Only a policeman, patrolling slowly and at intervals, took an interest
in that waiting figure, the brim of whose slouch hat half hid a face
reddened by the cold, all thin, and haggard, over which a hand stole now
and again to smooth away anxiety, or renew the resolution that kept
him waiting there. But the waiting lover (if lover he were) was used
to policemen's scrutiny, or too absorbed in his anxiety, for he never
flinched. A hardened case, accustomed to long trysts, to anxiety, and
fog, and cold, if only his mistress came at last. Foolish lover! Fogs
last until the spring; there is also snow and rain, no comfort anywhere;
gnawing fear if you bring her out, gnawing fear if you bid her stay at
home!
"Serve him right; he should arrange his affairs better!"
So any respectable Forsyte. Yet, if that sounder citizen could have
listened at the waiting lover's heart, out there in the fog and the
cold, he would have said again: "Yes, poor devil he's having a bad
time!"
Soames got into his cab, and, with the glass down, crept along Sloane
Street, and so along the Brompton Road, and home. He reached his house
at five.
His wife was not in. She had gone out a quarter of an hour before. Out
at such a time of night, into this terrible fog! What was the meaning of
that?
He sat by the dining-room fire, with the door open, disturbed to the
soul, trying to read the evening paper.
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