d! 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?"

"Say it concerns Mr. Jon," said Soames.

And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of grey-white
marble designed by her first lover. Ah! she had been a bad lot--had
loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that when he came face
to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw her in the opening chink
between the long heavy purple curtains, swaying, as if in hesitation;
the old perfect poise and line, the old startled dark-eyed gravity, the
old calm defensive voice: "Will you come in, please?"

He passed through that opening. As in the picture-gallery and the
confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this was the
first time--the very first--since he ma