"
In fancy he saw them gaping round the tortured lover; and grinned as he
thought of some respectable, newly-married spectre enabled by the state
of his own affections to catch an inkling of what was going on within
Bosinney; he fancied he could see his mouth getting wider and wider, and
the fog going down and down. For in George was all that contempt of
the of the married middle-class--peculiar to the wild and sportsmanlike
spirits in its ranks.
But he began to be bored. Waiting was not what he had bargained for.
'After all,' he thought, 'the poor chap will get over it; not the first
time such a thing has happened in this little city!' But now his quarry
again began muttering words of violent hate and anger. And following a
sudden impulse George touched him on the shoulder.
Bosinney spun round.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
George could have stood it well enough in the light of the gas lamps, in
the light of that everyday world of which he was so hardy a connoisseur;
but in this fog, where all was gloomy and unreal, where nothing had that
matter-of-fact value associated by Forsytes with earth, he was a victim
to strange qualms, and as he tried to stare back into the eyes of this
maniac, he thought:
'If I see a bobby, I'll hand him over; he's not fit to be at large.
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