"Yes,"said Mr.Polteed,"but quite promising."'Spider!'thought Soames."Good-day!"

He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria Station and take the Underground into the City.For so late in January it was warm;sunlight,through the haze,sparkled on the frosty grass--an illumined cobweb of a day.

Little spiders--and great spiders!And the greatest spinner of all,his own tenacity,for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads round any clear way out.What was that fellow hanging round Irene for?Was it really as Polteed suggested?Or was Jolyon but taking compassion on her loneliness,as he would call it--sentimental radical chap that he had always been?If it were,indeed,as Polteed hinted!Soames stood still.It could not be!The fellow was seven years older than himself,no better looking!No richer!

What attraction had he?

'Besides,he's come back,'he thought;'that doesn't look---I'll go and see him!'and,taking out a card,he wrote:

"If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week,I shall be at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30and 6,or I could come to the Hotch Potch if you prefer it.I want to see you.--S.F."He walked up St.James's Street and confided it to the porter at the Hotch Potch.

"Give Mr.Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in,"he said,and took one of the new motor cabs into the City.