CHAPTER IV--PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE.
Soames Forsyte walked out of his green-painted front door three days after the dinner at Swithin's, and looking back from across the Square, confirmed his impression that the house wanted painting.
He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, her hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for him to go out.

This was not unusual.

It happened, in fact, every day.
He could not understand what she found wrong with him.

It was not as if he drank! Did he run into debt, or gamble, or swear; was he violent; were his friends rackety; did he stay out at night?
On the contrary.
The profound, subdued aversion which he felt in his wife was a mystery to him, and a source of the most terrible irritation.

That she had made a mistake, and did not love him, had tried to love him and could not love him, was obviously no reason.
He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his wife's not getting on with him was certainly no Forsyte.
Soames was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely down to his wife.