SOAMES IN PARIS
Soames had travelled little.Aged nineteen he had made the 'petty tour'with his father,mother,and Winifred--Brussels,the Rhine,Switzerland,and home by way of Paris.Aged twenty-seven,just when he began to take interest in pictures,he had spent five hot weeks in Italy,looking into the Renaissance not so much in it as he had been led to expect--and a fortnight in Paris on his way back,looking into himself,as became a Forsyte surrounded by people so strongly self-centred and 'foreign'as the French.His knowledge of their language being derived from his public school,he did not understand them when they spoke.Silence he had found better for all parties;one did not make a fool of oneself.He had disliked the look of the men's clothes,the closed-in cabs,the theatres which looked like bee-hives,the Galleries which smelled of beeswax.He was too cautious and too shy to explore that side of Paris supposed by Forsytes to constitute its attraction under the rose;and as for a collector's bargain--not one to be had!As Nicholas might have put it--they were a grasping lot.He had come back uneasy,saying Paris was overrated.
When,therefore,in June of 1900he went to Paris,it was but his third attempt on the centre of civilisation.This time,however,the mountain was going to Mahomet;for he felt by now more deeply civilised than Paris,and perhaps he really was.Moreover,he had a definite objective.This was no mere genuflexion to a shrine of taste and immorality,but the prosecution of his own legitimate affairs.He went,indeed,because things were getting past a joke.
The watch went on and on,and--nothing--nothing!Jolyon had never returned to Paris,and no one else was 'suspect!'Busy with new and very confidential matters,Soames was realising more than ever how essential reputation is to a solicitor.But at night and in his leisure moments he was ravaged by the thought that time was always flying and money flowing in,and his own future as much 'in irons'as ever.Since Mafeking night he had become aware that a 'young fool of a doctor'was hanging round Annette.Twice he had come across him--a cheerful young fool,not more than thirty.
Nothing annoyed Soames so much as cheerfulness--an indecent,extravagant sort of quality,which had no relation to facts.The mixture of his desires and hopes was,in a word,becoming torture;and lately the thought had come to him that perhaps Irene knew she was being shadowed:It was this which finally decided him to go and see for himself;to go and once more try to break down her repugnance,her refusal to make her own and his path comparatively smooth once more.If he failed again--well,he would see what she did with herself,anyway!
He went to an hotel in the Rue Caumartin,highly recommended to Forsytes,where practically nobody spoke French.He had formed no plan.He did not want to startle her;yet must contrive that she had no chance to evade him by flight.And next morning he set out in bright weather.
Paris had an air of gaiety,a sparkle over its star-shape which almost annoyed Soames.He stepped gravely,his nose lifted a little sideways in real curiosity.He desired now to understand things French.Was not Annette French?There was much to be got out of his visit,if he could only get it.In this laudable mood and the Place de la Concorde he was nearly run down three times.
He came on the 'Cours la Reine,'where Irene's hotel was situated,almost too suddenly,for he had not yet fixed on his procedure.
Crossing over to the river side,he noted the building,white and cheerful-looking,with green sunblinds,seen through a screen of plane-tree leaves.And,conscious that it would be far better to meet her casually in some open place than to risk a call,he sat down on a bench whence he could watch the entrance.It was not quite eleven o'clock,and improbable that she had yet gone out.
Some pigeons were strutting and preening their feathers in the pools of sunlight between the shadows of the plane-trees.Aworkman in a blue blouse passed,and threw them crumbs from the paper which contained his dinner.A 'bonne'coiffed with ribbon shepherded two little girls with pig-tails and frilled drawers.Acab meandered by,whose cocher wore a blue coat and a black-glazed hat.To Soames a kind of affectation seemed to cling about it all,a sort of picturesqueness which was out of date.A theatrical people,the French!He lit one of his rare cigarettes,with a sense of injury that Fate should be casting his life into out-landish waters.He shouldn't wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life;she had never been properly English--even to look at!
And he began considering which of those windows could be hers under the green sunblinds.How could he word what he had come to say so that it might pierce the defence of her proud obstinacy?He threw the fag-end of his cigarette at a pigeon,with the thought:'Ican't stay here for ever twiddling my thumbs.Better give it up and call on her in the late afternoon.'But he still sat on,heard twelve strike,and then half-past.'I'll wait till one,'he thought,'while I'm about it.'But just then he started up,and shrinkingly sat down again.A woman had come out in a cream-coloured frock,and was moving away under a fawn-coloured parasol.