The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

June answered: "No! My cloaks please, Bilson." Her cloak was brought.

Irene, from the window, murmured: "Such a lovely night! The stars are

coming out!"

Soames added: "Well, I hope you'll both enjoy yourselves."

From the door June answered: "Thanks. Come, Phil."

Bosinney cried: "I'm coming."

Soames smiled a sneering smile, and said: "I wish you luck!"

And at the door Irene watched them go.

Bosinney called: "Good night!"

"Good night!" she answered softly....

June made her lover take her on the top of a 'bus, saying she wanted

air, and there sat silent, with her face to the breeze.

The driver turned once or twice, with the intention of venturing a

remark, but thought better of it. They were a lively couple! The spring

had got into his blood, too; he felt the need for letting steam escape,

and clucked his tongue, flourishing his whip, wheeling his horses,

and even they, poor things, had smelled the spring, and for a brief

half-hour spurned the pavement with happy hoofs.

The whole town was alive; the boughs, curled upward with their decking

of young leaves, awaited some gift the breeze could bring. New-lighted

lamps were gaining mastery, and the faces of the crowd showed pale under

that glare, while on high the great white clouds slid swiftly, softly,

over the purple sky.

Men in, evening dress had thrown back overcoats, stepping jauntily up

the steps of Clubs; working folk loitered; and women--those women who

at that time of night are solitary--solitary and moving eastward in a

stream--swung slowly along, with expectation in their gait, dreaming of

good wine and a good supper, or--for an unwonted minute, of kisses given

for love.

Those countless figures, going their ways under the lamps and the

moving-sky, had one and all received some restless blessing from the

stir of spring. And one and all, like those clubmen with their opened

coats, had shed something of caste, and creed, and custom, and by the

cock of their hats, the pace of their walk, their laughter, or their

silence, revealed their common kinship under the passionate heavens.

Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence, and mounted to

their seats in the upper boxes. The piece had just begun, and the

half-darkened house, with its rows of creatures peering all one way,

resembled a great garden of flowers turning their faces to the sun.

June had never before been in the upper boxes. From the age of fifteen

she had habitually accompanied her grandfather to the stalls, and not

common stalls, but the best seats in the house, towards the centre of

the third row, booked by old Jolyon, at Grogan and Boyne's, on his way

home from the City, long before the day; carried in his overcoat pocket,

together with his cigar-case and his old kid gloves, and handed to June

to keep till the appointed night. And in those stalls--an erect old

figure with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous and eager,

with a red-gold head--they would sit through every kind of play, and on

the way home old Jolyon would say of the principal actor: "Oh, he's a

poor stick! You should have seen little Bobson!"