce him; so they've ordered him to
come back, you see.  You'll see that in the paper to-morrow."

Her eyes deepened in colour and fearful interest; her hand squeezed
his.  But the gambler in Val was roused now, and he hurried on:

"Of course there's nothing very much at present, but there will be,
I expect, before it's over; divorce suits are beastly, you know.  I
wanted to tell you, because--because--you ought to know--if--" and
he began to stammer, gazing at her troubled eyes, "if--if you're
going to be a darling and love me, Holly.  I love you--ever so; and
I want to be engaged."  He had done it in a manner so inadequate
that he could have punched his own head; and dropping on his knees,
he tried to get nearer to that soft, troubled face.  "You do love
me--don't you?  If you don't I...." There was a moment of silence
and suspense, so awful that he could hear the sound of a mowing-
machine far out on the lawn pretending there was grass to cut.
Then she swayed forward; her free hand touched his hair, and he
gasped: "Oh, Holly!"

Her answer was very soft: "Oh, Val!"

He had dreamed of this moment, but always in an imperative mood, as
the masterful young lover, and now he felt humble, touched,
trembly.  He was afraid to stir off his knees lest he should break
the spell; lest, if he did, she should shrink and deny her own
surrender--so tremulous was she in his grasp, with her eyelids
closed and his lips nearing them.  Her eyes opened, seemed to swim
a little; he pressed his lips to hers.  Suddenly he sprang up;
there had been footsteps, a sort of startled grunt.  He looked
round.  No one!  But the long curtains which barred off the outer
hall were quivering.

"My God!  Who was that?"

Holly too was on her feet.

"Jolly, I expect," she whispered.

Val clenched fists and resolution.

"All right!" he said, "I don't care a bit now we're engaged," and
striding towards the curtains, he drew them aside.  There at the
fireplace in the hall stood Jolly, with his back elaborately
turned.  Val went forward.  Jolly faced round on him.

"I beg your pardon for hearing," he said.

With the best intentions in the world, Val could not help admiring
him at that moment; his face was clear, his voice quiet, he looked
somehow distinguished, as if acting up to principle.

"Well!" Val said abruptly, "it's nothing to you."

"Oh!" said Jolly; "you come this way," and he crossed the hall.
Val followed.  At the study door he felt a touch on his arm;
Holly's voice said:

"I'm coming too."

"No," said Jolly.

"Yes," said Holly.

Jolly opened the door, and they all three went in.  Once in the
little room, they stood in a sort of triangle on three corners of
the worn Turkey carpet; awkwardly upright, not looking at each
other, quite incapable of seeing any humour in the situation.

Val broke the silence.

"Holly and I are engaged.",

Jolly stepped back and leaned against the lintel of the window.

"This is our house," he said; "I'm not going to insult you in it.
But my father's away.  I'm in charge of my sister.  You've taken
advantage of me.

"I didn't mean to," said Val hotly.

"I think you did," said Jolly.  "If you hadn't meant to, you'd have
spoken to me, or waited for my father to come back."

"There were reasons," said Val.

"What reasons?"

"About my family--I've just told her.  I wanted her to know before
things happen."

Jolly suddenly became less distinguished.

"You're kids," he said, "and you know you are.

"I am not a kid," said Val.

"You are--you're not twenty."

"Well, what are you?"

"I am twenty," said Jolly.

"Only just; anyway, I'm as good a man as you."

Jolly's face crimsoned, then clouded.  Some struggle was evidently
taking place in him; and Val and Holly stared at him, so clearly
was that struggle marked; they could even hear him breathing.  Then
his face cleared up and became oddly resolute.

"We'll see that," he said.  "I dare you to do what I'm going to
do."

"Dare me?"

Jolly smiled.  "Yes," he said, "dare you; and I know very well you
won't."

A stab of misgiving shot through Val; this was riding very blind.

"I haven't forgotten that you're a fire-eater," said Jolly slowly,
"and I think that's about all you are; or that you called me a
pro-Boer."

Val heard a gasp above the sound of his own hard breathing, and saw
Holly's face poked a little forward, very pale, with big eyes.

"Yes," went on Jolly with a sort of smile, "we shall soon see.  I'm
going to join the Imperial Yeomanry, and I dare you to do the same,
Mr. Val Dartie."

Val's head jerked on its stem.  It was like a blow between the
eyes, so utterly unthought of, so extreme and ugly in the midst of
his dreaming; and he looked at Holly with eyes grown suddenly,
touchingly haggard.

"Sit down!" said Jolly.  "Take your time!  Think it over well."
And he himself sat down on the arm of his grandfather's chair.

Val did not sit down; he stood with hands thrust deep into his
breeches' pockets-hands clenched and quivering.  The full awfulness
of this decision one way or the other knocked at his mind with
double knocks as of an angry postman.  If he did not take that
'dare' he was disgraced in Holly's eyes, and in the eyes of that
young enemy, her brute of a brother.  Yet if he took it, ah! then
all would vanish--her face, her eyes, her hair, her kisses just
begun!

"Take your time," said Jolly again; "I don't want to be unfair."

And they both looked at Holly.  She had recoiled against the
bookshelves reaching to the ceiling; her dark head leaned against
Gibbon's Roman Empire, her eyes in a sort of soft grey agony were
fixed on Val.  And he, who had not much gift of insight, had
suddenly a gleam of vision.  She would be proud of her brother--
that enemy!  She would be ashamed of him!  His hands came out of
his pockets as if lifted by a spring.

"All right!" he said.  "Done!"

Holly's face--oh! it was queer!  He saw her flush, start forward.
He had done the right thing--her face was shining with wistful
admiration.  Jolly stood up and made a little bow as who should
say: 'You've passed.'

"To-morrow, then," he said, "we'll go together."

