Chapter I: Soames in Paris

Soames had travelled little. Aged nineteen he had made the “petty
tour” with his father, mother, and Winifred—Brussels, the Rhine,
Switzerland, and home by way of Paris. Aged twenty-seven, just
when he began to take interest in pictures, he had spent five hot
weeks in Italy, looking into the Renaissance—not so much in it as
he had been led to expect—and a fortnight in Paris on his way
back, looking into himself, as became a Forsyte surrounded by
people so strongly self-centred and “foreign” as the French. His
knowledge of their language being derived from his public school,
he did not understand them when they spoke. Silence he had found
better for all parties; one did not make a fool of oneself. He
had disliked the look of the men’s clothes, the closed-in cabs,
the theatres which looked like bee-hives, the Galleries which
smelled of beeswax. He was too cautious and too shy to explore
that side of Paris supposed by Forsytes to constitute its
attraction under the rose; and as for a collector’s bargain—not
one to be had! As Nicholas might have put it—they were a grasping
lot. He had come back uneasy, saying Paris was overrated.

When, therefore, in June of 1900 he went to Paris, it was but his
third attempt on the centre of civilisation. This time, however,
the mountain was going to Mahomet; for he felt by now more deeply
civilised than Paris, and perhaps he really was. Moreover, he had
a definite objective. This was no mere genuflexion to a shrine of
taste and immorality, but the prosecution of his own legitimate
affairs. He went, indeed, because things were getting past a
joke. The watch went on and on, and—nothing—nothing! Jolyon had
never returned to Paris, and no one else was “suspect!” Busy with
new and very confidential matters, Soames was realising more than
ever how essential reputation is to a solicitor. But at night and
in his leisure moments he was ravaged by the thought that time
was always flying and money flowing in, and his own future as
much “in irons” as ever. Since Mafeking night he had become aware
that a “young fool of a doctor” was hanging round Annette. Twice
he had come across him—a cheerful young fool, not more than
thirty.

Nothing annoyed Soames so much as cheerfulness—an indecent,
extravagant sort of quality, which had no relation to facts. The
mixture of his desires and hopes was, in a word, becoming
torture; and lately the thought had come to him that perhaps
Irene knew she was being shadowed: It was this which finally
decided him to go and see for himself; to go and once more try to
break down her repugnance, her refusal to make her own and his
path comparatively smooth once more. If he failed again—well, he
would see what she did with herself, anyway!

He went to an hotel in the Rue Caumartin, highly recommended to
Forsytes, where practically nobody spoke French. He had formed no
plan. He did not want to startle her; yet must contrive that she
had no chance to evade him by flight. And next morning he set out
in bright weather.

Paris had an air of gaiety, a sparkle over its star-shape which
almost annoyed Soames. He stepped gravely, his nose lifted a
little sideways in real curiosity. He desired now to understand
things French. Was not Annette French? There was much to be got
out of his visit, if he could only get it. In this laudable mood
and the Place de la Concorde he was nearly run down three times.
He came on the “Cours la Reine,” where Irene’s hotel was
situated, almost too suddenly, for he had not yet fixed on his
procedure. Crossing over to the river side, he noted the
building, white and cheerful-looking, with green sunblinds, seen
through a screen of plane-tree leaves. And, conscious that it
would be far better to meet her casually in some open place than
to risk a call, he sat down on a bench whence he could watch the
entrance. It was not quite eleven o’clock, and improbable that
she had yet gone out. Some pigeons were strutting and preening
their feathers in the pools of sunlight between the shadows of
the plane-trees. A workman in a blue blouse passed, and threw
them crumbs from the paper which contained his dinner. A
“_bonne_” coiffed with ribbon shepherded two little girls with
pig-tails and frilled drawers. A cab meandered by, whose _cocher_
wore a blue coat and a black-glazed hat. To Soames a kind of
affectation seemed to cling about it all, a sort of
picturesqueness which was out of date. A theatrical people, the
French! He lit one of his rare cigarettes, with a sense of injury
that Fate should be casting his life into outlandish waters. He
shouldn’t wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life; she
had never been properly English—even to look at! And he began
considering which of those windows could be hers under the green
sunblinds. How could he word what he had come to say so that it
might pierce the defence of her proud obstinacy? He threw the
fag-end of his cigarette at a pigeon, with the thought: “I can’t
stay here for ever twiddling my thumbs. Better give it up and
call on her in the late afternoon.” But he still sat on, heard
twelve strike, and then half-past. “I’ll wait till one,” he
thought, “while I’m about it.” But just then he started up, and
shrinkingly sat down again. A woman had come out in a
cream-coloured frock, and was moving away under a fawn-coloured
parasol. Irene herself! He waited till she was too far away to
recognise him, then set out after her. She was strolling as
though she had no particular objective; moving, if he remembered
rightly, toward the Bois de Boulogne. For half an hour at least
he kept his distance on the far side of the way till she had
passed into the Bois itself. Was she going to meet someone after
all? Some confounded Frenchman—one of those “Bel Ami” chaps,
perhaps, who had nothing to do but hang about women—for he had
read that book with difficulty and a sort of disgusted
fascination. He followed doggedly along a shady alley, losing
sight of her now and then when the path curved. And it came back
to him how, long ago, one night in Hyde Park he had slid and
sneaked from tree to tree, from seat to seat, hunting blindly,
ridiculously, in burning jealousy for her and young Bosinney. The
path bent sharply, and, hurrying, he came on her sitting in front
of a small fountain—a little green-bronze Niobe veiled in hair to
her slender hips, gazing at the pool she had wept: He came on her
so suddenly that he was past before he could turn and take off
his hat. She did not start up. She had always had great
self-command—it was one of the things he most admired in her, one
of his greatest grievances against her, because he had never been
able to tell what she was thinking. Had she realised that he was
following? Her self-possession made him angry; and, disdaining to
explain his presence, he pointed to the mournful little Niobe,
and said:

“That’s rather a good thing.”

