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 clientèle,”
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 dinner he had eaten that he
felt a kind of grief—and they greeted him with a surprise so
seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion: “I
believe they knew I was here all the time.” He gave Annette a
look furtive and searching. So pretty, seemingly so candid; could
she be angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:

“I’ve been dining here.”

Really! If she had only known! There were dishes she could have
recommended; what a pity! Soames was confirmed in his suspicion.
“I must look out what I’m doing!” he thought sharply.

“Another little cup of very special coffee, _monsieur;_ a
liqueur, Grand Marnier?” and Madame Lamotte rose to order these
delicacies.

Alone with Annette Soames said, “Well, Annette?” with a defensive
little smile about his lips.

The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his
nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has
when a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a
curious sense of power, as if he could have said to her, “Come
and kiss me,” and she would have come. And yet—it was strange—but
there seemed another face and form in the room too; and the itch
in his nerves, was it for that—or for this? He jerked his head
towards the restaurant and said: “You have some queer customers.
Do you like this life?”

Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played
with her fork.

“No,” she said, “I do not like it.”

“I’ve got her,” thought Soames, “if I want her. But do I want
her?” She was graceful, she was pretty—very pretty; she was
fresh, she had taste of a kind. His eyes travelled round the
little room; but the eyes of his mind went another journey—a
half-light, and silvery walls, a satinwood piano, a woman
standing against it, reined back as it were from him—a woman with
white shoulders that he knew, and dark eyes that he had sought to
know, and hair like dull dark amber. And as in an artist who
strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose
in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never
satisfied.

“Well,” he said calmly, “you’re young. There’s everything before
_you_.”

Annette shook her head.

“I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I am
not so in love with work as mother.”

“Your mother is a wonder,” said Soames, faintly mocking; “she
will never let failure lodge in her house.”

Annette sighed. “It must be wonderful to be rich.”

“Oh! You’ll be rich some day,” answered Soames, still with that
faint mockery; “don’t be afraid.”

Annette shrugged her shoulders. “_Monsieur_ is very kind.” And
between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.

“Yes, my dear,” thought Soames, “they’re very pretty.”

Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that
colloquy. Soames did not stay long.

Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a
feeling of property improperly owned, he mused. If only Irene had
given him a son, he wouldn’t now be squirming after women! The
thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner
consciousness. A son—something to look forward to, something to
make the rest of life worth while, something to leave himself to,
some perpetuity of self. “If I had a son,” he thought bitterly,
“a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used. One
woman’s much the same as another, after all.” But as he walked he
shook his head. No! One woman was not the same as another. Many a
time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted
married life; and he had always failed. He was failing now. He
was trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was
not, she had not the lure of that old passion. “And Irene’s my
wife,” he thought, “my legal wife. I have done nothing to put her
away from me. Why shouldn’t she come back to me? It’s the right
thing, the lawful thing. It makes no scandal, no disturbance. If
it’s disagreeable to her—but why _should_ it be? I’m not a leper,
and she—she’s no longer in love!” Why should he be put to the
shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the
Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only
waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally
owned her? To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry
into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away
to the world was intensely alluring. “No,” he mused, “I’m glad I
went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene
will come back I’ll be as considerate as she wishes; she could
live her own life; but perhaps—perhaps she would come round to
me.” There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along by the
railings of the Green Park, towards his father’s house, he went,
trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant
moonlight.

PART II