Recovering from the impetus which had carried him to that decision,
Val looked at him maliciously from under his lashes.  'All right,'
he thought, 'one to you.  I shall have to join--but I'll get back
on you somehow.'  And he said with dignity: "I shall be ready."

"We'll meet at the main Recruiting Office, then," said Jolly, "at
twelve o'clock."  And, opening the window, he went out on to the
terrace, conforming to the creed which had made him retire when he
surprised them in the hall.

The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for whom
he had paid this sudden price was extreme.  The mood of 'showing-
off' was still, however, uppermost.  One must do the wretched thing
with an air.

"We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway," he said;
"that's one comfort."  And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to
hear the sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.

"Oh! the war'll soon be over," he said; "perhaps we shan't even
have to go out.  I don't care, except for you."  He would be out of
the way of that beastly divorce.  It was an ill-wind!  He felt her
warm hand slip into his.  Jolly thought he had stopped their loving
each other, did he?  He held her tightly round the waist, looking
at her softly through his lashes, smiling to cheer her up,
promising to come down and see her soon, feeling somehow six inches
taller and much more in command of her than he had ever dared feel
before.  Many times he kissed her before he mounted and rode back
to town.  So, swiftly, on the least provocation, does the
possessive instinct flourish and grow.




CHAPTER IX

DINNER AT JAMES'


Dinner parties were not now given at James' in Park Lane--to every
house the moment comes when Master or Mistress is no longer 'up to
it'; no more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above
twenty fine white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer
wonder why she is suddenly shut up.

So with something like excitement Emily--who at seventy would still
have liked a little feast and fashion now and then--ordered dinner
for six instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign words on
cards, and arranged the flowers--mimosa from the Riviera, and white
Roman hyacinths not from Rome.  There would only be, of course,
James and herself, Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen--but she liked
to pretend a little and dally in imagination with the glory of the
past.  She so dressed herself that James remarked:

"What are you putting on that thing for?  You'll catch cold."

But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of
shining, unto fourscore years, and she only answered:

"Let me put you on one of those dickies I got you, James; then
you'll only have to change your trousers, and put on your velvet
coat, and there you'll be.  Val likes you to look nice."

"Dicky!" said James.  "You're always wasting your money on
something."

But he suffered the change to be made till his neck also shone,
murmuring vaguely:

"He's an extravagant chap, I'm afraid."

A little brighter in the eye, with rather more colour than usual in
his cheeks, he took his seat in the drawing-room to wait for the
sound of the front-door bell.

"I've made it a proper dinner party," Emily said comfortably; "I
thought it would be good practice for Imogen--she must get used to
it now she's coming out."

James uttered an indeterminate sound, thinking of Imogen as she
used to climb about his knee or pull Christmas crackers with him.

"She'll be pretty," he muttered, "I shouldn't wonder."

"She is pretty," said Emily; "she ought to make a good match."

"There you go," murmured James; "she'd much better stay at home and
look after her mother."  A second Dartie carrying off his pretty
granddaughter would finish him!  He had never quite forgiven Emily
for having been as much taken in by Montague Dartie as he himself
had been.

"Where's Warmson?" he said suddenly.  "I should like a glass of
Madeira to-night."

"There's champagne, James."

James shook his head.  "No body," he said; "I can't get any good
out of it."

Emily reached forward on her side of the fire and rang the bell.

"Your master would like a bottle of Madeira opened, Warmson."

"No, no!" said James, the tips of his ears quivering with
vehemence, and his eyes fixed on an object seen by him alone.
"Look here, Warmson, you go to the inner cellar, and on the middle
shelf of the end bin on the left you'll see seven bottles; take the
one in the centre, and don't shake it.  It's the last of the
Madeira I had from Mr. Jolyon when we came in here--never been
moved; it ought to be in prime condition still; but I don't know, I
can't tell."

"Very good, sir," responded the withdrawing Warmson.

"I was keeping it for our golden wedding," said James suddenly,
"but I shan't live three years at my age."

"Nonsense, James," said Emily, "don't talk like that."

"I ought to have got it up myself," murmured James, "he'll shake it
as likely as not."  And he sank into silent recollection of long
moments among the open gas-jets, the cobwebs and the good smell of
wine-soaked corks, which had been appetiser to so many feasts.  In
the wine from that cellar was written the history of the forty odd
years since he had come to the Park Lane house with his young
bride, and of the many generations of friends and acquaintances who
had passed into the unknown; its depleted bins preserved the record
of family festivity--all the marriages, births, deaths of his kith
and kin.  And when he was gone there it would be, and he didn't
know what would become of it.  It'd be drunk or spoiled, he
shouldn't wonder!

From that deep reverie the entrance of his son dragged him,
followed very soon by that of Winifred and her two eldest.

They went down arm-in-arm--James with Imogen, the debutante,
because his pretty grandchild cheered him; Soames with Winifred;
Emily with Val, whose eyes lighting on the oysters brightened.
This was to be a proper full 'blowout' with 'fizz' and port!  And
he felt in need of it, after what he had done that day, as yet
undivulged.  After the first glass or two it became pleasant to
have this bombshell up his sleeve, this piece of sensational
patriotism, or example, rather, of personal daring, to display--for
his pleasure in what he had done for his Queen and Country was so
far entirely personal.  He was now a 'blood,' indissolubly
connected with guns and horses; he had a right to swagger--not, of
course, that he was going to.  He should just announce it quietly,
when there was a pause.  And, glancing down the menu, he determined
on 'Bombe aux fraises' as the proper moment; there would be a
certain solemnity while they were eating that.  Once or twice
before they reached that rosy summit of the dinner he was attacked
by remembrance that his grandfather was never told anything!
Still, the old boy was drinking Madeira, and looking jolly fit!
Besides, he ought to be pleased at this set-off to the disgrace of
the divorce.  The sight of his uncle opposite, too, was a sharp
incentive.  He was so far from being a sportsman that it would be
worth a lot to see his face.  Besides, better to tell his mother in
this way than privately, which might upset them both!  He was sorry
for her, but after all one couldn't be expected to feel much for
others when one had to part from Holly.

