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<h2> CHAPTER XIV—OUTLANDISH NIGHT </h2>
<p>Soames doggedly let the spring come—no easy task for one conscious
that time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer the hand, no issue
from the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed reported nothing, except that
his watch went on—costing a lot of money. Val and his cousin were
gone to the war, whence came news more favourable; Dartie was behaving
himself so far; James had retained his health; business prospered almost
terribly—there was nothing to worry Soames except that he was 'held
up,' could make no step in any direction.</p>
<p>He did not exactly avoid Soho, for he could not afford to let them think
that he had 'piped off,' as James would have put it—he might want to
'pipe on' again at any minute. But he had to be so restrained and cautious
that he would often pass the door of the Restaurant Bretagne without going
in, and wander out of the purlieus of that region which always gave him
the feeling of having been possessively irregular.</p>
<p>He wandered thus one May night into Regent Street and the most amazing
crowd he had ever seen; a shrieking, whistling, dancing, jostling,
grotesque and formidably jovial crowd, with false noses and mouth-organs,
penny whistles and long feathers, every appanage of idiocy, as it seemed
to him. Mafeking! Of course, it had been relieved! Good! But was that an
excuse? Who were these people, what were they, where had they come from
into the West End? His face was tickled, his ears whistled into. Girls
cried: 'Keep your hair on, stucco!' A youth so knocked off his top-hat
that he recovered it with difficulty. Crackers were exploding beneath his
nose, between his feet. He was bewildered, exasperated, offended. This
stream of people came from every quarter, as if impulse had unlocked
flood-gates, let flow waters of whose existence he had heard, perhaps, but
believed in never. This, then, was the populace, the innumerable living
negation of gentility and Forsyteism. This was—egad!—Democracy!
It stank, yelled, was hideous! In the East End, or even Soho, perhaps—but
here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly! What were the police about! In 1900,
Soames, with his Forsyte thousands, had never seen the cauldron with the
lid off; and now looking into it, could hardly believe his scorching eyes.
The whole thing was unspeakable! These people had no restraint, they
seemed to think him funny; such swarms of them, rude, coarse, laughing—and
what laughter!</p>
<p>Nothing sacred to them! He shouldn't be surprised if they began to break
windows. In Pall Mall, past those august dwellings, to enter which people
paid sixty pounds, this shrieking, whistling, dancing dervish of a crowd
was swarming. From the Club windows his own kind were looking out on them
with regulated amusement. They didn't realise! Why, this was serious—might
come to anything! The crowd was cheerful, but some day they would come in
different mood! He remembered there had been a mob in the late eighties,
when he was at Brighton; they had smashed things and made speeches. But
more than dread, he felt a deep surprise. They were hysterical—it
wasn't English! And all about the relief of a little town as big as—Watford,
six thousand miles away. Restraint, reserve! Those qualities to him more
dear almost than life, those indispensable attributes of property and
culture, where were they? It wasn't English! No, it wasn't English! So
Soames brooded, threading his way on. It was as if he had suddenly caught
sight of someone cutting the covenant 'for quiet possession' out of his
legal documents; or of a monster lurking and stalking out in the future,
casting its shadow before. Their want of stolidity, their want of
reverence! It was like discovering that nine-tenths of the people of
England were foreigners. And if that were so—then, anything might
happen!</p>
<p>At Hyde Park Corner he ran into George Forsyte, very sunburnt from racing,
holding a false nose in his hand.</p>
<p>"Hallo, Soames!" he said, "have a nose!"</p>
<p>Soames responded with a pale smile.</p>
<p>"Got this from one of these sportsmen," went on George, who had evidently
been dining; "had to lay him out—for trying to bash my hat. I say,
one of these days we shall have to fight these chaps, they're getting so
damned cheeky—all radicals and socialists. They want our goods. You
tell Uncle James that, it'll make him sleep."</p>
<p>'In vino veritas,' thought Soames, but he only nodded, and passed on up
Hamilton Place. There was but a trickle of roysterers in Park Lane, not
very noisy. And looking up at the houses he thought: 'After all, we're the
backbone of the country. They won't upset us easily. Possession's nine
points of the law.'</p>
<p>But, as he closed the door of his father's house behind him, all that
queer outlandish nightmare in the streets passed out of his mind almost as
completely as if, having dreamed it, he had awakened in the warm clean
morning comfort of his spring-mattressed bed.</p>
<p>Walking into the centre of the great empty drawing-room, he stood still.</p>
<p>A wife! Somebody to talk things over with. One had a right! Damn it! One
had a right!</p>
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