"Love triumphs over everything!"

"The young think so," he muttered.

"Love has no age, no limit, and no death."

With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so

large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But this

extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: "Well,

if it had limits, we shouldn't be born; for by George! it's got a lot to

put up with."

Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The great

clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of

blood to the head--his circulation was not what it had been.

She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:

"It's strange enough that I'm alive."

Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.

"Ah!" he said: "my son saw you for a moment--that day."

"Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it

was--Phil."

Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took it

away again, and went on calmly: "That night I went to the Embankment; a

woman caught me by the dress. She told me about herself. When one knows

that others suffer, one's ashamed."

"One of those?"

She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who

has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost against his will he

muttered: "Tell me, won't you?"

"I didn't care whether I lived or died. When you're like that, Fate

ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three days--she never

left me. I had no money. That's why I do what I can for them, now."

But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!' What fate could compare with

that? Every other was involved in it.

"I wish you had come to me," he said. "Why didn't you?" But Irene did

not answer.

"Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept you

away? How are you getting on now?" His eyes involuntarily swept her

body. Perhaps even now she was--! And yet she wasn't thin--not really!

"Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough." The answer did

not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow Soames! But

his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she would certainly have

died rather than take another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there

must be strength in her somewhere--strength and fidelity. But what

business had young Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded

like this!




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