She had not deserved to keep her beauty⁠—the beauty he had owned and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bosinney⁠—cursed be his memory!⁠—had lived on all this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.

Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline ran: “Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!” Suzerainty! “Just like her!” he thought: “she always did. Suzerainty! I still have it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat!”

On Forsyte ’Change