ty years ago. Funny--so near London! Some one
evidently was holding on to the land there. This speculation soothed
him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated,
though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there was
something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures!
The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going
up--worth holding on to, in a world where there was such a lot of
unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here to-day and
gone to-morrow" spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their
peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of the French. One's
bit of land! Something solid in it! He had heard peasant proprietors
described as a pig-headed lot; had heard young Mont call his father a
pigheaded Morning Poster--disrespectful young devil. Well, there were
worse things than being pig-headed or reading the Morning Post. There
was Profond and his tribe, and all these Labour chaps, and loud-mouthed
politicians and 'wild, wild women'! A lot of worse things! And suddenly
Soames became conscious of feeling weak, and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves
at the meeting before him! As Aunt Juley might have said--quoting
"Superior Dosset"--his nerves were "in a proper fautigue." He could see
the house now among its trees, the house he had watched being built,
intending it for himself and this woman, who, by such strange fate, had
lived in it with another after all! He began to think of Dumetrius, Local
Loans, and other forms of investment. He could not afford to meet her
with his nerves all shaking; he who represented the Day of Judgment for
her on earth as it was in heaven; he, legal ownership, personified,
meeting lawless beauty, incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity
during this embassy designed to link their offspring, who, if she had
behaved herself, would have been brother and sister. That wretched tune,
"The Wild, Wild Women," kept running in his head, perversely, for tunes
did not run there as a rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house,
he thought: 'How they've grown; I had them planted!' A maid answered his
ring.

"Will you say--Mr. Forsyte, on a very special matter."

If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. 'By
George!' he thought, hardening as the tug came. 'It's a topsy-turvy
affair!'

The maid came back. "Would the gentleman state his business, please?"