The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

No, he did not regret it.

Now that the first step towards reconciliation had been taken, the rest

would be comparatively--comparatively....

He, rose and walked to the window. His nerve had been shaken. The sound

of smothered sobbing was in his ears again. He could not get rid of it.

He put on his fur coat, and went out into the fog; having to go into the

City, he took the underground railway from Sloane Square station.

In his corner of the first-class compartment filled with City men the

smothered sobbing still haunted him, so he opened the Times with the

rich crackle that drowns all lesser sounds, and, barricaded behind it,

set himself steadily to con the news.

He read that a Recorder had charged a grand jury on the previous

day with a more than usually long list of offences. He read of three

murders, five manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as eleven

rapes--a surprisingly high number--in addition to many less conspicuous

crimes, to be tried during a coming Sessions; and from one piece of news

he went on to another, keeping the paper well before his face.

And still, inseparable from his reading, was the memory of Irene's

tear-stained face, and the sounds from her broken heart.

The day was a busy one, including, in addition to the ordinary affairs

of his practice, a visit to his brokers, Messrs. Grin and Grinning, to

give them instructions to sell his shares in the New Colliery Co., Ltd.,

whose business he suspected, rather than knew, was stagnating (this

enterprise afterwards slowly declined, and was ultimately sold for a

song to an American syndicate); and a long conference at Waterbuck,

Q.C.'s chambers, attended by Boulter, by Fiske, the junior counsel, and

Waterbuck, Q.C., himself.

The case of Forsyte v. Bosinney was expected to be reached on the

morrow, before Mr. Justice Bentham.

Mr. Justice Bentham, a man of common-sense rather than too great legal

knowledge, was considered to be about the best man they could have to

try the action. He was a 'strong' Judge.

Waterbuck, Q.C., in pleasing conjunction with an almost rude neglect of

Boulter and Fiske paid to Soames a good deal of attention, by instinct

or the sounder evidence of rumour, feeling him to be a man of property.

He held with remarkable consistency to the opinion he had already

expressed in writing, that the issue would depend to a great extent on

the evidence given at the trial, and in a few well directed remarks he

advised Soames not to be too careful in giving that evidence. "A little

bluffness, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "a little bluffness," and after he had

spoken he laughed firmly, closed his lips tight, and scratched his head

just below where he had pushed his wig back, for all the world like

the gentleman-farmer for whom he loved to be taken. He was considered

perhaps the leading man in breach of promise cases.