divorced?"

"No one, Uncle," replied Francie with perfect truth.

Timothy took his map off the piano.

"Don't let's have anything of that sort in the family," he said.
"All this enlistin's bad enough.  The country's breakin' up; I
don't know what we're comin' to."  He shook a thick finger at the
room: "Too many women nowadays, and they don't know what they
want."

So saying, he grasped the map firmly with both hands, and went out
as if afraid of being answered.

The seven women whom he had addressed broke into a subdued murmur,
out of which emerged Francie's, "Really, the Forsytes!" and Aunt
Juley's: "He must have his feet in mustard and hot water to-night,
Hester; will you tell Jane?  The blood has gone to his head again,
I'm afraid...."

That evening, when she and Hester were sitting alone after dinner,
she dropped a stitch in her crochet, and looked up:

"Hester, I can't think where I've heard that dear Soames wants
Irene to come back to him again.  Who was it told us that George
had made a funny drawing of him with the words, 'He won't be happy
till he gets it'?"

"Eustace," answered Aunt Hester from behind The Times; "he had it
in his pocket, but he wouldn't show it us."

Aunt Juley was silent, ruminating.  The clock ticked, The Times
crackled, the fire sent forth its rustling purr.  Aunt Juley
dropped another stitch.

"Hester," she said, "I have had such a dreadful thought."

"Then don't tell me," said Aunt Hester quickly.

"Oh!  but I must.  You can't think how dreadful" Her voice sank to
a whisper:

"Jolyon--Jolyon, they say, has a--has a fair beard, now."




CHAPTER XII

PROGRESS OF THE CHASE


Two days after the dinner at James', Mr. Polteed provided Soames
with food for thought.

"A gentleman," he said, consulting the key concealed in his left
hand, "47 as we say, has been paying marked attention to 17 during
the last month in Paris.  But at present there seems to have been
nothing very conclusive.  The meetings have all been in public
places, without concealment--restaurants, the Opera, the Comique,
the Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, lounge of the hotel, and so forth.
She has not yet been traced to his rooms, nor vice versa.  They
went to Fontainebleau--but nothing of value.  In short, the
situation is promising, but requires patience."  And, looking up
suddenly, he added:

"One rather curious point--47 has the same name as--er--31!"

'The fellow knows I'm her husband,' thought Soames.

"Christian name--an odd one--Jolyon," continued Mr. Polteed.  "We
know his address in Paris and his residence here.  We don't wish,
of course, to be running a wrong hare."

"Go on with it, but be careful," said Soames doggedly.

Instinctive certainty that this detective fellow had fathomed his
secret made him all the more reticent.

"Excuse me," said Mr. Polteed, "I'll just see if there's anything
fresh in."

He returned with some letters.  Relocking the door, he glanced at
the envelopes.

"Yes, here's a personal one from 19 to myself."

"Well?" said Soames.

 "Um!" said Mr. Polteed, "she says: '47 left for England to-day.
Address on his baggage: Robin Hill.  Parted from 17 in Louvre
Gallery at 3.30; nothing very striking.  Thought it best to stay
and continue observation of 17.  You will deal with 47 in England
if you think desirable, no doubt.'"  And Mr. Polteed lifted an
unprofessional glance on Soames, as though he might be storing
material for a book on human nature after he had gone out of
business.  "Very intelligent woman, 19, and a wonderful make-up.
Not cheap, but earns her money well.  There's no suspicion of being
shadowed so far.  But after a time, as you know, sensitive people
are liable to get the feeling of it, without anything definite to
go on.  I should rather advise letting-up on 17, and keeping an eye
on 47.  We can't get at correspondence without great risk.  I
hardly advise that at this stage.  But you can tell your client
that it's looking up very well."  And again his narrowed eyes
gleamed at his taciturn customer.

"No," said Soames suddenly, "I prefer that you should keep the
watch going discreetly in Paris, and not concern yourself with this
end."

"Very well," replied Mr. Polteed, "we can do it.

"What--what is the manner between them?"

"I'll read you what she says," said Mr. Polteed, unlocking a bureau
drawer and taking out a file of papers; "she sums it up somewhere
confidentially.  Yes, here it is!  '17 very attractive--conclude
47, longer in the tooth' (slang for age, you know)--'distinctly
gone--waiting his time--17 perhaps holding off for terms,
impossible to say without knowing more.  But inclined to think on
the whole--doesn't know her mind--likely to act on impulse some
day.  Both have style.'"

