turned fifty and twice married,
with grown-up daughters and a son. 'Queer,' he thought. 'If she were
plain I shouldn't be thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when
you're sensitive to it!' And into the Club reading-room he went with a
disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one summer
afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and secret lecture
he had given that young man in the interests of June, the diagnosis of
the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he had wondered what sort of woman
it was he was warning him against. And now! He was almost in want of a
warning himself. 'It's deuced funny!' he thought, 'really deuced
funny!'

CHAPTER XIV

SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS

It is so much easier to say, "Then we know where we are," than to mean
anything particular by the words. And in saying them Soames did but vent
the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of the cab in a state
of wary anger--with himself for not having seen Irene, with Jolyon for
having seen her; and now with his inability to tell exactly what he
wanted.

He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain seated
beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he thought: 'I wouldn't
trust that fellow Jolyon a yard. Once outcast, always outcast!' The
chap had a natural sympathy with--with--laxity (he had shied at the word
sin, because it was too melodramatic for use by a Forsyte).

Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a child
between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken away from him;
and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday desire had seemed
simple--just his freedom and Annette. 'I'll go and dine there,' he
thought. To see her might bring back his singleness of intention, calm
his exasperation, clear his mind.

The restaurant was fairly full--a good many foreigners and folk whom,
from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic. Scraps of
conversation came his way through the clatter of plates and glasses. He
distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the British Government
blamed. 'Don't think much of their clientele,' he thought. He went
stolidly through his dinner and special coffee without making his
presence known, and when at last he had finished, was careful not to be
seen going towards the sanctum of Madame Lamotte. They were, as he
entered, having supper--such a much nicer-looking supper than the