Soames doggedly let the spring come--no easy task for one conscious that

time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer the hand, no issue from

the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed reported nothing, except that his

watch went on--costing a lot of money. Val and his cousin were gone to

the war, whence came news more favourable; Dartie was behaving himself

so far; James had retained his health; business prospered almost

terribly--there was nothing to worry Soames except that he was 'held

up,' could make no step in any direction.

He did not exactly avoid Soho, for he could not afford to let them think

that he had 'piped off,' as James would have put it--he might want

to 'pipe on' again at any minute. But he had to be so restrained and

cautious that he would often pass the door of the Restaurant Bretagne

without going in, and wander out of the purlieus of that region which

always gave him the feeling of having been possessively irregular.

He wandered thus one May night into Regent Street and the most amazing

crowd he had ever seen; a shrieking, whistling, dancing, jostling,

grotesque and formidably jovial crowd, with false noses and

mouth-organs, penny whistles and long feathers, every appanage of

idiocy, as it seemed to him. Mafeking! Of course, it had been relieved!

Good! But was that an excuse? Who were these people, what were they,

where had they come from into the West End? His face was tickled, his

ears whistled into. Girls cried: 'Keep your hair on, stucco!' A youth so

knocked off his top-hat that he recovered it with difficulty. Crackers

were exploding beneath his nose, between his feet. He was bewildered,

exasperated, offended. This stream of people came from every quarter, as

if impulse had unlocked flood-gates, let flow waters of whose existence

he had heard, perhaps, but believed in never. This, then, was the

populace, the innumerable living negation of gentility and Forsyteism.

This was--egad!--Democracy! It stank, yelled, was hideous! In the East

End, or even Soho, perhaps--but here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly!

What were the police about! In 1900, Soames, with his Forsyte thousands,

had never seen the cauldron with the lid off; and now looking into

it, could hardly believe his scorching eyes. The whole thing was

unspeakable! These people had no restraint, they seemed to think him

funny; such swarms of them, rude, coarse, laughing--and what laughter!

Nothing sacred to them! He shouldn't be surprised if they began to

break windows. In Pall Mall, past those august dwellings, to enter which

people paid sixty pounds, this shrieking, whistling, dancing dervish of

a crowd was swarming. From the Club windows his own kind were looking

out on them with regulated amusement. They didn't realise! Why, this was

serious--might come to anything! The crowd was cheerful, but some day

they would come in different mood! He remembered there had been a mob in

the late eighties, when he was at Brighton; they had smashed things and

made speeches. But more than dread, he felt a deep surprise. They were

hysterical--it wasn't English! And all about the relief of a little town

as big as--Watford, six thousand miles away. Restraint, reserve!

Those qualities to him more dear almost than life, those indispensable

attributes of property and culture, where were they? It wasn't English!

No, it wasn't English! So Soames brooded, threading his way on. It was

as if he had suddenly caught sight of someone cutting the covenant 'for

quiet possession' out of his legal documents; or of a monster lurking

and stalking out in the future, casting its shadow before. Their want

of stolidity, their want of reverence! It was like discovering that

nine-tenths of the people of England were foreigners. And if that were

so--then, anything might happen!




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