"What does that mean?" said Soames between close lips.

"Well," murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white
teeth, "an expression we use.  In other words, it's not likely to
be a weekend business--they'll come together seriously or not at
all."

"H'm!" muttered Soames, "that's all, is it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Polteed, "but quite promising."

'Spider!' thought Soames.  "Good-day!"

He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria
Station and take the Underground into the City.  For so late in
January it was warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the
frosty grass--an illumined cobweb of a day.

Little spiders--and great spiders!  And the greatest spinner of
all, his own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads
round any clear way out.  What was that fellow hanging round Irene
for?  Was it really as Polteed suggested?  Or was Jolyon but taking
compassion on her loneliness, as he would call it--sentimental
radical chap that he had always been?  If it were, indeed, as
Polteed hinted!  Soames stood still.  It could not be!  The fellow
was seven years older than himself, no better looking!  No richer!
What attraction had he?

'Besides, he's come back,' he thought; 'that doesn't look---I'll go
and see him!' and, taking out a card, he wrote:

"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall be
at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could come to
the Hotch Potch if you prefer it.  I want to see you.--S. F."

He walked up St.  James's Street and confided it to the porter at
the Hotch Potch.

"Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in," he said, and
took one of the new motor cabs into the City....

Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face
towards the Connoisseurs.  What did Soames want now?  Had he got
wind of Paris?  And stepping across St. James's Street, he
determined to make no secret of his visit.  'But it won't do,' he
thought, 'to let him know she's there, unless he knows already.'
In this complicated state of mind he was conducted to where Soames
was drinking tea in a small bay-window.

"No tea, thanks," said Jolyon, "but I'll go on smoking if I may."

The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were
lighted; the two cousins sat waiting on each other.

"You've been in Paris, I hear," said Soames at last.

"Yes; just back."

"Young Val told me; he and your boy are going off, then?" Jolyon
nodded.

"You didn't happen to see Irene, I suppose.  It appears she's
abroad somewhere."

Jolyon wreathed himself in smoke before he answered: "Yes, I saw
her."

"How was she?"

"Very well."

There was another silence; then Soames roused himself in his chair.

"When I saw you last," he said, "I was in two minds.  We talked,
and you expressed your opinion.  I don't wish to reopen that
discussion.  I only wanted to say this: My position with her is
extremely difficult.  I don't want you to go using your influence
against me.  What happened is a very long time ago.  I'm going to
ask her to let bygones be bygones."

"You have asked her, you know," murmured Jolyon.

"The idea was new to her then; it came as a shock.  But the more
she thinks of it, the more she must see that it's the only way out
for both of us."

"That's not my impression of her state of mind," said Jolyon with
particular calm.  "And, forgive my saying, you misconceive the
matter if you think reason comes into it at all."

He saw his cousin's pale face grow paler--he had used, without
knowing it, Irene's own words.

"Thanks," muttered Soames, "but I see things perhaps more plainly
than you think.  I only want to be sure that you won't try to
influence her against me."

"I don't know what makes you think I have any influence," said
Jolyon; "but if I have I'm bound to use it in the direction of what
I think is her happiness.  I am what they call a 'feminist,' I
believe."

"Feminist!" repeated Soames, as if seeking to gain time.  "Does
that mean that you're against me?"

"Bluntly," said Jolyon, "I'm against any woman living with any man
whom she definitely dislikes.  It appears to me rotten."

"And I suppose each time you see her you put your opinions into her
mind."

"I am not likely to be seeing her."

"Not going back to Paris?"

"Not so far as I know," said Jolyon, conscious of the intent
watchfulness in Soames' face.

"Well, that's all I had to say.  Anyone who comes between man and
wife, you know, incurs heavy responsibility."

Jolyon rose and made him a slight bow.