He could see, then, that she was struggling to preserve her
composure.

“I didn’t want to startle you; is this one of your haunts?”

“Yes.”

“A little lonely.” As he spoke, a lady, strolling by, paused to
look at the fountain and passed on.

Irene’s eyes followed her.

“No,” she said, prodding the ground with her parasol, “never
lonely. One has always one’s shadow.”

Soames understood; and, looking at her hard, he exclaimed:

“Well, it’s your own fault. You can be free of it at any moment.
Irene, come back to me, and be free.”

Irene laughed.

“Don’t!” cried Soames, stamping his foot; “it’s inhuman. Listen!
Is there any condition I can make which will bring you back to
me? If I promise you a separate house—and just a visit now and
then?”

Irene rose, something wild suddenly in her face and figure.

“None! None! None! You may hunt me to the grave. I will not
come.”

Outraged and on edge, Soames recoiled.

“Don’t make a scene!” he said sharply. And they both stood
motionless, staring at the little Niobe, whose greenish flesh the
sunlight was burnishing.

“That’s your last word, then,” muttered Soames, clenching his
hands; “you condemn us both.”

Irene bent her head. “I can’t come back. Good-bye!”

A feeling of monstrous injustice flared up in Soames.

“Stop!” he said, “and listen to me a moment. You gave me a sacred
vow—you came to me without a penny. You had all I could give you.
You broke that vow without cause, you made me a by-word; you
refused me a child; you’ve left me in prison; you—you still move
me so that I want you—I want you. Well, what do you think of
yourself?”

Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.

“God made me as I am,” she said; “wicked if you like—but not so
wicked that I’ll give myself again to a man I hate.”

The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to
lay a caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.

Soames could neither speak nor move. That word “hate”—so extreme,
so primitive—made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep
imprecation he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran
almost into the arms of the lady sauntering back—the fool, the
shadowing fool!

He was soon dripping with perspiration, in the depths of the
Bois.

“Well,” he thought, “I need have no consideration for her now;
she has not a grain of it for me. I’ll show her this very day
that she’s my wife still.”

But on the way home to his hotel, he was forced to the conclusion
that he did not know what he meant. One could not make scenes in
public, and short of scenes in public what was there he could do?
He almost cursed his own thin-skinnedness. She might deserve no
consideration; but he—alas! deserved some at his own hands. And
sitting lunchless in the hall of his hotel, with tourists passing
every moment, Baedeker in hand, he was visited by black
dejection. In irons! His whole life, with every natural instinct
and every decent yearning gagged and fettered, and all because
Fate had driven him seventeen years ago to set his heart upon
this woman—so utterly, that even now he had no real heart to set
on any other! Cursed was the day he had met her, and his eyes for
seeing in her anything but the cruel Venus she was! And yet,
still seeing her with the sunlight on the clinging China crepe of
her gown, he uttered a little groan, so that a tourist who was
passing, thought: “Man in pain! Let’s see! what did I have for
lunch?”

Later, in front of a café near the Opera, over a glass of cold
tea with lemon and a straw in it, he took the malicious
resolution to go and dine at her hotel. If she were there, he
would speak to her; if she were not, he would leave a note. He
dressed carefully, and wrote as follows:

“Your idyll with that fellow Jolyon Forsyte is known to me at all
events. If you pursue it, understand that I will leave no stone
unturned to make things unbearable for him.

‘S. F.’”

He sealed this note but did not address it, refusing to write the
maiden name which she had impudently resumed, or to put the word
Forsyte on the envelope lest she should tear it up unread. Then
he went out, and made his way through the glowing streets,
abandoned to evening pleasure-seekers. Entering her hotel, he
took his seat in a far corner of the dining-room whence he could
see all entrances and exits. She was not there. He ate little,
quickly, watchfully. She did not come. He lingered in the lounge
over his coffee, drank two liqueurs of brandy. But still she did
not come. He went over to the keyboard and examined the names.
Number twelve, on the first floor! And he determined to take the
note up himself. He mounted red-carpeted stairs, past a little
salon; eight-ten-twelve! Should he knock, push the note under,
or...? He looked furtively round and turned the handle. The door
opened, but into a little space leading to another door; he
knocked on that—no answer. The door was locked. It fitted very
closely to the floor; the note would not go under. He thrust it
back into his pocket, and stood a moment listening. He felt
somehow certain that she was not there. And suddenly he came
away, passing the little salon down the stairs. He stopped at the
bureau and said:

“Will you kindly see that Mrs. Heron has this note?”

“Madame Heron left to-day, Monsieur—suddenly, about three
o’clock. There was illness in her family.”

Soames compressed his lips. “Oh!” he said; “do you know her
address?”

“_Non, Monsieur_. England, I think.”

Soames put the note back into his pocket and went out. He hailed
an open horse-cab which was passing.

“Drive me anywhere!”

The man, who, obviously, did not understand, smiled, and waved
his whip. And Soames was borne along in that little
yellow-wheeled Victoria all over star-shaped Paris, with here and
there a pause, and the question, “_C’est par ici, Monsieur?_”
“No, go on,” till the man gave it up in despair, and the
yellow-wheeled chariot continued to roll between the tall,
flat-fronted shuttered houses and plane-tree avenues—a little
Flying Dutchman of a cab.

“Like my life,” thought Soames, “without object, on and on!”