ut that woman! Softened by the events of the past
week, affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came
nearer than he had ever been to realisation of that truth--passing the
understanding of a Forsyte pure--that the body of Beauty has a spiritual
essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks not of self. After
all, he was near that truth in his devotion to his daughter; perhaps that
made him understand a little how he had missed the prize. And there,
among the drawings of his kinsman, who had attained to that which he had
found beyond his reach, he thought of him and her with a tolerance which
surprised him. But he did not buy a drawing.

Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer air he
met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent from his mind
when he went into the Gallery--Irene, herself, coming in. So she had not
gone yet, and was still paying farewell visits to that fellow's remains!
He subdued the little involuntary leap of his subconsciousness, the
mechanical reaction of his senses to the charm of this once-owned woman,
and passed her with averted eyes. But when he had gone by he could not
for the life of him help looking back. This, then, was finality--the heat
and stress of his life, the madness and the longing thereof, the only
defeat he had known, would be over when she faded from his view this
time; even such memories had their own queer aching value.

She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she lifted her gloved hand, her
lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed to speak. It was the turn of
Soames to make no answer to that smile and that little farewell wave; he
went out into the fashionable street quivering from head to foot. He
knew what she had meant to say: "Now that I am going for ever out of the
reach of you and yours--forgive me; I wish you well." That was the
meaning; last sign of that terrible reality--passing morality, duty,
common sense--her aversion from him who had owned her body, but had never
touched her spirit or her heart. It hurt; yes--more than if she had
kept her mask unmoved, her hand unlifted.

Three days later, in that fast-yellowing October, Soames took a taxi-cab
to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white forest to the Forsyte
vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs and columbaria, tall, ugly,
and individual, it looked like an apex of the competitive system. He
could remember a discussion wherein Swithi