t June
as he ought to look at her; and yet, he's not after her money. If she
were to make a sign, he'd be off his bargain to-morrow. But she
won't--not she! She'll stick to him! She's as obstinate as fate--She'll
never let go!'

Sighing deeply, he turned the paper; in its columns, perchance he might
find consolation.

And upstairs in her room June sat at her open window, where the spring
wind came, after its revel across the Park, to cool her hot cheeks and
burn her heart.

CHAPTER III

DRIVE WITH SWITHIN

Two lines of a certain song in a certain famous old school's songbook run
as follows:

'How the buttons on his blue frock shone, tra-la-la! How he carolled and
he sang, like a bird!....'

Swithin did not exactly carol and sing like a bird, but he felt almost
like endeavouring to hum a tune, as he stepped out of Hyde Park
Mansions, and contemplated his horses drawn up before the door.

The afternoon was as balmy as a day in June, and to complete the simile
of the old song, he had put on a blue frock-coat, dispensing with an
overcoat, after sending Adolf down three times to make sure that there
was not the least suspicion of east in the wind; and the frock-coat was
buttoned so tightly around his personable form, that, if the buttons did
not shine, they might pardonably have done so. Majestic on the pavement
he fitted on a pair of dog-skin gloves; with his large bell-shaped top
hat, and his great stature and bulk he looked too primeval for a Forsyte.
His thick white hair, on which Adolf had bestowed a touch of pomatum,
exhaled the fragrance of opoponax and cigars--the celebrated Swithin
brand, for which he paid one hundred and forty shillings the hundred, and
of which old Jolyon had unkindly said, he wouldn't smoke them as a gift;
they wanted the stomach of a horse!

"Adolf!"

"Sare!"

"The new plaid rug!"

He would never teach that fellow to look smart; and Mrs. Soames he felt
sure, had an eye!

"The phaeton hood down; I am going--to--drive--a--lady!"

A pretty woman would want to show off her frock; and well--he was going
to drive a lady! It was like a new beginning to the good old days.

Ages since he had driven a woman! The last time, if he remembered, it
had been Juley; the poor old soul had been as nervous as a cat the whole
time, and so put him out of patience that, as he dropped her in the
Bayswater Road, he had said: "Well I'm d---d if I ever drive you again!"
And he never had,