The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(128)

‘H’m! A pretty far cry from what’s generally meant, and even then how do you know what best serves an all-pervading spirit?’

‘I take that on trust.’.

‘There’s where we differ. Look!’ he said, and it seemed to her that excitement had crept into his voice: ‘What’s the use of our reasoning powers, our mental faculties? I take each problem as it comes, I do the sum, I return the answer, and so I act. I act according to a reasoned estimate of what is best.’

‘For whom?’

‘For myself and the world at large.’

‘Which first?’

‘It’s the same thing.’

‘Always? I wonder. And, anyway, that means doing so long a sum every time that I can’t think how you ever get to acting. And surely ethical rules are just the result of countless decisions on those same problems made by people in the past, so why not take them for granted?’

‘None of those decisions were made by people of my temperament or in my circumstances.’

‘No, I see that. You follow what they call case law, then. But how English!’

‘Sorry!’ said Desert, abruptly: ‘I’m boring you. Have a sweet?’

Dinny put her elbows on the table and, leaning her chin on her hands, looked at him earnestly.

‘You weren’t boring me. On the contrary, you’re interesting me frightfully. Only I suppose that women act much more instinctively; I suppose that really means they accept themselves as more like each other than men do, and are more ready to trust their instinctive sense of general experience.’

‘That has been women’s way; whether it will be much longer, I don’t know.’

‘I think it will,’ said Dinny. ‘I don’t believe we shall ever much care for sums. I will have a sweet, please. Stewed prunes, I think.’

Desert stared at her, and began to laugh.

‘You’re wonderful. We’ll both have them. Is your family a very formal one?’

‘Not exactly formal, but they do believe in tradition and the past.’

‘And do you?’

‘I don’t know. I definitely like old things, and old places, and old people. I like anything that’s stamped like a coin. I like to feel one has roots. I was always fond of history. All the same one can’t help laughing. There’s something very comic about the way we’re all tied – like a hen by a chalk mark to its beak.’

Desert stretched out his hand and she put hers into it.

‘Shake hands on that saving grace.’

‘Some day,’ said Dinny, ‘you’re going to tell me something. But at the moment what play are we going to?’

‘Is there anything by a man called Shakespeare?’

With some difficulty they discovered that a work by the world’s greatest dramatist was being given in a theatre beyond the pale of the river. They went to it, and, when the show was over, Desert said, hesitating: ‘I wonder if you would come and have tea at my rooms?’

Dinny smiled and nodded, and from that moment was conscious of a difference in his manner. It was at once more intimate yet more respectful, as if he had said to himself: ‘This is my equal.’

That hour of tea, brought by Stack, a man with strange, understanding eyes and something monk-like in his look, seemed to her quite perfect. It was like no other hour she had ever spent, and at the end of it she knew she was in love. The tiny seed planted ten years before had flowered. This was such a marvel, so peculiar to one who at twenty-six had begun to think she would never be in love, that every now and then she drew in her breath and looked wonderingly at his face. Why on earth did she feel like this? It was absurd! And it was going to be painful, because he wasn’t going to love her. Why should he? And if he wasn’t, she mustn’t show, and how was she to help showing?

‘When am I going to see you again?’ he said, when she stood up to go.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Extraordinarily.’

‘But why?’

‘Why not? You’re the first lady I’ve spoken to for ten years. I’m not at all sure you’re not the first lady I’ve ever spoken to.’

‘If we are going to see each other again, you mustn’t laugh at me.’

‘Laugh at you! One couldn’t. So when?’

‘Well! At present I’m sleeping in a foreign nightgown at Mount Street. By rights I ought to be at Condaford. But my sister’s going to be married in town next week, and my brother’s coming back from Egypt on Monday, so perhaps I’ll send for things and stay up. Where would you like to see me?’

‘Will you come for a drive tomorrow? I haven’t been to Richmond or Hampton Court for years.’