His grandfather's voice travelled to him thinly.  "Val, try a
little of the Madeira with your ice.  You won't get that up at
college."

Val watched the slow liquid filling his glass, the essential oil of
the old wine glazing the surface; inhaled its aroma, and thought:
'Now for it!'  It was a rich moment.  He sipped, and a gentle glow
spread in his veins, already heated.  With a rapid look round, he
said, "I joined the Imperial Yeomanry to-day, Granny," and emptied
his glass as though drinking the health of his own act.

"What!"  It was his mother's desolate little word.

"Young Jolly Forsyte and I went down there together."

"You didn't sign?" from Uncle Soames.

"Rather!  We go into camp on Monday."

"I say!" cried Imogen.

All looked at James.  He was leaning forward with his hand behind
his ear.

"What's that?" he said.  "What's he saying?  I can't hear."

Emily reached forward to pat Val's hand.

"It's only that Val has joined the Yeomanry, James; it's very nice
for him.  He'll look his best in uniform."

"Joined the--rubbish!" came from James, tremulously loud.  "You
can't see two yards before your nose.  He--he'll have to go out
there.  Why! he'll be fighting before he knows where he is."

Val saw Imogen's eyes admiring him, and his mother still and
fashionable with her handkerchief before her lips.

Suddenly his uncle spoke.

"You're under age."

"I thought of that," smiled Val; "I gave my age as twenty-one."

He heard his grandmother's admiring, "Well, Val, that was plucky of
you;" was conscious of Warmson deferentially filling his champagne
glass; and of his grandfather's voice moaning: "I don't know
what'll become of you if you go on like this."

Imogen was patting his shoulder, his uncle looking at him sidelong;
only his mother sat unmoving, till, affected by her stillness, Val
said:

"It's all right, you know; we shall soon have them on the run.  I
only hope I shall come in for something."

He felt elated, sorry, tremendously important all at once.  This
would show Uncle Soames, and all the Forsytes, how to be sportsmen.
He had certainly done something heroic and exceptional in giving
his age as twenty-one.

Emily's voice brought him back to earth.

"You mustn't have a second glass, James.  Warmson!"

"Won't they be astonished at Timothy's!" burst out Imogen.  "I'd
give anything to see their faces.  Do you have a sword, Val, or
only a popgun?"

"What made you?"

His uncle's voice produced a slight chill in the pit of Val's
stomach.  Made him?  How answer that?  He was grateful for his
grandmother's comfortable:

"Well, I think it's very plucky of Val.  I'm sure he'll make a
splendid soldier; he's just the figure for it.  We shall all be
proud of him."

"What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it?  Why did you go
together?" pursued Soames, uncannily relentless.  "I thought you
weren't friendly with him?"

"I'm not," mumbled Val, "but I wasn't going to be beaten by him."
He saw his uncle look at him quite differently, as if approving.
His grandfather was nodding too, his grandmother tossing her head.
They all approved of his not being beaten by that cousin of his.
There must be a reason!  Val was dimly conscious of some disturbing
point outside his range of vision; as it might be, the unlocated
centre of a cyclone.  And, staring at his uncle's face, he had a
quite unaccountable vision of a woman with dark eyes, gold hair,
and a white neck, who smelt nice, and had pretty silken clothes
which he had liked feeling when he was quite small.  By Jove, yes!
Aunt Irene!  She used to kiss him, and he had bitten her arm once,
playfully, because he liked it--so soft.  His grandfather was
speaking:

"What's his father doing?"

"He's away in Paris," Val said, staring at the very queer
expression on his uncle's face, like--like that of a snarling dog.

"Artists!" said James.  The word coming from the very bottom of his
soul, broke up the dinner.

Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the after-
fruits of heroism, like medlars over-ripe.

She only said, indeed, that he must go to his tailor's at once and
have his uniform properly made, and not just put up with what they
gave him.  But he could feel that she was very much upset.  It was
on his lips to console her with the spoken thought that he would be
out of the way of that beastly divorce, but the presence of Imogen,
and the knowledge that his mother would not be out of the way,
restrained him.  He felt aggrieved that she did not seem more proud
of him.  When Imogen had gone to bed, he risked the emotional.

"I'm awfully sorry to have to leave you, Mother."

"Well, I must make the best of it.  We must try and get you a
commission as soon as we can; then you won't have to rough it so.
Do you know any drill, Val?"

"Not a scrap."

"I hope they won't worry you much.  I must take you about to get
the things to-morrow.  Good-night; kiss me."

With that kiss, soft and hot, between his eyes, and those words, 'I
hope they won't worry you much,' in his ears, he sat down to a
cigarette, before a dying fire.  The heat was out of him--the glow
of cutting a dash.  It was all a damned heart-aching bore.  'I'll
be even with that chap Jolly,' he thought, trailing up the stairs,
past the room where his mother was biting her pillow to smother a
sense of desolation which was trying to make her sob.

And soon only one of the diners at James' was awake--Soames, in his
bedroom above his father's.

So that fellow Jolyon was in Paris--what was he doing there?
Hanging round Irene!  The last report from Polteed had hinted that
there might be something soon.  Could it be this?  That fellow,
with his beard and his cursed amused way of speaking--son of the
old man who had given him the nickname 'Man of Property,' and
bought the fatal house from him.  Soames had ever resented having
had to sell the house at Robin Hill; never forgiven his uncle for
having bought it, or his cousin for living in it.

