Thoughts and yearnings, with which one lives daily, become natural, even
if far-fetched in their inception. If he could only give tangible proof
enough of his determination to let bygones be bygones, and to do all in
his power to please her, why should she not come back to him?
He entered Gaves and Cortegal's therefore, on the morning of November
the 9th, to buy a certain diamond brooch. "Four twenty-five and dirt
cheap, sir, at the money. It's a lady's brooch." There was that in
his mood which made him accept without demur. And he went on into the
Poultry with the flat green morocco case in his breast pocket. Several
times that day he opened it to look at the seven soft shining stones in
their velvet oval nest.
"If the lady doesn't like it, sir, happy to exchange it any time. But
there's no fear of that." If only there were not! He got through a vast
amount of work, only soother of the nerves he knew. A cablegram came
while he was in the office with details from the agent in Buenos Aires,
and the name and address of a stewardess who would be prepared to swear
to what was necessary. It was a timely spur to Soames, with his rooted
distaste for the washing of dirty linen in public. And when he set forth
by Underground to Victoria Station he received a fresh impetus towards
the renewal of his married life from the account in his evening paper of
a fashionable divorce suit. The homing instinct of all true Forsytes in
anxiety and trouble, the corporate tendency which kept them strong and
solid, made him choose to dine at Park Lane. He neither could nor
would breath a word to his people of his intention--too reticent and
proud--but the thought that at least they would be glad if they knew,
and wish him luck, was heartening.
James was in lugubrious mood, for the fire which the impudence of
Kruger's ultimatum had lit in him had been cold-watered by the poor
success of the last month, and the exhortations to effort in The Times.
He didn't know where it would end. Soames sought to cheer him by the
continual use of the word Buller. But James couldn't tell! There was
Colley--and he got stuck on that hill, and this Ladysmith was down in
a hollow, and altogether it looked to him a 'pretty kettle of fish'; he
thought they ought to be sending the sailors--they were the chaps,
they did a lot of good in the Crimea. Soames shifted the ground of
consolation. Winifred had heard from Val that there had been a 'rag' and
a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day at Oxford, and that he had escaped detection
by blacking his face.