She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:
"It's strange enough that I'm alive."
Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.
"Ah!" he said: "my son saw you for a moment--that day."
"Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it
was--Phil."
Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took it
away again, and went on calmly: "That night I went to the Embankment; a
woman caught me by the dress. She told me about herself. When one knows
that others suffer, one's ashamed."
"One of those?"
She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who
has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost against his will he
muttered: "Tell me, won't you?"
"I didn't care whether I lived or died. When you're like that, Fate
ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three days--she never
left me. I had no money. That's why I do what I can for them, now."
But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!' What fate could compare with
that? Every other was involved in it.
"I wish you had come to me," he said. "Why didn't you?" But Irene did
not answer.
"Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept you
away? How are you getting on now?" His eyes involuntarily swept her
body.
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