George understood from those mutterings that Soames had exercised
his rights over an estranged and unwilling wife in the greatest--the
supreme act of property.
His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation; it impressed him;
he guessed something of the anguish, the sexual confusion and horror in
Bosinney's heart. And he thought: 'Yes, it's a bit thick! I don't wonder
the poor fellow is half-cracked!'
He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions in
Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in that gulf
of darkness. Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and George, in whose
patience was a touch of strange brotherliness, took his stand behind.
He was not lacking in a certain delicacy--a sense of form--that did not
permit him to intrude upon this tragedy, and he waited, quiet as the
lion above, his fur collar hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy
redness of his cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their sardonic,
compassionate stare. And men kept passing back from business on the way
to their clubs--men whose figures shrouded in cocoons of fog came
into view like spectres, and like spectres vanished. Then even in his
compassion George's Quilpish humour broke forth in a sudden longing to
pluck these spectres by the sleeve, and say:
"Hi, you Johnnies! You don't often see a show like this! Here's a poor
devil whose mistress has just been telling him a pretty little story of
her husband; walk up, walk up! He's taken the knock, you see.
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