Under that rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin
made strange contrast with her dark brown eyes.
Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep
tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and
quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than the
woman who sat at it? Gratitude was no virtue among Forsytes, who,
competitive, and full of common-sense, had no occasion for it; and
Soames only experienced a sense of exasperation amounting to pain, that
he did not own her as it was his right to own her, that he could not,
as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very
secrets of her heart.
Out of his other property, out of all the things he had collected, his
silver, his pictures, his houses, his investments, he got a secret and
intimate feeling; out of her he got none.
In this house of his there was writing on every wall. His business-like
temperament protested against a mysterious warning that she was not made
for him. He had married this woman, conquered her, made her his own, and
it seemed to him contrary to the most fundamental of all laws, the law
of possession, that he could do no more than own her body--if indeed he
could do that, which he was beginning to doubt.
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