The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his

latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife's

gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur coat,

he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of cedar-logs

burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene sitting in her usual

corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly, and went towards her. She

did not move, and did not seem to see him.

"So you've come back?" he said. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it seemed

as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her veins; and her

eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide, startled brown eyes of

an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a strange

resemblance to a captive owl, bunched fir its soft feathers against the

wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though

she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there were no longer

any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect.

"So you've come back," he repeated.

She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over her

motionless figure.

Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then that he

understood.

She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing where to

turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her figure, huddled

in the fur, was enough.

He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew that she

had seen the report of his death--perhaps, like himself, had bought a

paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read it.

She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had pined to

be free of--and taking in all the tremendous significance of this, he

longed to cry: "Take your hated body, that I love, out of my house! Take

away that pitiful white face, so cruel and soft--before I crush it. Get

out of my sight; never let me see you again!"

And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move

away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was fighting to

awake--rise and go out into the dark and cold, without a thought of him,

without so much as the knowledge of his presence.

Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, "No; stay

there!" And turning away from her, he sat down in his accustomed chair

on the other side of the hearth.