Reckless of the cold, he threw his window up and gazed out across
the Park.  Bleak and dark the January night; little sound of
traffic; a frost coming; bare trees; a star or two.  'I'll see
Polteed to-morrow,' he thought.  'By God!  I'm mad, I think, to
want her still.  That fellow!  If...?  Um!  No!'




CHAPTER X

DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR


Jolyon, who had crossed from Calais by night, arrived at Robin
Hill on Sunday morning.  He had sent no word beforehand, so walked
up from the station, entering his domain by the coppice gate.
Coming to the log seat fashioned out of an old fallen trunk, he sat
down, first laying his overcoat on it.

'Lumbago!'  he thought; 'that's what love ends in at my time of
life!'  And suddenly Irene seemed very near, just as she had been
that day of rambling at Fontainebleau when they had sat on a log to
eat their lunch.  Hauntingly near!  Odour drawn out of fallen
leaves by the pale-filtering sunlight soaked his nostrils.  'I'm
glad it isn't spring,' he thought.  With the scent of sap, and the
song of birds, and the bursting of the blossoms, it would have been
unbearable!  'I hope I shall be over it by then, old fool that I
am!' and picking up his coat, he walked on into the field.  He
passed the pond and mounted the hill slowly.

Near the top a hoarse barking greeted him.  Up on the lawn above
the fernery he could see his old dog Balthasar.  The animal, whose
dim eyes took his master for a stranger, was warning the world
against him.  Jolyon gave his special whistle.  Even at that
distance of a hundred yards and more he could see the dawning
recognition in the obese brown-white body.  The old dog got off his
haunches, and his tail, close-curled over his back, began a feeble,
excited fluttering; he came waddling forward, gathered momentum,
and disappeared over the edge of the fernery.  Jolyon expected to
meet him at the wicket gate, but Balthasar was not there, and,
rather alarmed, he turned into the fernery.  On his fat side,
looking up with eyes already glazing, the old dog lay.

"What is it, my poor old man?" cried Jolyon.  Balthasar's curled
and fluffy tail just moved; his filming eyes seemed saying: "I
can't get up, master, but I'm glad to see you."

Jolyon knelt down; his eyes, very dimmed, could hardly see the
slowly ceasing heave of the dog's side.  He raised the head a
little--very heavy.

"What is it, dear man?  Where are you hurt?" The tail fluttered
once; the eyes lost the look of life.  Jolyon passed his hands all
over the inert warm bulk.  There was nothing--the heart had simply
failed in that obese body from the emotion of his master's return.
Jolyon could feel the muzzle, where a few whitish bristles grew,
cooling already against his lips.  He stayed for some minutes
kneeling; with his hand beneath the stiffening head.  The body was
very heavy when he bore it to the top of the field; leaves had
drifted there, and he strewed it with a covering of them; there was
no wind, and they would keep him from curious eyes until the
afternoon.  'I'll bury him myself,' he thought.  Eighteen years had
gone since he first went into the St. John's Wood house with that
tiny puppy in his pocket.  Strange that the old dog should die just
now!  Was it an omen?  He turned at the gate to look back at that
russet mound, then went slowly towards the house, very choky in the
throat.

June was at home; she had come down hotfoot on hearing the news of
Jolly's enlistment.  His patriotism had conquered her feeling for
the Boers.  The atmosphere of his house was strange and pocketty
when Jolyon came in and told them of the dog Balthasar's death.
The news had a unifying effect.  A link with the past had snapped--
the dog Balthasar!  Two of them could remember nothing before his
day; to June he represented the last years of her grandfather; to
Jolyon that life of domestic stress and aesthetic struggle before
he came again into the kingdom of his father's love and wealth!
And he was gone!

In the afternoon he and Jolly took picks and spades and went out to
the field.  They chose a spot close to the russet mound, so that
they need not carry him far, and, carefully cutting off the surface
turf, began to dig.  They dug in silence for ten minutes, and then
rested.

"Well, old man," said Jolyon, "so you thought you ought?"

"Yes," answered Jolly; "I don't want to a bit, of course."

How exactly those words represented Jolyon's own state of mind

"I admire you for it, old boy.  I don't believe I should have done
it at your age--too much of a Forsyte, I'm afraid.  But I suppose
the type gets thinner with each generation.  Your son, if you have
one, may be a pure altruist; who knows?"

"He won't be like me, then, Dad; I'm beastly selfish."

"No, my dear, that you clearly are not."  Jolly shook his head, and
they dug again.

"Strange life a dog's," said Jolyon suddenly: "The only four-footer
with rudiments of altruism and a sense of God!"

Jolly looked at his father.

"Do you believe in God, Dad?  I've never known."

At so searching a question from one to whom it was impossible to
make a light reply, Jolyon stood for a moment feeling his back
tried by the digging.

"What do you mean by God?" he said; "there are two irreconcilable
ideas of God.  There's the Unknowable Creative Principle--one
believes in That.  And there's the Sum of altruism in man--naturally
one believes in That."

"I see.  That leaves out Christ, doesn't it?"

Jolyon stared.  Christ, the link between those two ideas!  Out of
the mouth of babes!  Here was orthodoxy scientifically explained at
last!  The sublime poem of the Christ life was man's attempt to
join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God.  And since the
Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative
Principle as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse link
might have been chosen after all!  Funny--how one went through life
without seeing it in that sort of way!

"What do you think, old man?" he said.

Jolly frowned.  "Of course, my first year we talked a good bit
about that sort of thing.  But in the second year one gives it up;
I don't know why--it's awfully interesting."

Jolyon remembered that he also had talked a good deal about it his
first year at Cambridge, and given it up in his second.

"I suppose," said Jolly, "it's the second God, you mean, that old
Balthasar had a sense of."

