house at Robin Hill which had finally wrecked his marriage with Irene,
had mounted with surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during
which he had devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well
over a hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to--no real
object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were to relax
his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would have a hundred
and fifty thousand before he knew where he was. There had always been
a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side to Soames; baulked and
frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but now had crept out again
in this his 'prime of life.' Concreted and focussed of late by the
attraction of a girl's undoubted beauty, it had become a veritable
prepossession.

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept any
unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the thought of
that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during those long years
of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with disgust, for he was
fastidious, and his sense of law and order innate. He wanted no hole
and corner liaison. A marriage at the Embassy in Paris, a few months'
travel, and he could bring Annette back quite separated from a past
which in truth was not too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts
in her mother's Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something
very new and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign
at 'The Shelter' near Mapledurham. On Forsyte 'Change and among his
riverside friends it would be current that he had met a charming French
girl on his travels and married her. There would be the flavour of
romance, and a certain cachet about a French wife. No! He was not at
all afraid of that. It was only this cursed undivorced condition of his,
and--and the question whether Annette would take him, which he dared not
put to the touch until he had a clear and even dazzling future to offer