Passion! He seemed, indeed, to have heard of it, and rules such as 'A
young man and a young woman ought never to be trusted together' were
fixed in his mind as the parallels of latitude are fixed on a map (for
all Forsytes, when it comes to 'bed-rock' matters of fact, have quite
a fine taste in realism); but as to anything else--well, he could only
appreciate it at all through the catch-word 'scandal.'
Ah! but there was no truth in it--could not be. He was not afraid; she
was really a good little thing. But there it was when you got a thing
like that into your mind. And James was of a nervous temperament--one
of those men whom things will not leave alone, who suffer tortures from
anticipation and indecision. For fear of letting something slip that
he might otherwise secure, he was physically unable to make up his mind
until absolutely certain that, by not making it up, he would suffer
loss.
In life, however, there were many occasions when the business of making
up his mind did not even rest with himself, and this was one of them.
What could he do? Talk it over with Soames? That would only make matters
worse. And, after all, there was nothing in it, he felt sure.
It was all that house. He had mistrusted the idea from the first.
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