And, stung by the sight, Soames hurried on deeper into the shadow of the
trees.
In this search, who knows what he thought and what he sought? Bread
for hunger--light in darkness? Who knows what he expected to
find--impersonal knowledge of the human heart--the end of his private
subterranean tragedy--for, again, who knew, but that each dark couple,
unnamed, unnameable, might not be he and she?
But it could not be such knowledge as this that he was seeking--the wife
of Soames Forsyte sitting in the Park like a common wench! Such thoughts
were inconceivable; and from tree to tree, with his noiseless step, he
passed.
Once he was sworn at; once the whisper, "If only it could always be like
this!" sent the blood flying again from his heart, and he waited there,
patient and dogged, for the two to move. But it was only a poor thin
slip of a shop-girl in her draggled blouse who passed him, clinging to
her lover's arm.
A hundred other lovers too whispered that hope in the stillness of the
trees, a hundred other lovers clung to each other.
But shaking himself with sudden disgust, Soames returned to the path,
and left that seeking for he knew not what.