The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

Irene still met him, he was certain; where, or how, he neither knew, nor

asked; deterred by a vague and secret dread of too much knowledge. It

all seemed subterranean nowadays.

Sometimes when he questioned his wife as to where she had been, which

he still made a point of doing, as every Forsyte should, she looked very

strange. Her self-possession was wonderful, but there were moments when,

behind the mask of her face, inscrutable as it had always been to him,

lurked an expression he had never been used to see there.

She had taken to lunching out too; when he asked Bilson if her mistress

had been in to lunch, as often as not she would answer: "No, sir."

He strongly disapproved of her gadding about by herself, and told her

so. But she took no notice. There was something that angered, amazed,

yet almost amused him about the calm way in which she disregarded his

wishes. It was really as if she were hugging to herself the thought of a

triumph over him.

He rose from the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.'s opinion, and, going

upstairs, entered her room, for she did not lock her doors till

bed-time--she had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of the

servants. She was brushing her hair, and turned to him with strange

fierceness.

"What do you want?" she said. "Please leave my room!"

He answered: "I want to know how long this state of things between us is

to last? I have put up with it long enough."

"Will you please leave my room?"

"Will you treat me as your husband?"

"No."

"Then, I shall take steps to make you."

"Do!"

He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer. Her lips were

compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her bare

shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark eyes--those

eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt, and odd, haunting

triumph.

"Now, please, will you leave my room?" He turned round, and went sulkily

out.

He knew very well that he had no intention of taking steps, and he saw

that she knew too--knew that he was afraid to.

It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of his day: how such and

such clients had called; how he had arranged a mortgage for Parkes;

how that long-standing suit of Fryer v. Forsyte was getting on, which,

arising in the preternaturally careful disposition of his property by

his great uncle Nicholas, who had tied it up so that no one could get

at it at all, seemed likely to remain a source of income for several

solicitors till the Day of Judgment.