tinental fiction, and
something in the general feel of everything, not to be expressed in
words, things were very different; he recalled the crowd on Mafeking
night, and George Forsyte saying: "They're all socialists, they want our
goods." Like James, Soames didn't know, he couldn't tell--with Edward on
the throne! Things would never be as safe again as under good old Viccy!
Convulsively he pressed his young wife's arm. There, at any rate, was
something substantially his own, domestically certain again at last;
something which made property worth while--a real thing once more.
Pressed close against her and trying to ward others off, Soames was
content. The crowd swayed round them, ate sandwiches and dropped crumbs;
boys who had climbed the plane-trees chattered above like monkeys, threw
twigs and orange-peel. It was past time; they should be coming soon!
And, suddenly, a little behind them to the left, he saw a tallish man
with a soft hat and short grizzling beard, and a tallish woman in a
little round fur cap and veil. Jolyon and Irene talking, smiling at each
other, close together like Annette and himself! They had not seen him;
and stealthily, with a very queer feeling in his heart, Soames watched
those two. They looked happy! What had they come here for--inherently
illicit creatures, rebels from the Victorian ideal? What business had
they in this crowd? Each of them twice exiled by morality--making a
boast, as it were, of love and laxity! He watched them fascinated;
admitting grudgingly even with his arm thrust through Annette's
that--that she--Irene--No! he would not admit it; and he turned his eyes
away. He would not see them, and let the old bitterness, the old longing
rise up within him! And then Annette turned to him and said: "Those two
people, Soames; they know you, I am sure. Who are they?"

Soames nosed sideways.

"What people?"

"There, you see them; just turning away. They know you."

"No," Soames answered; "a mistake, my dear."

"A lovely face! And how she walk! Elle est tres distinguee!"

Soames looked then. Into his life, out of his life she had walked like
that swaying and erect, remote, unseizable; ever eluding the contact of
his soul! He turned abruptly from that receding vision of the past.

"You'd better attend," he said, "they're coming now!"

But while he stood, grasping her arm, seemingly intent on the head of the
procession, he was quivering with the sense of always m