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It was nothing—only the sort of thing that had been bothering him in the morning. And soon after, putting the high guard before the blazing fire, he stole downstairs.
Fresh for the morrow! was his thought. It was long before he went to sleep…
It is now to George Forsyte that the mind must turn for light on the events of that fog-engulfed afternoon.
The wittiest and most sportsmanlike of the Forsytes had passed the day reading a novel in the paternal mansion at Princes’ Gardens. Since a recent crisis in his financial affairs he had been kept on parole by Roger, and compelled to reside ‘at home.’
Towards five o’clock he went out, and took train at South Kensington Station (for everyone to-day went Underground). His intention was to dine, and pass the evening playing billiards at the Red Pottle—that unique hostel, neither club, hotel, nor good gilt restaurant.
He got out at Charing Cross, choosing it in preference to his more usual St. James’s Park, that he might reach Jermyn Street by better lighted ways.
On the platform his eyes—for in combination with a composed and fashionable appearance, George had sharp eyes, and was always on the look-out for fillips to his sardonic humour—his eyes were attracted by a man, who, leaping from a first-class compartment, staggered rather than walked towards the exit.
‘So ho, my bird!’ said George to himself; ‘why, it’s “the Buccaneer!”’ and he put his big figure on the trail. Nothing afforded him greater amusement than a drunken man.
Bosi
George’s practised glance caught sight of the face of a lady clad in a grey fur coat at the carriage window. It was Mrs. Soames—and George felt that this was interesting!
And now he followed Bosi
He had ‘taken the knock’—‘taken the knock!’ And he wondered what on earth Mrs. Soames had been saying, what on earth she had been telling him in the railway carriage. She had looked bad enough herself! It made George sorry to think of her travelling on with her trouble all alone.
He followed close behind Bosi
There was something here beyond a jest! He kept his head admirably, in spite of some excitement, for in addition to compassion, the instincts of the chase were roused within him.
Bosi
And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosi
But it was now that the affair developed in a way which ever afterwards caused it to remain green in his mind. Brought to a stand-still in the fog, he heard words which threw a sudden light on these proceedings. What Mrs. Soames had said to Bosi
His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation; it impressed him; he guessed something of the anguish, the sexual confusion and horror in Bosi
He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in that gulf of darkness. Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosi
“Hi, you Joh
In fancy he saw them gaping round the tortured lover; and gri
But he began to be bored. Waiting was not what he had bargained for.
‘After all,’ he thought, ‘the poor chap will get over it; not the first time such a thing has happened in this little city!’ But now his quarry again began muttering words of violent hate and anger. And following a sudden impulse George touched him on the shoulder.
Bosi
“Who are you? What do you want?”
George could have stood it well enough in the light of the gas lamps, in the light of that everyday world of which he was so hardy a co
‘If I see a bobby, I’ll hand him over; he’s not fit to be at large.’
But waiting for no answer, Bosi
‘He can’t go on long like this,’ he thought. ‘It’s God’s own miracle he’s not been run over already.’ He brooded no more on policemen, a sportsman’s sacred fire alive again within him.
Into a denser gloom than ever Bosi
‘He’s really going for Soames!’ thought George. The idea was attractive. It would be a sporting end to such a chase. He had always disliked his cousin.
The shaft of a passing cab brushed against his shoulder and made him leap aside. He did not intend to be killed for the Buccaneer, or anyone. Yet, with hereditary tenacity, he stuck to the trail through vapour that blotted out everything but the shadow of the hunted man and the dim moon of the nearest lamp.