Awakening To Let ...............................................................................................................................................1

John Galsworthy......................................................................................................................................1

Through the massive skylight illuminating the hall at Robin Hill, the July sunlight at five o'clock fell just

where the broad stairway turned; and in that radiant streak little Jon Forsyte stood, blue linensuited. His

hair was shining, and his eyes, from beneath a frown, for he was considering how to go downstairs, this last

of innumerable times, before the car brought his father and mother home. Four at a time, and five at the

bottom? Stale! Down the banisters? But in which fashion? On his face, feet foremost? Very stale. On his

stomach, sideways? Paltry! On his back, with his arms stretched down on both sides? Forbidden! Or on his

face, head foremost, in a manner unknown as yet to any but himself? Such was the cause of the frown on the

In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to simplify the English tongue, had, of

course, no cognizance of little Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But one can be too simple

in this life, for his real name was Jolyon, and his living father and dead halfbrother had usurped of old the

other shortenings, Jo and Jolly. As a fact little Jon had done his best to conform to convention and spell

himself first Jhon, then John; not till his father had explained the sheer necessity, had he spelled his name

Up till now that father had possessed what was left of his heart by the groom, Bob, who played the

concertina, and his nurse "Da," who wore the violet dress on Sundays, and enjoyed the name of Spraggins in

that private life lived at odd moments even by domestic servants. His mother had only appeared to him, as it

were in dreams, smelling delicious, smoothing his forehead just before he fell asleep, and sometimes docking

his hair, of a golden brown colour. When he cut his head open against the nursery fender she was there to be

bled over; and when he had nightmare she would sit on his bed and cuddle his head against her neck. She was

precious but remote, because "Da" was so near, and there is hardly room for more than one woman at a time

in a man's heart. With his father, too, of course, he had special bonds of union; for little Jon also meant to be

a painter when he grew upwith the one small difference, that his father painted pictures, and little Jon

intended to paint ceilings and walls, standing on a board between two stepladders, in a dirtywhite apron,

and a lovely smell of whitewash. His father also took him riding in Richmond Park, on his pony, Mouse,

Little Jon had been born with a silver spoon in a mouth which was rather curly and large. He had never heard

his father or his mother speak in an angry voice, either to each other, himself, or anybody else; the groom,

Bob, Cook, Jane, Bella and the other servants, even "Da," who alone restrained him in his courses, had

special voices when they talked to him. He was therefore of opinion that the world was a place of perfect and

A child of 1901, he had come to consciousness when his country, just over that bad attack of scarlet fever, the

Boer War, was preparing for the Liberal revival of 1906. Coercion was unpopular, parents had exalted

notions of giving their offspring a good time. They spoiled their rods, spared their children, and anticipated

the results with enthusiasm. In choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fiftytwo, who had

already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirtyeight, whose first and only child he was, little

Jon had done well and wisely. What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little prig,

had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his

mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his mother's heart he

knew not yet. As for "Auntie" June, his halfsister (but so old that she had grown out of the relationship) she

loved him, of course, but was too sudden. His devoted "Da," too, had a Spartan touch. His bath was cold and

his knees were bare; he was not encouraged to be sorry for himself. As to the vexed question of his education,

little Jon shared the theory of those who considered that children should not be forced. He rather liked the

Mademoiselle who came for two hours every morning to teach him her language, together with history,

geography and sums; nor were the piano lessons which his mother gave him disagreeable, for she had a way

of luring him from tune to tune, never making him practise one which did not give him pleasure, so that he

remained eager to convert ten thumbs into eight fingers. Under his father he learned to draw pleasurepigs

and other animals. He was not a highly educated little boy. Yet, on the whole, the silver spoon stayed in his

mouth without spoiling it, though "Da" sometimes said that other children would do him a "world of good."

It was a disillusionment, then, when at the age of nearly seven she held him down on his back, because he

wanted to do something of which she did not approve. This first interference with the free individualism of a

Forsyte drove him almost frantic. There was something appalling in the utter helplessness of that position,

and the uncertainty as to whether it would ever come to an end. Suppose she never let him get up any more!

