"That's rather a good thing."
He could see, then, that she was struggling to preserve her composure.
"I didn't want to startle you; is this one of your haunts?"
"Yes."
"A little lonely." As he spoke, a lady, strolling by, paused to look at
the fountain and passed on.
Irene's eyes followed her.
"No," she said, prodding the ground with her parasol, "never lonely. One
has always one's shadow."
Soames understood; and, looking at her hard, he exclaimed:
"Well, it's your own fault. You can be free of it at any moment. Irene,
come back to me, and be free."
Irene laughed.
"Don't!" cried Soames, stamping his foot; "it's inhuman. Listen! Is
there any condition I can make which will bring you back to me? If I
promise you a separate house--and just a visit now and then?"
Irene rose, something wild suddenly in her face and figure.
"None! None! None! You may hunt me to the grave. I will not come."
Outraged and on edge, Soames recoiled.
"Don't make a scene!" he said sharply. And they both stood motionless,
staring at the little Niobe, whose greenish flesh the sunlight was
burnishing.
"That's your last word, then," muttered Soames, clenching his hands;
"you condemn us both."
Irene bent her head. "I can't come back. Good-bye!"
A feeling of monstrous injustice flared up in Soames.
"Stop!" he said, "and listen to me a moment. You gave me a sacred
vow--you came to me without a penny. You had all I could give you. You
broke that vow without cause, you made me a by-word; you refused me a
child; you've left me in prison; you--you still move me so that I want
you--I want you. Well, what do you think of yourself?"
Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.
"God made me as I am," she said; "wicked if you like--but not so wicked
that I'll give myself again to a man I hate."
The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to lay a
caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.
Soames could neither speak nor move. That word 'hate'--so extreme, so
primitive--made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep imprecation
he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran almost into the arms
of the lady sauntering back--the fool, the shadowing fool!
He was soon dripping with perspiration, in the depths of the Bois.
'Well,' he thought, 'I need have no consideration for her now; she has
not a grain of it for me. I'll show her this very day that she's my wife
still.'