"Un Monsieur tres distingue," Madame Lamotte found him; and presently,
"Tres amical, tres gentil," watching his eyes upon her daughter.
She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their knowledge
of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank balances.
After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
ceased--without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like
all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a born
empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which had
gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to alter his
condition from that of the unmarried married man to that of the married
man remarried.
Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899, he
bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of the Dreyfus
case--a question which he had always found useful in making closer
acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her daughter, who were Catholic
and anti-Dreyfusard.
Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed a
general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about the
Transvaal. He entered, thinking: 'War's a certainty. I shall sell my
consols.' Not that he had many, personally, the rate of interest was too
wretched; but he should advise his Companies--consols would assuredly go
down. A look, as he passed the doorways of the restaurant, assured him
that business was good as ever, and this, which in April would have
pleased him, now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which
he had to take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her
mother safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of the
Restaurant Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have to buy them
out, of course, for French people only came to England to make money;
and it would mean a higher price. And then that peculiar sweet sensation
at the back of his throat, and a slight thumping about the heart, which
he always experienced at the door of the little room, prevented his
thinking how much it would cost.
Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing through
the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her hands up to her
hair. It was the attitude in which of all others he admired her--so
beautifully straight and rounded and supple. And he said:
"I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that
partition. No, don't call her."
"Monsieur will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten minutes."
Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an impulse which
surprised him.