He suffered torture at the top of his voice for fifty seconds. Worse than anything was his perception that "Da"

had taken all that time to realise the agony of fear he was enduring. Thus, dreadfully, was revealed to him the

When he was let up he remained convinced that "Da" had done a dreadful thing. Though he did not wish to

bear witness against her, he had been compelled, by fear of repetition, to seek his mother and say: "Mum,

His mother, her hands held up over her head, and in them two plaits of hair"couleur de feuille morte," as

little Jon had not yet learned to call ithad looked at him with eyes like little bits of his brown velvet tunic,

She, being in the nature of a goddess, little Jon was satisfied; especially when, from under the diningtable at

breakfast, where he happened to be waiting for a mushroom, he had overheard her say to his father:

"Then, will you tell 'Da,' dear, or shall I? She's so devoted to him"; and his father's answer:

"Well, she mustn't show it that way. I know exactly what it feels like to be held down on one's back. No

Conscious that they did not know him to be under the table, little Jon was visited by the quite new feeling of

Such had been his first dip into the dark abysses of existence. Nothing much had been revealed to him after

that, till one day, having gone down to the cowhouse for his drink of milk fresh from the cow, after Garratt

had finished milking, he had seen Clover's calf, dead. Inconsolable, and followed by an upset Garratt, he had

sought "Da"; but suddenly aware that she was not the person he wanted, had rushed away to find his father,

"Yes, darling, there, there!" had stayed his sobbing. But if Clover's calf could die, anything couldnot only

bees, flies, beetles and chickensand look soft like that! This was appalling and soon forgotten!

The next thing had been to sit on a bumble bee, a poignant experience, which his mother had understood

much better than "Da"; and nothing of vital importance had happened after that till the year turned; when,

following a day of utter wretchedness, he had enjoyed a disease composed of little spots, bed, honey in a

spoon, and many Tangerine oranges. It was then that the world had flowered. To "Auntie" June he owed that

flowering, for no sooner was he a little lame duck than she came rushing down from London, bringing with

her the books which had nurtured her own Berserker spirit, born in the noted year of 1869. Aged, and of

many colours, they were stored with the most formidable happenings. Of these she read to little Jon, till he

was allowed to read to himself; whereupon she whisked back to London and left them with him in a heap.

Those books cooked his fancy, till he thought and dreamed of nothing but midshipmen and dhows, pirates,

rafts, sandalwood traders, iron horses, sharks, battles, Tartars, Red Indians, balloons, North Poles and other

extravagant delights. The moment he was suffered to get up, he rigged his bed fore and aft, and set out from it

in a narrow bath across green seas of carpet, to a rock, which he climbed by means of its mahogany drawer

knobs, to sweep the horizon with his drinking tumbler screwed to his eye, in search of rescuing sails. He

made a daily raft out of the towel stand, the tea tray, and his pillows. He saved the juice from his French

plums, bottled it in an empty medicine bottle, and provisioned the raft with the rum that it became; also with

pemmican made out of little savedup bits of chicken sat on and dried at the fire; and with lime juice against

scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges and a little economised juice. He made a North Pole one

morning from the whole of his bedclothes except the bolster, and reached it in a birchbark canoe (in private

life the fender), after a terrible encounter with a polar bear fashioned from the bolster and four skittles dressed

up in "Da's" nightgown. After that, his father, seeking to steady his imagination, brought him Ivanboe, Bevis,

a book about King Arthur, and Tom Brown's Schooldays. He read the first, and for three days built, defended

and stormed Front de Boeuf's castle, taking every part in the piece except those of Rebecca and Rowena; with

piercing cries of: "En avant, de Bracy!" and similar utterances. After reading the book about King Arthur he

became almost exclusively Sir Lamorac de Galis, because, though there was very little about him, he

preferred his name to that of any other knight; and he rode his old rockinghorse to death, armed with a long

bamboo. Bevis he found tame; besides, it required woods and animals, of which he had none in his nursery,

except his two cats, Fitz and Puck Forsyte, who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as yet too

young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth week, he was permitted to go down and out.

