om 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