ught treasures there sometimes, though he
had no place to put them; for when the conviction that his wife had gone
for good at last became firm within him, he had caused a board to be put
up in Montpellier Square:

FOR SALE
THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE

Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes,
Court Street, Belgravia.

It had sold within a week--that desirable residence, in the shadow of
whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.

Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down, Soames
had gone there once more, and stood against the Square railings, looking
at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of possessive memories which
had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why had she never loved him? Why?
She had been given all she had wanted, and in return had given him, for
three long years, all he had wanted--except, indeed, her heart. He had
uttered a little involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced
suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter that green
door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board 'For Sale!' A
choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he had hurried away into
the mist. That evening he had gone to Brighton to live....

Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne, where
Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her accounts, Soames
thought with wonder of those seven years at Brighton. How had he managed
to go on so long in that town devoid of the scent of sweetpeas, where he
had not even space to put his treasures? True, those had been years with
no time at all for looking at them--years of almost passionate
money-making, during which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become
solicitors to more limited Companies than they could properly attend to.
Up to the City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an
evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the sleep
of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday was spent at
his Club in town--curious reversal of customary procedure, based on the
deep and careful instinct that while working so hard he needed sea air to
and from the station twice a day, and while resting must indulge his
domestic affections. The Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to
Timothy's, and to Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had
seemed to him as necessary to healt