The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts of ships, and for little Jon that was a

wonderful Spring, extremely hard on his knees, suits, and the patience of "Da," who had the washing and

reparation of his clothes. Every morning the moment his breakfast was over, he could be viewed by his

mother and father, whose windows looked out that way, coming from the study, crossing the terrace,

climbing the old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there was not

time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast,

topgallant mast, and he could always come down by the halyardsor ropes of the swing. After his lessons,

completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French

plumsprovision enough for a jolly boat at leastand eat it in some imaginative way; then, armed to the

teeth with gun, pistols, and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning, encountering by the

way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates, leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day

without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham) amid the rapid explosion of copper caps. And many were

the gardeners he brought down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun. He lived a life of the most violent

"Jon," said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, "is terrible. I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or

"Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can bear anything but that. But I wish he'd take

"No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or more lovable than Jon."

At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them, brought them down with two peas; but that

fragment of talk lodged, thick, in his small gizzard. Loving, lovable, imaginative, sanguinary!

The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his birthday, which, occurring every year on the

twelfth of May, was always memorable for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms, macaroons, and

Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he stood in the July radiance at the turning of

"Da," worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious instinct which forces even nurses to desert

their nurslings, left the very day after his birthday in floods of tears "to be married"of all things"to a

man." Little Jon, from whom it had been kept, was inconsolable for an afternoon. It ought not to have been

kept from him! Two large boxes of soldiers and some artillery, together with The Young Buglers, which had

been among his birthday presents, cooperated with his grief in a sort of conversion, and instead of seeking

adventures in person and risking his own life, he began to play imaginative games, in which he risked the

lives of countless tin soldiers, marbles, stones and beans. Of these forms of "chair a canon" he made

collections, and, using them alternately, fought the Peninsular, the Seven Years, the Thirty Years, and other

wars, about which he had been reading of late in a big History of Europe which had been his grandfather's.

He altered them to suit his genius, and fought them all over the floor in his day nursery, so that nobody could

come in, for fearing of disturbing Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, or treading on an army of Austrians.

Because of the sound of the word he was passionately addicted to the Austrians, and finding there were so

few battles in which they were successful he had to invent them in his games. His favourite generals were

Prince Eugene, the Archduke Charles and Wallenstein. Tilly and Mack ("musichall turns" he heard his

father call them one day, whatever that might mean) one really could not love very much, Austrian though

This phase, which caused his parents anxiety, because it kept him indoors when he ought to have been out,

lasted through May and half of June, till his father killed it by bringing home to him Tom Sawyer and

Huckleberry Finn. When he read those books something happened in him, and he went out of doors again in

passionate quest of a river. There being none on the premises at Robin Hill, he had to make one out of the

pond, which fortunately had water lilies, dragonflies, gnats, bullrushes, and three small willow trees. On this

pond, after his father and Garratt had ascertained by sounding that it had a reliable bottom and was nowhere

more than two feet deep, he was allowed a little collapsible canoe, in which he spent hours and hours

paddling, and lying down out of sight of Indian Joe and other enemies. On the shore of the pond, too, he built

himself a wigwam about four feet square, of old biscuit tins, roofed in by boughs. In this he would make little

fires, and cook the birds he had not shot with his gun, hunting in the coppice and fields, or the fish he did not

catch in the pond because there were none. This occupied the rest of June and that July, when his father and

mother were away in Ireland. He led a lonely life of "make believe" during those five weeks of summer

weather, with gun, wigwam, water and canoe; and, however hard his active little brain tried to keep the sense

of beauty away, she did creep in on him for a second now and then, perching on the wing of a dragonfly,

glistening on the water lilies, or brushing his eyes with her blue as he Jay on his back in ambush.

"Auntie" June, who had been left in charge, had a "grownup" in the house, with a cough and a large piece of

putty which he was making into a face; so she hardly ever came down to see him in the pond. Once, however,

she brought with her two other "grownups." Little Jon, who happened to have painted his naked self bright

blue and yellow in stripes out of his father's watercolour box, and put some duck's feathers in his hair, saw

them coming, andambushed himself among the willows. As he had foreseen, they came at once to his

wigwam and knelt down to look inside, so that with a bloodcurdling yell he was able to take the scalps of

