17 perhaps holding off for terms, impossible to
say without knowing more. But inclined to think on the whole--doesn't
know her mind--likely to act on impulse some day. Both have style.'"

"What does that mean?" said Soames between close lips.

"Well," murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white teeth,
"an expression we use. In other words, it's not likely to be a weekend
business--they'll come together seriously or not at all."

"H'm!" muttered Soames, "that's all, is it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Polteed, "but quite promising."

'Spider!' thought Soames. "Good-day!"

He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria Station
and take the Underground into the City. For so late in January it was
warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the frosty grass--an
illumined cobweb of a day.

Little spiders--and great spiders! And the greatest spinner of all, his
own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads round any clear
way out. What was that fellow hanging round Irene for? Was it really
as Polteed suggested? Or was Jolyon but taking compassion on her
loneliness, as he would call it--sentimental radical chap that he had
always been? If it were, indeed, as Polteed hinted! Soames stood still.
It could not be! The fellow was seven years older than himself, no
better looking! No richer! What attraction had he?

'Besides, he's come back,' he thought; 'that doesn't look---I'll go and
see him!' and, taking out a card, he wrote:

"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall be
at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could come to the
Hotch Potch if you prefer it. I want to see you.--S. F."

He walked up St. James's Street and confided it to the porter at the
Hotch Potch.

"Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in," he said, and took
one of the new motor cabs into the City....

Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face
towards the Connoisseurs. What did Soames want now? Had he got wind of
Paris? And stepping across St. James's Street, he determined to make
no secret of his visit. 'But it won't do,' he thought, 'to let him know
she's there, unless he knows already.' In this complicated state of mind
he was conducted to where Soames was drinking tea in a small bay-window.

"No tea, thanks," said Jolyon, "but I'll go on smoking if I may."

The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were lighted;
the two cousins sat