Free The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy Page B

came at last. “You never knew anything about a statue. You’ve got your pictures, and that’s all!”
    Old Jolyon walked back to his seat, puffing his cigar. It was not likely that he was going to be drawn into an argument with an obstinate beggar like Swithin, pigheaded as a mule, who had never known a statue from a—straw hat.
    â€œStucco!” was all he said.
    It had long been physically impossible for Swithin to start; his fist came down on the table.
    â€œStucco! I should like to see anything you’ve got in your house half as good!”
    And behind his speech seemed to sound again that rumbling violence of primitive generations.
    It was James who saved the situation.
    â€œNow, what do
you
say, Mr. Bosinney? You’re an architect; you ought to know all about statues and things!”
    Every eye was turned upon Bosinney; all waited with a strange, suspicious look for his answer.
    And Soames, speaking for the first time, asked:
    â€œYes, Bosinney, what do you say?”
    Bosinney replied coolly:
    â€œThe work is a remarkable one.”
    His words were addressed to Swithin, his eyes smiled slyly at old Jolyon; only Soames remained unsatisfied.
    â€œRemarkable for what?”
    â€œFor its naïveté.”
    The answer was followed by an impressive silence; Swithin alone was not sure whether a compliment was intended.

Chapter IV
Projection of the House
    Soames Forsyte walked out of his green-painted front door three days after the dinner at Swithin’s, and looking back from across the square, confirmed his impression that the house wanted painting.
    He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing room, her hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for him to go out. This was not unusual. It happened, in fact, every day.
    He could not understand what she found wrong with him. It was not as if he drank! Did he run into debt, or gamble, or swear; was he violent; were his friends rackety; did he stay out at night? On the contrary.
    The profound, subdued aversion which he felt in his wife was a mystery to him, and a source of the most terrible irritation. That she had made a mistake, and did not love him, had tried to love him and could not love him, was obviously no reason.
    He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his wife’s not getting on with him was certainly no Forsyte.
    Soames was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely down to his wife. He had never met a woman so capable of inspiring affection. They could not go anywhere without his seeing how all the men were attracted by her; their looks, manners, voices, betrayed it; her behaviour under this attention had been beyond reproach. That she was one of those women—not too common in the Anglo-Saxon race—born to be loved and to love, who when not loving are not living, had certainly never even occurred to him. Her power of attraction, he regarded as part of her value as his property; but it made him, indeed, suspect that she could give as well as receive; and she gave him nothing! “Then why did she marry me?” was his continual thought. He had forgotten his courtship; that year and a half when he had besieged and lain in wait for her, devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her presents, proposing to her periodically, and keeping her other admirers away with his perpetual presence. He had forgotten the day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute phase of her dislike to her home surroundings, he crowned his labours with success. If he remembered anything, it was the dainty capriciousness with which the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl had treated him. He certainly did not remember the look on her face—strange, passive, appealing—when suddenly one day she had yielded, and said that she would marry him.
    It had been one of those real devoted wooings which books and people praise, when the lover is at length rewarded for hammering the iron till it is malleable, and all