"Auntie" June and the woman "grownup" in an almost complete manner before they kissed him. The names

of the two grownups were "Auntie" Holly and "Uncle" Val, who had a brown face and a little limp, and

laughed at him terribly. He took a fancy to "Auntie" Holly, who seemed to be a sister too; but they both went

away the same afternoon and he did not see them again. Three days before his father and mother were to

come home "Auntie" June also went off in a great hurry, taking the "grownup" who coughed and his piece

of putty; and Mademoiselle said: "Poor man, he was veree ill. I forbid you to go into his room, Jon." Little

Jon, who rarely did things merely because he was told not to, refrained from going, though he was bored and

lonely. In truth the day of the pond was past, and he was filled to the brim of his soul with restlessness and

the want of somethingnot a tree, not a gun something soft. Those last two days had seemed months in

spite of Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he was reading about Mother Lee and her terrible wrecking bonfire. He

had gone up and down the stairs perhaps a hundred times in those two days, and often from the day nursery,

where he slept now, had stolen into his mother's room, looked at everything, without touching, and on into

the dressing room; and standing on one leg beside the bath, like Slingsby, had whispered:

"Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!" mysteriously, to bring luck. Then, stealing back, he had opened his mother's

wardrobe, and taken a long sniff which seemed to bring him nearer tohe didn't know what.

He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight, debating in which of the several ways he

should slide down the banisters. They all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he began descending the steps

one by one. During that descent he could remember his father quite distinctlythe short grey beard, the deep

eyes twinkling, the furrow between them, the funny smile, the thin figure which always seemed so tall to

little Jon; but his mother he couldn't see. All that represented her was something swaying with two dark eyes

Bella was in the hall, drawing aside the big curtains, and opening the front door. Little Jon said, wheedling

"Do let's have tea under the oak tree when they come; I know they'd like it best."

Bella smiled. "Very well, I'll take it out if you'll stay quiet here and not get into mischief before they come."

Little Jon sat down on the bottom step, and nodded. Bella came close, and looked him over.

Little Jon got up. She scrutinized him behind; he was not green, and his knees seemed clean.

When she was gone he sat still for quite a minute. It was quiet in the big hall open to its East end so that he

could see one of his trees, a brig sailing very slowly across the upper lawn. In the outer hall shadows were

slanting from the pillars. Little Jon got up, jumped one of them, and walked round the clump of iris plants

which filled the pool of greywhite marble in the centre. The flowers were pretty, but only smelled a very

little. He stood in the open doorway and looked out. Suppose!suppose they didn't come! He had waited so

long that he felt he could not bear that, and his attention slid at once from such finality to the dust motes in

the bluish sunlight coming in: Thrusting his hand up, he tried to catch some. Bella ought to have dusted that

piece of air! But perhaps they weren't dustonly what sunlight was made of, and he looked to see whether

the sunlight out of doors was the same. It was not. He had said he would stay quiet in the hall, but he simply

couldn't any more; and crossing the gravel of the drive he lay down on the grass beyond. Pulling six daisies

he named them carefully, Sir Lamorac, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot, Sir Palimedes, Sir Bors, Sir Gawain, and

fought them in couples till only Sir Lamorac, whom he had selected for a specially stout stalk, had his head

on, and even he, after three encounters, looked worn and waggly. A beetle was moving slowly in the grass,

which almost wanted cutting. Every blade was a small tree, round whose trunk the beetle had to glide. Little

Jon stretched out Sir Lamorac, feet foremost, and stirred the creature up. It scuttled painfully. Little Jon

laughed, lost interest, and sighed. His heart felt empty. He turned over and lay on his back. There was a scent

of honey from the lime trees in flower, and in the sky the blue was beautiful, with a few white clouds which

looked and perhaps tasted like lemon ice. He could hear Bob playing: "Way down upon de Suwannee ribber"

on his concertina, and it made him nice and sad. He turned over again and put his ear to the groundIndians

could hear things coming ever so farbut he could hear nothingonly the concertina! And almost instantly

he did hear a grinding sound, a faint toot. Yes! it was a carcomingcoming! Up he jumped. Should he

wait in the porch, or rush upstairs, and as they came in, shout: "Look!" and slide slowly down the banisters,

head foremost? Should he? The car turned in at the drive. It was too late! And he only waited, jumping up

and down in his excitement. The car came quickly, whirred, and stopped. His father got out, exactly like life.

