saddest
experience of all--forgetfulness of what it was like to be in love.

Forgotten! Forgotten so long, that he had forgotten even that he had
forgotten.

And now this rumour had come upon him, this rumour about his son's wife;
very vague, a shadow dodging among the palpable, straightforward
appearances of things, unreal, unintelligible as a ghost, but carrying
with it, like a ghost, inexplicable terror.

He tried to bring it home to his mind, but it was no more use than trying
to apply to himself one of those tragedies he read of daily in his
evening paper. He simply could not. There could be nothing in it. It
was all their nonsense. She didn't get on with Soames as well as she
might, but she was a good little thing--a good little thing!

Like the not inconsiderable majority of men, James relished a nice little
bit of scandal, and would say, in a matter-of-fact tone, licking his
lips, "Yes, yes--she and young Dyson; they tell me they're living at
Monte Carlo!"

But the significance of an affair of this sort--of its past, its present,
or its future--had never struck him. What it meant, what torture and
raptures had gone to its construction, what slow, overmastering fate had
lurked within the facts, very naked, sometimes sordid, but generally
spicy, presented to his gaze. He was not in the habit of blaming,
praising, drawing deductions, or generalizing at all about such things;
he simply listened rather greedily, and repeated what he was told,
finding considerable benefit from the practice, as from the consumption
of a sherry and bitters before a meal.

Now, however, that such a thing--or rather the rumour, the breath of
it--had come near him personally, he felt as in a fog, which filled his
mouth full of a bad, thick flavour, and made it difficult to draw breath.

A scandal! A possible scandal!

To repeat this word to himself thus was the only way in which he could
focus or make it thinkable. He had forgotten the sensations necessary
for understanding the progress, fate, or meaning of any such business; he
simply could no longer grasp the possibilities of people running any risk
for the sake of passion.

Amongst all those persons of his acquaintance, who went into the City day
after day and did their business there, whatever it was, and in their
leisure moments bought shares, and houses, and ate dinners, and played
games, as he was told, it would have seemed to him ridiculous to suppose
that there