"How beautifully your wife dances, Mr. Forsyte—it's quite a pleasure to watch her!"
Tired of answering them with his sidelong glance:
"You think so?"
A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making an unpleasant draught.
Francie and one of her lovers stood near.
They were talking of love.
He heard Roger's voice behind, giving an order about supper to a servant.
Everything was very second-class!
He wished that he had not come!
He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had answered with that maddening smile of hers
"Oh, no!"
Why had he come?
For the last quarter of an hour he had not even seen her.
Here was George advancing with his Quilpish face; it was too late to get out of his way.
"Have you seen
'The Buccaneer'?" said this licensed wag; "he's on the warpath—hair cut and everything!"
Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty in an interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony, and looked down into the street.
A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round the door hung some of those patient watchers of the London streets who spring up to the call of light or music; their faces, pale and upturned above their black and rusty figures, had an air of stolid watching that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to hang about; why didn't the bobby move them on?
But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet were planted apart on the strip of crimson carpet stretched across the pavement; his face, under the helmet, wore the same stolid, watching look as theirs.
Across the road, through the railings, Soames could see the branches of trees shining, faintly stirring in the breeze, by the gleam of the street lamps; beyond, again, the upper lights of the houses on the other side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet blackness of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection of countless lamps; a dome woven over between its stars with the refraction of human needs and human fancies—immense mirror of pomp and misery that night after night stretches its kindly mocking over miles of houses and gardens, mansions and squalor, over Forsytes, policemen, and patient watchers in the streets.
Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed into the lighted room.
It was cooler out there.
He saw the new arrivals, June and her grandfather, enter.
What had made them so late?
They stood by the doorway.
They looked fagged.
Fancy Uncle Jolyon turning out at this time of night!
Why hadn't June come to Irene, as she usually did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had seen nothing of June for a long time now.
Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change, grow so pale that he thought she would drop, then flame out crimson.
Turning to see at what she was looking, he saw his wife on Bosinney's arm, coming from the conservatory at the end of the room.
Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering some question he had asked, and he was gazing at her intently.
Soames looked again at June.
Her hand rested on old Jolyon's arm; she seemed to be making a request.
He saw a surprised look on his uncle's face; they turned and passed through the door out of his sight.
The music began again—a waltz—and, still as a statue in the recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips, Soames waited.
Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his wife and Bosinney passed.
He caught the perfume of the gardenias that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not know.
To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes, soft and dark, to Bosinney's, and drop them again.
Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning on it, gazed down on the Square; the figures were still there looking up at the light with dull persistency, the policeman's face, too, upturned, and staring, but he saw nothing of them.
Below, a carriage drew up, two figures got in, and drove away....
That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner at the usual hour.
The girl was in her customary high-necked frock, old Jolyon had not dressed.
At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle Roger's, she wanted to go; she had been stupid enough, she said, not to think of asking anyone to take her.
It was too late now.
Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes.
June was used to go to dances with Irene as a matter of course! and deliberately fixing his gaze on her, he asked:
"Why don't you get Irene?"
No!
June did not want to ask Irene; she would only go if—if her grandfather wouldn't mind just for once for a little time!
At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had grumblingly consented.