"Bless us! Well, old man, you are brown!" Just as he would; and the sense of expectationof something

wantedbubbled unextinguished in little Jon. Then, with a long, shy look he saw his mother, in a blue dress,

with a blue motor scarf over her cap and hair, smiling. He jumped as high as ever he could, twined his legs

behind her back, and hugged. He heard her gasp, and felt her hugging back. His eyes, very dark blue just

then, looked into hers, very dark brown, till her lips closed on his eyebrow, and, squeezing with all his might,

While he was eating his jam beneath the oak tree, he noticed things about his mother that he had never

seemed to see before, her cheeks for instance were creamy, there were silver threads in her dark goldy hair,

her throat had no knob in it like Bella's, and she went in and out softly. He noticed, too, some little lines

running away from the corners of her eyes, and a nice darkness under them. She was ever so beautiful, more

beautiful than "Da" or Mademoiselle, or "Auntie" June or even "Auntie" Holly, to whom he had taken a

fancy; even more beautiful than Bella, who had pink cheeks and came out too suddenly in places. This new

beautifulness of his mother had a kind of particular importance, and he ate less than he had expected to.

When tea was over his father wanted him to walk round the gardens. He had a long conversation with his

father about things in general, avoiding his private lifeSir Lamorac, the Austrians, and the emptiness he

had felt these last three days, now so suddenly filled up. His father told him of a place called Glensofantrim,

where he and his mother had been; and of the little people who came out of the ground there when it was very

"You're younger than I; and they're fairies." Little Jon squared the dimple in his chin.

Little Jon reflected; Venus was in his book about the Greeks and Trojans. Then Anna was her Christian and

But it appeared, on inquiry, that it was one word, which meant rising from the foam.

"Oh! Then she must be..." but he stopped at that, rushed at a wall, scrambled up, and promptly scrambled

down again. The discovery that his mother was beautiful was one which he felt must absolutely be kept to

himself. His father's cigar, however, took so long to smoke, that at last he was compelled to say:

He pitched the motive low, to absolve him from unmanliness, and was a little disconcerted when his father

He went, with a pretence of slowness, and then rushed, to make up. He entered her bedroom from his own,

the door being open. She was still kneeling before a trunk, and he stood close to her, quite still.

Having given and received another hug, he mounted the windowseat, and tucking his legs up under him

watched her unpack. He derived a pleasure from the operation such as he had not yet known, partly because

she was taking out things which looked suspicious, and partly because he liked to look at her. She moved

differently from anybody else, especially from Bella; she was certainly the refinedestlooking person he had

"Yes. I came over all funny, so she took me home again very quick. I wasn't sick after all. I went to bed and

"Oh! abouta long time agoI wanted her to take me again, but she wouldn't. You and Daddy never go to

"Well, dear, we both of us went when we were little. Perhaps we went when we were too little."

"I don't want to grow up, much. I don't want to go to school." A sudden overwhelming desire to say

something more, to say what he really felt, turned him red. "II want to stay with you, and be your lover,

Then with an instinct to improve the situation, he added quickly "I don't want to go to bed tonight, either.

"Can I see it, for instance?" His mother got up, and sat beside him. "You do, every day. The sky is beautiful,

the stars, and moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the treesthey're all beautiful. Look out of the

"All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with their foam flying back."

"I know," he said mysteriously, "you're it, really, and all the rest is makebelieve."

I don't believe 'Da' was beautiful, when I come to think of it; and Mademoiselle's almost ugly."

"Mademoiselle has a very nice face." "Oh! yes; nice. I love your little rays, Mum."

Conscious that he had never in his life so given himself away, he felt a sudden reaction to the manliness of

"Shall I show you a thing or two?" he said; and slipping out of her arms, he stood on his head. Then, fired by

her obvious admiration, he mounted the bed, and threw himself head foremost from his feet on to his back,

That evening, having inspected what they had brought, he stayed up to dinner, sitting between them at the

little round table they used when they were alone. He was extremely excited. His mother wore a Frenchgrey

dress, with creamy lace made out of little scriggly roses, round her neck, which was browner than the lace.

