Soames had gone to look at a patch of ground on which the Local
Authorities were proposing to erect a Sanatorium for people with weak
lungs. Faithful to his native individualism, he took no part in local
affairs, content to pay the rates which were always going up. He could
not, however, remain indifferent to this new and dangerous scheme. The
site was not half a mile from his own house. He was quite of opinion
that the country should stamp out tuberculosis; but this was not the
place. It should be done farther away. He took, indeed, an attitude
common to all true Forsytes, that disability of any sort in other
people was not his affair, and the State should do its business without
prejudicing in any way the natural advantages which he had acquired or
inherited. Francie, the most free-spirited Forsyte of his generation
(except perhaps that fellow Jolyon) had once asked him in her malicious
way: "Did you ever see the name Forsyte in a subscription list,
Soames?" That was as it might be, but a Sanatorium would depreciate the
neighbourhood, and he should certainly sign the petition which was being
got up against it. Returning with this decision fresh within him, he saw
Fleur coming.
She was showing him more affection of late, and the quiet time down here
with her in this summer weather had been making him feel quite young;
Annette was always running up to Town for one thing or another, so that
he had Fleur to himself almost as much as he could wish. To be sure,
young Mont had formed a habit of appearing on his motor-cycle almost
every other day. Thank goodness, the young fellow had shaved off his
half-toothbrushes, and no longer looked like a mountebank! With a girl
friend of Fleur's who was staying in the house, and a neighbouring youth
or so, they made two couples after dinner, in the hall, to the music
of the electric pianola, which performed Fox-trots unassisted, with a
surprised shine on its expressive surface. Annette, even, now and then
passed gracefully up and down in the arms of one or other of the young
men. And Soames, coming to the drawing-room door, would lift his nose
a little sideways, and watch them, waiting to catch a smile from Fleur;
then move back to his chair by the drawing-room hearth, to peruse The
Times or some other collector's price list. To his ever-anxious eyes
Fleur showed no signs of remembering that caprice of hers.
When she reached him on the dusty road, he slipped his hand within her
arm.
"Who, do you think, has been to see you, Dad? She couldn't wait! Guess!"