The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and passed, she

relapsed into her attitude of hopeless expectation, into her patient,

sourish smile.

Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their daughters, and in

their eyes could be read all the story of those daughters' fortunes. As

for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired, silent, or talking

spasmodically--what did it matter, so long as the girls were having a

good time! But to see them neglected and passed by! Ah! they smiled,

but their eyes stabbed like the eyes of an offended swan; they longed to

pluck young Gathercole by the slack of his dandified breeches, and drag

him to their daughters--the jackanapes!

And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos and unequal

chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness, and patience, were presented

on the battle-field of this Kensington ball-room.

Here and there, too, lovers--not lovers like Francie's, a peculiar

breed, but simply lovers--trembling, blushing, silent, sought each other

by flying glances, sought to meet and touch in the mazes of the dance,

and now and again dancing together, struck some beholder by the light in

their eyes.

Not a second before ten o'clock came the Jameses--Emily, Rachel,

Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having on a former occasion drunk

too much of Roger's champagne), and Cicely, the youngest, making her

debut; behind them, following in a hansom from the paternal mansion

where they had dined, Soames and Irene.

All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle--thus showing at once,

by a bolder exposure of flesh, that they came from the more fashionable

side of the Park.

Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers, took up a position

against the wall. Guarding himself with his pale smile, he stood

watching. Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple after couple brushed

by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches of talk; or with set lips,

and eyes searching the throng; or again, with silent, parted lips, and

eyes on each other. And the scent of festivity, the odour of flowers,

and hair, of essences that women love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of

the summer night.

Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames seemed to notice

nothing; but now and again his eyes, finding that which they sought,

would fix themselves on a point in the shifting throng, and the smile

die off his lips.

He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with their wives; his sense

of 'form' had never permitted him to dance with Irene since their

marriage, and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell whether this was a

relief to him or not.