He kept looking at her, till at last his father's funny smile made him suddenly attentive to his slice of

pineapple. It was later than he had ever stayed up, when he went to bed. His mother went up with him, and he

undressed very slowly so as to keep her there. When at last he had nothing on but his pyjamas, he said:

Kneeling down and plunging his face into the bed, little Jon hurried up, under his breath, opening one eye

now and then, to see her standing perfectly still with a smile on her face. "Our Father"so went his last

prayer, "which art in heaven, hallowed be thy Mum, thy Kingdom Mumon Earth as it is in heaven, give us

this day our daily Mum and forgive us our trespasses on earth as it is in heaven and trespass against us, for

thine is the evil the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amum! Look out!" He sprang, and for a long

"You won't shut the door any more than that, will you? Are you going to be long, Mum?"

"Well, when I do, I'll come in and give you a kiss, then if you're awake you'll know, and if you're not you'll

Little Jon sighed, "All right!" he said: "I suppose I must put up with that. Mum?"

He felt her lips on his forehead, heard her footsteps; opened his eyes to see her gliding through the doorway,

For some ten minutes of it he tried loyally to sleep, counting a great number of thistles in a row, "Da's" old

recipe for bringing slumber. He seemed to have been hours counting. It must, he thought, be nearly time for

her to come up now. He threw the bedclothes back. "I'm hot!" he said, and his voice sounded funny in the

darkness, like someone else's. Why didn't she come? He sat up. He must look! He got out of bed, went to the

window and pulled the curtain a slice aside. It wasn't dark, but he couldn't tell whether because of daylight or

the moon, which was very big. It had a funny, wicked face, as if laughing at him, and he did not want to look

at it. Then, remembering that his mother had said moonlit nights were beautiful, he continued to stare out in a

general way. The trees threw thick shadows, the lawn looked like spilt milk, and a long, long way he could

see; oh! very far; right over the world, and it all looked different and swimmy. There was a lovely smell, too,

After that rhyme, which came into his head all at once, he became conscious of music, very softlovely!

Mum playing! He bethought himself of a macaroon he had, laid up in his chest of drawers, and, getting it,

came back to the window. He leaned out, now munching, now holding his jaws to hear the music better. "Da"

used to say that angels played on harps in heaven; but it wasn't half so lovely as Mum playing in the moony

night, with him eating a macaroon. A cockchafer buzzed by, a moth flew in his face, the music stopped, and

little Jon drew his head in. She must be coming! He didn't want to be found awake. He got back into bed and

pulled the clothes nearly over his head; but he had left a streak of moonlight coming in. It fell across the

floor, near the foot of the bed, and he watched it moving ever so slowly towards him, as if it were alive. The

And time slipped by, the music rose, fell, ceased; the moonbeam crept towards his face. Little Jon turned in

his sleep till he lay on his back, with one brown fist still grasping the bedclothes. The corners of his eyes

twitchedhe had begun to dream. He dreamed he was drinking milk out of a pan that was the moon,

opposite a great black cat which watched him with a funny smile like his father's. He heard it whisper: "Don't

drink too much!" It was the cat's milk, of course, and he put out his hand amicably to stroke the creature; but

it was no longer there; the pan had become a bed, in which he was lying, and when he tried to get out he

couldn't find the edge; he couldn't find ithehecouldn't get out! It was dreadful!

He whimpered in his sleep. The bed had begun to go round too; it was outside him and inside him; going

round and round, and getting fiery, and Mother Lee out of Cast up by the Sea was stirring it! Oh! so horrible

she looked! Faster and faster!till he and the bed and Mother Lee and the moon and the cat were all one

A voice saying: "Darling, darling!" got through the wheel, and he awoke, standing on his bed, with his eyes

There was his mother, with her hair like Guinevere's, and, clutching her, he buried his face in it.

"I wanted to see the time; II looked out, II heard you playing, Mum; II ate my macaroon." But he was

growing slowly comforted; and the instinct to excuse his fear revived within him.

"Only one, Mum; it made the music ever so more beautiful. I was waiting for youI nearly thought it was

Taking her hand, he had begun dragging her towards the door. He shut it as they passed, with a sigh of relief.

Wasting no time, giving her no chance to change her mind, little Jon got into the bed, which seemed much

softer than his own. He heaved another sigh, screwed his head into the pillow and lay examining the battle of

chariots and swords and spears which always went on outside blankets, where the little hairs stood up against

"Nothing but the moon and your imagination heated up. You mustn't get so excited, Jon."

