On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what

required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet

undertaken in his life--save perhaps his birth, and one other action.

He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to

be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by

daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old Church,

uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it

hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, 'Mrs.

Irene Heron'--Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again,

did she?--he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the

first floor. Light was coming through in the corner fiat, and he

could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had

secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned

to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could

not enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at

last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing,

and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than

ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his

heart beat fast. 'I have no cause to be afraid,' he thought. And then

the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he

not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee?

No! Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He

crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of

his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When

the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent

which came--that perfume--from away back in the past, bringing muffled

remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he

used to own--perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!

"Say, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "your mistress will see me, I know." He had

thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where

the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet,

everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could

only think ridiculously: 'Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it

off?' The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:




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