"Yes, or he would never have burst his poor old heart because of
something outside himself."

"But wasn't that just selfish emotion, really?"

Jolyon shook his head.  "No, dogs are not pure Forsytes, they love
something outside themselves."

Jolly smiled.

"Well, I think I'm one," he said.  "You know, I only enlisted
because I dared Val Dartie to."

"But why?"

"We bar each other," said Jolly shortly.

"Ah!" muttered Jolyon.  So the feud went on, unto the third
generation--this modern feud which had no overt expression?

'Shall I tell the boy about it?' he thought.  But to what end--if
he had to stop short of his own part?

And Jolly thought: 'It's for Holly to let him know about that chap.
If she doesn't, it means she doesn't want him told, and I should be
sneaking.  Anyway, I've stopped it.  I'd better leave well alone!'

So they dug on in silence, till Jolyon said:

"Now, old man, I think it's big enough."  And, resting on their
spades, they gazed down into the hole where a few leaves had
drifted already on a sunset wind.

"I can't bear this part of it," said Jolyon suddenly.

"Let me do it, Dad.  He never cared much for me."

Jolyon shook his head.

"We'll lift him very gently, leaves and all.  I'd rather not see
him again.  I'll take his head.  Now!"

With extreme care they raised the old dog's body, whose faded tan
and white showed here and there under the leaves stirred by the
wind.  They laid it, heavy, cold, and unresponsive, in the grave,
and Jolly spread more leaves over it, while Jolyon, deeply afraid
to show emotion before his son, began quickly shovelling the earth
on to that still shape.  There went the past!  If only there were a
joyful future to look forward to!  It was like stamping down earth
on one's own life.  They replaced the turf carefully on the smooth
little mound, and, grateful that they had spared each other's
feelings, returned to the house arm-in-arm.




CHAPTER XI

TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT


On Forsyte 'Change news of the enlistment spread fast, together
with the report that June, not to be outdone, was going to become a
Red Cross nurse.  These events were so extreme, so subversive of
pure Forsyteism, as to have a binding effect upon the family, and
Timothy's was thronged next Sunday afternoon by members trying to
find out what they thought about it all, and exchange with each
other a sense of family credit.  Giles and Jesse Hayman would no
longer defend the coast but go to South Africa quite soon; Jolly
and Val would be following in April; as to June--well, you never
knew what she would really do.

The retirement from Spion Kop and the absence of any good news from
the seat of war imparted an air of reality to all this, clinched in
startling fashion by Timothy.  The youngest of the old Forsytes--
scarcely eighty, in fact popularly supposed to resemble their
father, 'Superior Dosset,' even in his best-known characteristic of
drinking Sherry--had been invisible for so many years that he was
almost mythical.  A long generation had elapsed since the risks of
a publisher's business had worked on his nerves at the age of
forty, so that he had got out with a mere thirty-five thousand
pounds in the world, and started to make his living by careful
investment.  Putting by every year, at compound interest, he had
doubled his capital in forty years without having once known what
it was like to shake in his shoes over money matters.  He was now
putting aside some two thousand a year, and, with the care he was
taking of himself, expected, so Aunt Hester said, to double his
capital again before he died.  What he would do with it then, with
his sisters dead and himself dead, was often mockingly queried by
free spirits such as Francie, Euphemia, or young Nicholas' second,
Christopher, whose spirit was so free that he had actually said he
was going on the stage.  All admitted, however, that this was best
known to Timothy himself, and possibly to Soames, who never
divulged a secret.

Those few Forsytes who had seen him reported a man of thick and
robust appearance, not very tall, with a brown-red complexion, grey
hair, and little of the refinement of feature with which most of
the Forsytes had been endowed by 'Superior Dosset's' wife, a woman
of some beauty and a gentle temperament.  It was known that he had
taken surprising interest in the war, sticking flags into a map
ever since it began, and there was uneasiness as to what would
happen if the English were driven into the sea, when it would be
almost impossible for him to put the flags in the right places.  As
to his knowledge of family movements or his views about them,
little was known, save that Aunt Hester was always declaring that
he was very upset.  It was, then, in the nature of a portent when
Forsytes, arriving on the Sunday after the evacuation of Spion Kop,
became conscious, one after the other, of a presence seated in the
only really comfortable armchair, back to the light, concealing the
lower part of his face with a large hand, and were greeted by the
awed voice of Aunt Hester:

"Your Uncle Timothy, my dear."

Timothy's greeting to them all was somewhat identical; and rather,
as it were, passed over by him than expressed:

"How de do?  How de do?  'Xcuse me gettin' up!"

Francie was present, and Eustace had come in his car; Winifred had
brought Imogen, breaking the ice of the restitution proceedings
with the warmth of family appreciation at Val's enlistment; and
Marian Tweetyman with the last news of Giles and Jesse.  These with
Aunt Juley and Hester, young Nicholas, Euphemia, and--of all
people!--George, who had come with Eustace in the car, constituted
an assembly worthy of the family's palmiest days.  There was not
one chair vacant in the whole of the little drawing-room, and
anxiety was felt lest someone else should arrive.

The constraint caused by Timothy's presence having worn off a
little, conversation took a military turn.  George asked Aunt Juley
when she was going out with the Red Cross, almost reducing her to a
state of gaiety; whereon he turned to Nicholas and said:

"Young Nick's a warrior bold, isn't he?  When's he going to don the
wild khaki?"

Young Nicholas, smiling with a sort of sweet deprecation, intimated
that of course his mother was very anxious.

"The Dromios are off, I hear," said George, turning to Marian
Tweetyman; "we shall all be there soon.  En avant, the Forsytes!
Roll, bowl, or pitch!  Who's for a cooler?"