But, still not quite in possession of his nerves, little Jon answered boastfully:

"I wasn't afraid, really, of course!" And again he lay watching the spears and chariots. It all seemed very long.

"Oh! not tonight. You'll only have to unplait it again tomorrow. I'm sleepy now; if you don't come, I shan't

His mother stood up white and flowey before the winged mirror: he could see three of her, with her neck

turned and her hair bright under the light, and her dark eyes smiling. It was unnecessary, and he said:

Little Jon closed his eyes. Everything was turning out most satisfactory, only she must hurry up! He felt the

bed shake, she was getting in. And, still with his eyes closed, he said sleepily: "It's nice, isn't it?"

He heard her voice say something, felt her lips touching his nose, and, snuggling up beside her who lay

awake and loved him with her thoughts, he fell into the dreamless sleep, which rounded off his past.

Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of

May, 1920, with the intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and looking into

the Future. He walked. Since the War he never took a cab if he could help it. Their drivers were, in his view,

an uncivil lot, though now that the War was over and supply beginning to exceed demand again, getting more

civil in accordance with the custom of human nature. Still, he had not forgiven them, deeply identifying them

with gloomy memories, and now, dimly, like all members, of their class, with revolution. The considerable

anxiety he had passed through during the War, and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in

the Peace, had produced psychological consequences in a tenacious nature. He had, mentally, so frequently

experienced ruin, that he had ceased to believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a year

in income and super tax, one could not very well be worse off! A fortune of a quarter of a million,

encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and very diversely invested, afforded substantial guarantee

even against that "wildcat notion" a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war profits, he was entirely in

favour of it, for he had none, and "serve the beggars right!" The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything,

gone up, and he had done better with his collection since the War began than ever before. Airraids, also, had

acted beneficially on a spirit congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To be in danger

of being entirely dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive of the more partial dispersions involved in

levies and taxation, while the habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led naturally to

He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to meet him at the Gallery at four o'clock, and

it was as yet but halfpast two. It was good for him to walkhis liver was a little constricted, and his nerves

rather on edge. His wife was always out when she was in Town, and his daughter would flibbertygibbet all

over the place like most young women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had been too young

to do anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that he had not supported the War from its inception, with all

his soul, but between that and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and daughter, there had been a gap

fixed by something oldfashioned within him which abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance,

strongly objected to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirtyfour, going to her native France, her

"chere patrie" as, under the stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse her "braves poilus," forsooth!

Ruining her health and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her do

needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone, therefore, and had never been quite the same woman

since. A bad tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual little ways, had grown. As for

Fleur, the War had resolved the vexed problem whether or not she should go to school. She was better away

from her mother in her war mood, from the chance of airraids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so

he had placed her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him compatibIe with excellence, and had

missed her horribly. Fleur! He had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name by which at her birth he

had decided so suddenly to call hermarked concession though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty

namea pretty child! But restlesstoo restless; and wilful! Knowing her power too over her father! Soames

often reflected on the mistake it was to dote on his daughter. To get old and dote! Sixtyfive! He was getting

on; but he didn't feel it, for, fortunately perhaps, considering Annette's youth and good looks, his second

marriage had turned out a cool affair. He had known but one real passion in his lifefor that first wife of

his Irene. Yes, and that fellow, his cousin Jolyon, who had gone off with her, was looking very shaky, they

Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of the Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence,

halfway between that house in Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents' deaths, and the little

house in Montpellier Square where thirtyfive years ago he had enjoyed his first edition of matrimony. Now,

after twenty years of his second edition, that old tragedy seemed to him like a previous existencewhich had

ended when Fleur was born in place of the son he had hoped for. For many years he had ceased regretting,

even vaguely, the son who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After all, she bore his name;

and he was not looking forward at all to the time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of

such a calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her rich enough to purchase perhaps

and extinguish the name of the fellow who married herwhy not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to

men nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, passed his curved hand over his face

vigorously, till it reached the comfort of his chin. Thanks to abstemious habits, he had not grown fat and

gabby; his nose was pale and thin, his grey moustache closeclipped, his eyesight unimpaired. A slight stoop

closened and corrected the expansion given to his face by the heightening of his forehead in the recession of

his grey hair. Little change had Time wrought in the "warmest" of the young Forsytes, as the last of the old

