Soames nodded, and the streams forced them apart.
"I always liked old George," said Winifred. "He's so droll."
"I never did," said Soames. "Where's your seat? I shall go to mine.
Fleur may be back there."
Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious of
small, white, distant figures running, the click of the bat, the cheers
and counter-cheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You could expect nothing
of women nowadays! They had the vote. They were "emancipated," and much
good it was doing them! So Winifred would go back, would she, and put
up with Dartie all over again? To have the past once more--to be sitting
here as he had sat in '83 and '84, before he was certain that his
marriage with Irene had gone all wrong, before her antagonism had become
so glaring that with the best will in the world he could not overlook
it. The sight of her with that fellow had brought all memory back. Even
now he could not understand why she had been so impracticable. She could
love other men; she had it in her! To himself, the one person she ought
to have loved, she had chosen to refuse her heart. It seemed to him,
fantastically, as he looked back, that all this modern relaxation of
marriage--though its forms and laws were the same as when he married
her--that all this modern looseness had come out of her revolt; it
seemed to him, fantastically, that she had started it, till all decent
ownership of anything had gone, or was on the point of going. All came
from her! And now--a pretty state of things! Homes! How could you have
them without mutual ownership? Not that he had ever had a real home!
But had that been his fault? He had done his best. And his rewards
were--those two sitting in that Stand, and this affair of Fleur's!
And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer! They
must find their own way back to the hotel--if they mean to come!'
Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said:
"Drive me to the Bayswater Road." His old aunts had never failed him. To
them he had meant an ever-welcome visitor. Though they were gone, there,
still, was Timothy!
Smither was standing in the open doorway.
"Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased."
"How is Mr. Timothy?"
"Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a great
deal. Only this morning he was saying: 'My brother James, he's getting
old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will talk of them. He
troubles about their investments. The other day he said: 'There's my
brother Jolyon won't look at Consols'--he seemed quite down about it.
Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's such a pleasant change!"