Aunt Juley gurgled, George was so droll!  Should Hester get
Timothy's map?  Then he could show them all where they were.

At a sound from Timothy, interpreted as assent, Aunt Hester left
the room.

George pursued his image of the Forsyte advance, addressing Timothy
as Field Marshal; and Imogen, whom he had noted at once for 'a
pretty filly,'--as Vivandiere; and holding his top hat between his
knees, he began to beat it with imaginary drumsticks.  The
reception accorded to his fantasy was mixed.  All laughed--George
was licensed; but all felt that the family was being 'rotted'; and
this seemed to them unnatural, now that it was going to give five
of its members to the service of the Queen.  George might go too
far; and there was relief when he got up, offered his arm to Aunt
Juley, marched up to Timothy, saluted him, kissed his aunt with
mock passion, said, "Oh! what a treat, dear papa!  Come on,
Eustace!" and walked out, followed by the grave and fastidious
Eustace, who had never smiled.

Aunt Juley's bewildered, "Fancy not waiting for the map!  You
mustn't mind him, Timothy.  He's so droll!" broke the hush, and
Timothy removed the hand from his mouth.

"I don't know what things are comin' to," he was heard to say.
"What's all this about goin' out there?  That's not the way to beat
those Boers."

Francie alone had the hardihood to observe: "What is, then, Uncle
Timothy?"

"All this new-fangled volunteerin' and expense--lettin' money out
of the country."

Just then Aunt Hester brought in the map, handling it like a baby
with eruptions.  With the assistance of Euphemia it was laid on the
piano, a small Colwood grand, last played on, it was believed, the
summer before Aunt Ann died, thirteen years ago.  Timothy rose.  He
walked over to the piano, and stood looking at his map while they
all gathered round.

"There you are," he said; "that's the position up to date; and very
poor it is.  H'm!"

"Yes," said Francie, greatly daring, "but how are you going to
alter it, Uncle Timothy, without more men?"

"Men!" said Timothy; "you don't want men--wastin' the country's
money.  You want a Napoleon, he'd settle it in a month."

"But if you haven't got him, Uncle Timothy?"

"That's their business," replied Timothy.  "What have we kept the
Army up for--to eat their heads off in time of peace!  They ought
to be ashamed of themselves, comin' on the country to help them
like this!  Let every man stick to his business, and we shall get
on."

And looking round him, he added almost angrily:

"Volunteerin', indeed!  Throwin' good money after bad!  We must
save!  Conserve energy that's the only way."  And with a prolonged
sound, not quite a sniff and not quite a snort, he trod on
Euphemia's toe, and went out, leaving a sensation and a faint scent
of barley-sugar behind him.

The effect of something said with conviction by one who has
evidently made a sacrifice to say it is ever considerable.  And the
eight Forsytes left behind, all women except young Nicholas, were
silent for a moment round the map.  Then Francie said:

"Really, I think he's right, you know.  After all, what is the Army
for?  They ought to have known.  It's only encouraging them."

"My dear!" cried Aunt Juley, "but they've been so progressive.
Think of their giving up their scarlet.  They were always so proud
of it.  And now they all look like convicts.  Hester and I were
saying only yesterday we were sure they must feel it very much.
Fancy what the Iron Duke would have said!"

"The new colour's very smart," said Winifred; "Val looks quite nice
in his."

Aunt Juley sighed.

"I do so wonder what Jolyon's boy is like.  To think we've never
seen him!  His father must be so proud of him."

"His father's in Paris," said Winifred.

Aunt Hester's shoulder was seen to mount suddenly, as if to ward
off her sister's next remark, for Juley's crumpled cheeks had
gushed.

"We had dear little Mrs. MacAnder here yesterday, just back from
Paris.  And whom d'you think she saw there in the street?  You'll
never guess."

"We shan't try, Auntie," said Euphemia.

"Irene!  Imagine!  After all this time; walking with a fair
beard...."

"Auntie! you'll kill me!  A fair beard...."

"I was going to say," said Aunt Juley severely, "a fair-bearded
gentleman.  And not a day older; she was always so pretty," she
added, with a sort of lingering apology.

"Oh! tell us about her, Auntie," cried Imogen; "I can just remember
her.  She's the skeleton in the family cupboard, isn't she?  And
they're such fun."

Aunt Hester sat down.  Really, Juley had done it now!

"She wasn't much of a skeleton as I remember her," murmured
Euphemia, "extremely well-covered."

"My dear!" said Aunt Juley, "what a peculiar way of putting it--not
very nice."

"No, but what was she like?" persisted Imogen.

"I'll tell you, my child," said Francie; "a kind of modern Venus,
very well-dressed."

Euphemia said sharply: "Venus was never dressed, and she had blue
eyes of melting sapphire."

At this juncture Nicholas took his leave.

"Mrs. Nick is awfully strict," said Francie with a laugh.

"She has six children," said Aunt Juley; "it's very proper she
should be careful."

"Was Uncle Soames awfully fond of her?" pursued the inexorable
Imogen, moving her dark luscious eyes from face to face.

Aunt Hester made a gesture of despair, just as Aunt Juley answered:

"Yes, your Uncle Soames was very much attached to her."

"I suppose she ran off with someone?"

"No, certainly not; that is--not precisely.'

"What did she do, then, Auntie?"

"Come along, Imogen," said Winifred, "we must be getting back."

But Aunt Juley interjected resolutely: "She--she didn't behave at
all well."

"Oh, bother!" cried Imogen; "that's as far as I ever get."

"Well, my dear," said Francie, "she had a love affair which ended
with the young man's death; and then she left your uncle.  I always
rather liked her."

"She used to give me chocolates," murmured Imogen, "and smell
nice."

"Of course!" remarked Euphemia.

