ustice of the
whole thing excited in him a perpetual suppressed fury. He had asked no
better than to live in spotless domesticity, and now he must go into the
witness box, after all these futile, barren years, and proclaim his
failure to keep his wife--incur the pity, the amusement, the contempt of
his kind. It was all upside down. She and that fellow ought to be the
sufferers, and they--were in Italy! In these weeks the Law he had served
so faithfully, looked on so reverently as the guardian of all property,
seemed to him quite pitiful. What could be more insane than to tell a
man that he owned his wife, and punish him when someone unlawfully took
her away from him? Did the Law not know that a man's name was to him the
apple of his eye, that it was far harder to be regarded as cuckold than
as seducer? He actually envied Jolyon the reputation of succeeding where
he, Soames, had failed. The question of damages worried him, too. He
wanted to make that fellow suffer, but he remembered his cousin's words,
"I shall be very happy," with the uneasy feeling that to claim damages
would make not Jolyon but himself suffer; he felt uncannily that Jolyon
would rather like to pay them--the chap was so loose. Besides, to claim
damages was not the thing to do. The claim, indeed, had been made almost
mechanically; and as the hour drew near Soames saw in it just another
dodge of this insensitive and topsy-turvy Law to make him ridiculous; so
that people might sneer and say: "Oh, yes, he got quite a good price for
her!" And he gave instructions that his Counsel should state that the
money would be given to a Home for Fallen Women. He was a long time
hitting off exactly the right charity; but, having pitched on it, he used
to wake up in the night and think: 'It won't do, too lurid; it'll draw
attention. Something quieter--better taste.' He did not care for dogs,
or he would have named them; and it was in desperation at last--for his
knowledge of charities was limited--that he decided on the blind. That
could not be inappropriate, and it would make the Jury assess the damages
high.

A good many suits were dropping out of the list, which happened to be
exceptionally thin that summer, so that his case would be reached before
August. As the day grew nearer, Winifred was his only comfort. She
showed the fellow-feeling of one who had been through the mill, and was
the 'femme-sole' in whom he confided, well knowing that she would