第60章

'I've got her,'thought Soames,'if I want her.But do I want her?'She was graceful,she was pretty--very pretty;she was fresh,she had taste of a kind.His eyes travelled round the little room;but the eyes of his mind went another journey--a half-light,and silvery walls,a satinwood piano,a woman standing against it,reined back as it were from him--a woman with white shoulders that he knew,and dark eyes that he had sought to know,and hair like dull dark amber.And as in an artist who strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty,so there rose in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never satisfied.

"Well,"he said calmly,"you're young.There's everything before you."Annette shook her head.

"I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work.I am not so in love with work as mother.""Your mother is a wonder,"said Soames,faintly mocking;"she will never let failure lodge in her house."Annette sighed."It must be wonderful to be rich.""Oh!You'll be rich some day,"answered Soames,still with that faint mockery;"don't be afraid."Annette shrugged her shoulders."Monsieur is very kind."And between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.

'Yes,my dear,'thought Soames,'they're very pretty.'

Madame Lamotte,with coffee and liqueur,put an end to that colloquy.Soames did not stay long.

Outside in the streets of Soho,which always gave him such a feeling of property improperly owned,he mused.If only Irene had given him a son,he wouldn't now be squirming after women!The thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner consciousness.A son--something to look forward to,something to make the rest of life worth while,something to leave himself to,some perpetuity of self.'If I had a son,'he thought bitterly,'a proper legal son,I could make shift to go on as I used.One woman's much the same as another,after all.'But as he walked he shook his head.No!One woman was not the same as another.Many a time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted married life;and he had always failed.He was failing now.He was trying to think Annette the same as that other.But she was not,she had not the lure of that old passion.'And Irene's my wife,'he thought,'my legal wife.I have done nothing to put her away from me.Why shouldn't she come back to me?It's the right thing,the lawful thing.It makes no scandal,no disturbance.If it's disagreeable to her--but why should it be?I'm not a leper,and she--she's no longer in love!'Why should he be put to the shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the Divorce Court,when there she was like an empty house only waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally owned her?

To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away to the world was intensely alluring.'No,'he mused,'I'm glad I went to see that girl.I know now what I want most.If only Irene will come back I'll be as considerate as she wishes;she could live her own life;but perhaps--perhaps she would come round to me.'There was a lump in his throat.And doggedly along by the railings of the Green Park,towards his father's house,he went,trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant moonlight.