he water, with his mind upon that coming lawsuit, had the blood
driven from his heart by a low laugh and the sound of kisses. He thought
of writing to the Times the next morning, to draw the attention of the
Editor to the condition of our parks. He did not, however, for he had a
horror of seeing his name in print.

But starved as he was, the whispered sounds in the stillness, the
half-seen forms in the dark, acted on him like some morbid stimulant. He
left the path along the water and stole under the trees, along the deep
shadow of little plantations, where the boughs of chestnut trees hung
their great leaves low, and there was blacker refuge, shaping his course
in circles which had for their object a stealthy inspection of chairs
side by side, against tree-trunks, of enlaced lovers, who stirred at his
approach.

Now he stood still on the rise overlooking the Serpentine, where, in full
lamp-light, black against the silver water, sat a couple who never moved,
the woman's face buried on the man's neck--a single form, like a carved
emblem of passion, silent and unashamed.

And, stung by the sight, Soames hurried on deeper into the shadow of the
trees.

In this search, who knows what he thought and what he sought? Bread for
hunger--light in darkness? Who knows what he expected to
find--impersonal knowledge of the human heart--the end of his private
subterranean tragedy--for, again, who knew, but that each dark couple,
unnamed, unnameable, might not be he and she?

But it could not be such knowledge as this that he was seeking--the wife
of Soames Forsyte sitting in the Park like a common wench! Such thoughts
were inconceivable; and from tree to tree, with his noiseless step, he
passed.

Once he was sworn at; once the whisper, "If only it could always be like
this!" sent the blood flying again from his heart, and he waited there,
patient and dogged, for the two to move. But it was only a poor thin
slip of a shop-girl in her draggled blouse who passed him, clinging to
her lover's arm.

A hundred other lovers too whispered that hope in the stillness of the
trees, a hundred other lovers clung to each other.

But shaking himself with sudden disgust, Soames returned to the path, and
left that seeking for he knew not what.

CHAPTER III

MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL

Young Jolyon, whose circumstances were not those of a Forsyte, found at
times a difficulty in sparing the money needful for those country jaunts