"Not of course at all!" replied Francie, who used a particularly
expensive essence of gillyflower herself.

"I can't think what we are about," said Aunt Juley, raising her
hands, "talking of such things!"

"Was she divorced?" asked Imogen from the door.

"Certainly not," cried Aunt Juley; "that is--certainly not."

A sound was heard over by the far door.  Timothy had re-entered the
back drawing-room.  "I've come for my map," he said.  "Who's been
divorced?"

"No one, Uncle," replied Francie with perfect truth.

Timothy took his map off the piano.

"Don't let's have anything of that sort in the family," he said.
"All this enlistin's bad enough.  The country's breakin' up; I
don't know what we're comin' to."  He shook a thick finger at the
room: "Too many women nowadays, and they don't know what they
want."

So saying, he grasped the map firmly with both hands, and went out
as if afraid of being answered.

The seven women whom he had addressed broke into a subdued murmur,
out of which emerged Francie's, "Really, the Forsytes!" and Aunt
Juley's: "He must have his feet in mustard and hot water to-night,
Hester; will you tell Jane?  The blood has gone to his head again,
I'm afraid...."

That evening, when she and Hester were sitting alone after dinner,
she dropped a stitch in her crochet, and looked up:

"Hester, I can't think where I've heard that dear Soames wants
Irene to come back to him again.  Who was it told us that George
had made a funny drawing of him with the words, 'He won't be happy
till he gets it'?"

"Eustace," answered Aunt Hester from behind The Times; "he had it
in his pocket, but he wouldn't show it us."

Aunt Juley was silent, ruminating.  The clock ticked, The Times
crackled, the fire sent forth its rustling purr.  Aunt Juley
dropped another stitch.

"Hester," she said, "I have had such a dreadful thought."

"Then don't tell me," said Aunt Hester quickly.

"Oh! but I must.  You can't think how dreadful!"  Her voice sank to
a whisper:

"Jolyon--Jolyon, they say, has a--has a fair beard, now."




CHAPTER XII

PROGRESS OF THE CHASE


Two days after the dinner at James', Mr. Polteed provided Soames
with food for thought.

"A gentleman," he said, consulting the key concealed in his left
hand, "47 as we say, has been paying marked attention to 17 during
the last month in Paris.  But at present there seems to have been
nothing very conclusive.  The meetings have all been in public
places, without concealment--restaurants, the Opera, the Comique,
the Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, lounge of the hotel, and so forth.
She has not yet been traced to his rooms, nor vice versa.  They
went to Fontainebleau--but nothing of value.  In short, the
situation is promising, but requires patience."  And, looking up
suddenly, he added:

"One rather curious point--47 has the same name as--er--31!"

'The fellow knows I'm her husband,' thought Soames.

"Christian name--an odd one--Jolyon," continued Mr. Polteed.  "We
know his address in Paris and his residence here.  We don't wish,
of course, to be running a wrong hare."

"Go on with it, but be careful," said Soames doggedly.

Instinctive certainty that this detective fellow had fathomed his
secret made him all the more reticent.

"Excuse me," said Mr. Polteed, "I'll just see if there's anything
fresh in."

He returned with some letters.  Relocking the door, he glanced at
the envelopes.

"Yes, here's a personal one from 19 to myself."

"Well?" said Soames.

"Um!" said Mr. Polteed, "she says: '47 left for England to-day.
Address on his baggage: Robin Hill.  Parted from 17 in Louvre
Gallery at 3.30; nothing very striking.  Thought it best to stay
and continue observation of 17.  You will deal with 47 in England
if you think desirable, no doubt.'"  And Mr. Polteed lifted an
unprofessional glance on Soames, as though he might be storing
material for a book on human nature after he had gone out of
business.  "Very intelligent woman, 19, and a wonderful make-up.
Not cheap, but earns her money well.  There's no suspicion of being
shadowed so far.  But after a time, as you know, sensitive people
are liable to get the feeling of it, without anything definite to
go on.  I should rather advise letting-up on 17, and keeping an eye
on 47.  We can't get at correspondence without great risk.  I
hardly advise that at this stage.  But you can tell your client
that it's looking up very well."  And again his narrowed eyes
gleamed at his taciturn customer.

"No," said Soames suddenly, "I prefer that you should keep the
watch going discreetly in Paris, and not concern yourself with this
end."

"Very well," replied Mr. Polteed, "we can do it."

"What--what is the manner between them?"

"I'll read you what she says," said Mr. Polteed, unlocking a bureau
drawer and taking out a file of papers; "she sums it up somewhere
confidentially.  Yes, here it is!  '17 very attractive--conclude
47, longer in the tooth' (slang for age, you know)--'distinctly
gone--waiting his time--17 perhaps holding off for terms,
impossible to say without knowing more.  But inclined to think on
the whole--doesn't know her mind--likely to act on impulse some
day.  Both have style.'"

"What does that mean?" said Soames between close lips.

"Well," murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white
teeth, "an expression we use.  In other words, it's not likely to
be a weekend business--they'll come together seriously or not at
all."

"H'm!" muttered Soames, "that's all, is it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Polteed, "but quite promising."

'Spider!' thought Soames.  "Good-day!"

He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria
Station and take the Underground into the City.  For so late in
January it was warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the
frosty grass--an illumined cobweb of a day.

Little spiders--and great spiders!  And the greatest spinner of
all, his own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads
round any clear way out.  What was that fellow hanging round Irene
for?  Was it really as Polteed suggested?  Or was Jolyon but taking
compassion on her loneliness, as he would call it--sentimental
radical chap that he had always been?  If it were, indeed, as
Polteed hinted!  Soames stood still.  It could not be!  The fellow
was seven years older than himself, no better looking!  No richer!
What attraction had he?

