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.




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