The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his father were alive! He could have done so much! But why could he not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old enough?⁠—turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters and a son. “Queer,” he thought. “If she were plain I shouldn’t be thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when you’re sensitive to it!” And into the Club reading-room he went with a disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of June, the diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him against. And now! He was almost in want of a warning himself. “It’s deuced funny!” he thought, “really deuced funny!”

Soames Discovers What He Wants