"What does that mean?" said Soames between close lips.

"Well," murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white teeth,

"an expression we use. In other words, it's not likely to be a weekend

business--they'll come together seriously or not at all."

"H'm!" muttered Soames, "that's all, is it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Polteed, "but quite promising."

'Spider!' thought Soames. "Good-day!"

He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria Station

and take the Underground into the City. For so late in January it was

warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the frosty grass--an

illumined cobweb of a day.

Little spiders--and great spiders! And the greatest spinner of all, his

own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads round any clear

way out. What was that fellow hanging round Irene for? Was it really

as Polteed suggested? Or was Jolyon but taking compassion on her

loneliness, as he would call it--sentimental radical chap that he had

always been? If it were, indeed, as Polteed hinted! Soames stood still.

It could not be! The fellow was seven years older than himself, no

better looking! No richer! What attraction had he?

'Besides, he's come back,' he thought; 'that doesn't look---I'll go and

see him!' and, taking out a card, he wrote:

"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall be

at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could come to the

Hotch Potch if you prefer it. I want to see you.--S. F."

He walked up St. James's Street and confided it to the porter at the

Hotch Potch.

"Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in," he said, and took

one of the new motor cabs into the City....

Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face

towards the Connoisseurs. What did Soames want now? Had he got wind of

Paris? And stepping across St. James's Street, he determined to make

no secret of his visit. 'But it won't do,' he thought, 'to let him know

she's there, unless he knows already.' In this complicated state of mind

he was conducted to where Soames was drinking tea in a small bay-window.

"No tea, thanks," said Jolyon, "but I'll go on smoking if I may."

The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were lighted;

the two cousins sat waiting on each other.

"You've been in Paris, I hear," said Soames at last.

"Yes; just back."

"Young Val told me; he and your boy are going off, then?" Jolyon nodded.

"You didn't happen to see Irene, I suppose. It appears she's abroad

somewhere."




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