last afternoon at Robin
Hill, he was never free from the sense of his presence--never free from
the memory of his worn face with its high cheek bones and enthusiastic
eyes. It would not be too much to say that he had never got rid of the
feeling of that night when he heard the peacock's cry at dawn--the
feeling that Bosinney haunted the house. And every man's shape that he
saw in the dark evenings walking past, seemed that of him whom George had
so appropriately named the Buccaneer.

Irene still met him, he was certain; where, or how, he neither knew, nor
asked; deterred by a vague and secret dread of too much knowledge. It
all seemed subterranean nowadays.

Sometimes when he questioned his wife as to where she had been, which he
still made a point of doing, as every Forsyte should, she looked very
strange. Her self-possession was wonderful, but there were moments when,
behind the mask of her face, inscrutable as it had always been to him,
lurked an expression he had never been used to see there.

She had taken to lunching out too; when he asked Bilson if her mistress
had been in to lunch, as often as not she would answer: "No, sir."

He strongly disapproved of her gadding about by herself, and told her so.
But she took no notice. There was something that angered, amazed, yet
almost amused him about the calm way in which she disregarded his wishes.
It was really as if she were hugging to herself the thought of a triumph
over him.

He rose from the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.'s opinion, and, going
upstairs, entered her room, for she did not lock her doors till
bed-time--she had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of the
servants. She was brushing her hair, and turned to him with strange
fierceness.

"What do you want?" she said. "Please leave my room!"

He answered: "I want to know how long this state of things between us is
to last? I have put up with it long enough."

"Will you please leave my room?"

"Will you treat me as your husband?"

"No."

"Then, I shall take steps to make you."

"Do!"

He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer. Her lips were
compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her bare
shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark eyes--those
eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt, and odd, haunting
triumph.

"Now, please, will you leave my room?" He turned round, and went sulkily
out.

He knew very well that he had no i