"Good-bye," he said, and, without offering to shake hands, moved
away, leaving Soames staring after him.  'We Forsytes,' thought
Jolyon, hailing a cab, 'are very civilised.  With simpler folk that
might have come to a row.  If it weren't for my boy going to the
war....'  The war!  A gust of his old doubt swept over him.  A
precious war!  Domination of peoples or of women!  Attempts to
master and possess those who did not want you!  The negation of
gentle decency!  Possession, vested rights; and anyone 'agin' 'em--
outcast!  'Thank Heaven!'  he thought, 'I always felt "agin" 'em,
anyway!'  Yes!  Even before his first disastrous marriage he could
remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the matrimonial
suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed.  Parsons
would have it that freedom of soul and body were quite different
things!  Pernicious doctrine!  Body and soul could not thus be
separated.  Free will was the strength of any tie, and not its
weakness.  'I ought to have told Soames,' he thought, 'that I think
him comic.  Ah! but he's tragic, too!'   Was there anything,
indeed, more tragic in the world than a man enslaved by his own
possessive instinct, who couldn't see the sky for it, or even enter
fully into what another person felt!  'I must write and warn her,'
he thought; 'he's going to have another try.'  And all the way home
to Robin Hill he rebelled at the strength of that duty to his son
which prevented him from posting back to Paris....

But Soames sat long in his chair, the prey of a no less gnawing
ache--a jealous ache, as if it had been revealed to him that this
fellow held precedence of himself, and had spun fresh threads of
resistance to his way out.  'Does that mean that you're against
me?' he had got nothing out of that disingenuous question.
Feminist!  Phrasey fellow!  'I mustn't rush things,' he thought.
'I have some breathing space; he's not going back to Paris, unless
he was lying.  I'll let the spring come!'  Though how the spring
could serve him, save by adding to his ache, he could not tell.
And gazing down into the street, where figures were passing from
pool to pool of the light from the high lamps, he thought: 'Nothing
seems any good--nothing seems worth while.  I'm loney--that's the
trouble.'

He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark
street below a church--passing, turning her neck so that he caught
the gleam of her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark
hat, which had gold spangles on it and a veil hanging down behind.
He opened his eyes--so vividly he had seen her!  A woman was
passing below, but not she!  Oh no, there was nothing there!




CHAPTER XIII

HERE WE ARE AGAIN!'


Imogen's frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of her
mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month of
March.  With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection.  It
took her mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give her
a freedom but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her boy
and his fast approaching departure for a war from which the news
remained disquieting.  Like bees busy on summer flowers, or bright
gadflies hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms, she and
her 'little daughter,' tall nearly as herself and with a bust
measurement not far inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent
Street, the establishments of Hanover Square and of Bond Street,
lost in consideration and the feel of fabrics.  Dozens of young
women of striking deportment and peculiar gait paraded before
Winifred and Imogen, draped in 'creations.'  The models--'Very new,
modom; quite the latest thing--' which those two reluctantly turned
down, would have filled a museum; the models which they were
obliged to have nearly emptied James' bank.  It was no good doing
things by halves, Winifred felt, in view of the need for making
this first and sole untarnished season a conspicuous success.
Their patience in trying the patience of those impersonal creatures
who swam about before them could alone have been displayed by such
as were moved by faith.  It was for Winifred a long prostration
before her dear goddess Fashion, fervent as a Catholic might make
before the Virgin; for Imogen an experience by no means too
unpleasant--she often looked so nice, and flattery was implicit
everywhere: in a word it was 'amusing.'

On the afternoon of the 20th of March, having, as it were, gutted
Skywards, they had sought refreshment over the way at Caramel and
Baker's, and, stored with chocolate frothed at the top with cream,
turned homewards through Berkeley Square of an evening touched with
spring.  Opening the door--freshly painted a light olive-green;
nothing neglected that year to give Imogen a good send-off--
Winifred passed towards the silver basket to see if anyone had
called, and suddenly her nostrils twitched.  What was that scent?

Imogen had taken up a novel sent from the library, and stood
absorbed.  Rather sharply, because of the queer feeling in her
breast, Winifred said:

"Take that up, dear, and have a rest before dinner."

Imogen, still reading, passed up the stairs.  Winifred heard the
door of her room slammed to, and drew a long savouring breath.  Was
it spring tickling her senses--whipping up nostalgia for her
'clown,' against all wisdom and outraged virtue?  A male scent!  A
faint reek of cigars and lavender-water not smelt since that early
autumn night six months ago, when she had called him 'the limit.'
Whence came it, or was it ghost of scent--sheer emanation from
memory?  She looked round her.  Nothing--not a thing, no tiniest
disturbance of her hall, nor of the diningroom.  A little day-dream
of a scent--illusory, saddening, silly!  In the silver basket were
new cards, two with 'Mr. and Mrs. Polegate Thom,' and one with 'Mr.

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