'Besides, he's come back,' he thought; 'that doesn't look---I'll go
and see him!' and, taking out a card, he wrote:

"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall be
at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could come to
the Hotch Potch if you prefer it.  I want to see you.--S. F."

He walked up St.  James's Street and confided it to the porter at
the Hotch Potch.

"Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in," he said, and
took one of the new motor cabs into the City....

Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face
towards the Connoisseurs.  What did Soames want now?  Had he got
wind of Paris?  And stepping across St. James's Street, he
determined to make no secret of his visit.  'But it won't do,' he
thought, 'to let him know she's there, unless he knows already.'
In this complicated state of mind he was conducted to where Soames
was drinking tea in a small bay-window.

"No tea, thanks," said Jolyon, "but I'll go on smoking if I may."

The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were
lighted; the two cousins sat waiting on each other.

"You've been in Paris, I hear," said Soames at last.

"Yes; just back."

"Young Val told me; he and your boy are going off, then?" Jolyon
nodded.

"You didn't happen to see Irene, I suppose.  It appears she's
abroad somewhere."

Jolyon wreathed himself in smoke before he answered: "Yes, I saw
her."

"How was she?"

"Very well."

There was another silence; then Soames roused himself in his chair.

"When I saw you last," he said, "I was in two minds.  We talked,
and you expressed your opinion.  I don't wish to reopen that
discussion.  I only wanted to say this: My position with her is
extremely difficult.  I don't want you to go using your influence
against me.  What happened is a very long time ago.  I'm going to
ask her to let bygones be bygones."

"You have asked her, you know," murmured Jolyon.

"The idea was new to her then; it came as a shock.  But the more
she thinks of it, the more she must see that it's the only way out
for both of us."

"That's not my impression of her state of mind," said Jolyon with
particular calm.  "And, forgive my saying, you misconceive the
matter if you think reason comes into it at all."

He saw his cousin's pale face grow paler--he had used, without
knowing it, Irene's own words.

"Thanks," muttered Soames, "but I see things perhaps more plainly
than you think.  I only want to be sure that you won't try to
influence her against me."

"I don't know what makes you think I have any influence," said
Jolyon; "but if I have I'm bound to use it in the direction of what
I think is her happiness.  I am what they call a 'feminist,' I
believe."

"Feminist!" repeated Soames, as if seeking to gain time.  "Does
that mean that you're against me?"

"Bluntly," said Jolyon, "I'm against any woman living with any man
whom she definitely dislikes.  It appears to me rotten."

"And I suppose each time you see her you put your opinions into her
mind."

"I am not likely to be seeing her."

"Not going back to Paris?"

"Not so far as I know," said Jolyon, conscious of the intent
watchfulness in Soames' face.

"Well, that's all I had to say.  Anyone who comes between man and
wife, you know, incurs heavy responsibility."

Jolyon rose and made him a slight bow.

"Good-bye," he said, and, without offering to shake hands, moved
away, leaving Soames staring after him.  'We Forsytes,' thought
Jolyon, hailing a cab, 'are very civilised.  With simpler folk that
might have come to a row.  If it weren't for my boy going to the
war....'  The war!  A gust of his old doubt swept over him.  A
precious war!  Domination of peoples or of women!  Attempts to
master and possess those who did not want you!  The negation of
gentle decency!  Possession, vested rights; and anyone 'agin' 'em--
outcast!  'Thank Heaven!'  he thought, 'I always felt "agin" 'em,
anyway!'  Yes!  Even before his first disastrous marriage he could
remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the matrimonial
suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed.  Parsons
would have it that freedom of soul and body were quite different
things!  Pernicious doctrine!  Body and soul could not thus be
separated.  Free will was the strength of any tie, and not its
weakness.  'I ought to have told Soames,' he thought, 'that I think
him comic.  Ah! but he's tragic, too!'  Was there anything,
indeed, more tragic in the world than a man enslaved by his own
possessive instinct, who couldn't see the sky for it, or even enter
fully into what another person felt!  'I must write and warn her,'
he thought; 'he's going to have another try.'  And all the way home
to Robin Hill he rebelled at the strength of that duty to his son
which prevented him from posting back to Paris....

But Soames sat long in his chair, the prey of a no less gnawing
ache--a jealous ache, as if it had been revealed to him that this
fellow held precedence of himself, and had spun fresh threads of
resistance to his way out.  'Does that mean that you're against
me?' he had got nothing out of that disingenuous question.
Feminist!  Phrasey fellow!  'I mustn't rush things,' he thought.
'I have some breathing space; he's not going back to Paris, unless
he was lying.  I'll let the spring come!'  Though how the spring
could serve him, save by adding to his ache, he could not tell.
And gazing down into the street, where figures were passing from
pool to pool of the light from the high lamps, he thought: 'Nothing
seems any good--nothing seems worth while.  I'm loney--that's the
trouble.'

He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark
street below a church--passing, turning her neck so that he caught
the gleam of her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark
hat, which had gold spangles on it and a veil hanging down behind.
He opened his eyes--so vividly he had seen her!  A woman was
passing below, but not she!  Oh no, there was nothing there!




CHAPTER XIII

'HERE WE ARE AGAIN!'


Imogen's frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of her
mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month of
March.  With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection.  It
took her mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give her
a freedom but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her boy
and his fast approaching departure for a war from which the news
remained disquieting.  Like bees busy on summer flowers, or bright
gadflies hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms, she and
her 'little daughter,' tall nearly as herself and with a bust
measurement not far inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent
Street, the establishments of Hanover Square and of Bond Street,
lost in consideration and the feel of fabrics.  Dozens of young
women of striking deportment and peculiar gait paraded before
Winifred and Imogen, draped in 'creations.'  The models--'Very new,
modom;