The shade from the planetrees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he had given up top hatsit was no use

attracting attention to wealth in days like these. Planetrees! His thoughts travelled sharply to Madridthe

Easter before the War, when, having to make up his mind about that Goya picture, he had taken a voyage of

discovery to study the painter on his spot. The fellow had impressed himgreat range, real genius! Highly as

the chap ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with him. The second Goya craze would

be greater even than the first; oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he hadas never

beforecommissioned a copy of a fresco painting called "La Vendimia," wherein was the figure of a girl

with an arm akimbo, who had reminded him of his daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at Mapledurham,

and rather poor it wasyou couldn't copy Goya. He would still look at it, however, if his daughter were not

there, for the sake of something irresistibly reminiscent in the light, erect balance of the figure, the width

between the arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes. Curious that Fleur should have dark

eyes, when his own were greyno pure Forsyte had brown eyesand her mother's blue! But of course her

He began to walk on again toward Hyde Park Corner. No greater change in all England than in the Row!

Born almost within hail of it, he could remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child between the

crinolines to stare at tighttrousered dandies in whiskers, riding with a cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of

curlybrimmed and white top hats; the leisurely air of it all, and the little bowlegged man in a long red

waistcoat who used to come among the fashion with dogs on several strings, and try to sell one to his mother:

King Charles spaniels, Italian greyhounds, affectionate to her crinolineyou never saw them now. You saw

no quality of any sort, indeed, just working people sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few

young bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials charging up and down on

dismallooking hacks; with, here and there, little girls on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging their livers, or an

orderly trying a great galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no

gossipnothing; only the trees the samethe trees indifferent to the generations and declensions of

mankind. A democratic Englanddishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an apex. And that

something fastidious in the soul of Soames turned over within him. Gone forever, the close borough of rank

and polish! Wealth there wasoh, yes! wealthhe himself was a richer man than his father had ever been;

but manners, flavour, quality, all gone, engulfed in one vast, ugly, shoulderrubbing, petrolsmelling

Cheerio. Little halfbeaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here and there, dispersed and chetif, as

Annette would say; but nothing ever again firm and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurlyburly of

bad manners and loose morals his daughterflower of his lifewas flung! And when those Labour chaps

He passed out under the archway, at last no longerthank goodness! disfigured by the gungrey of its

searchlight. 'They'd better put a searchlight on to where they're all going,' he thought, 'and light up their

precious democracy!' And he directed his steps along the Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of

course, would be sitting in the bay window of the Iseeum. The chap was so big now that he was there nearly

all his time, like some immovable, sardonic, humorous eye noting the decline of men and things. And

Soames hurried, ever constitutionally uneasy beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had

written a letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the War, complaining of the Government's hysteria in

docking the oats of racehorses. Yes, there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, cleanshaven, with his smooth hair,

hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best hairwash, and a pink paper in his hand. Well, be didn't

change! And for perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy tapping in his waistcoat for

that sardonic kinsman. With his weight, his perfectly parted hair, and bulllike gaze, he was a guarantee that

the old order would take some shifting yet. He saw George move the pink paper as if inviting him to ascend

the chap must want to ask something about his property. It was still under Soames' control; for in the

adoption of a sleeping partnership at that painful period twenty years back when he had divorced Irene,

Soames had found himself almost insensibly retaining control of all purely Forsyte affairs.

Hesitating for just a moment, he nodded and went in. Since the death of his brotherinlaw Montague Dartie,

in Paris, which no one had quite known what to make of, except that it was certainly not suicidethe Iseeum

Club had seemed more respectable to Soames. George, too, he knew, had sown the last of his wild oats, and

was committed definitely to the joys of the table, eating only of the very best so as to keep his weight down,

and owning, as he said, "just one or two old screws to give me an interest in life." He joined his cousin,

therefore, in the bay window without the embarrassing sense of indiscretion he had been used to feel up there.

Some hidden jest curved, for a moment, George's fleshy face, and gloated from his eye.

"That Belgian chap, Profond," he said, "is a member here now. He's a rum customer."

"Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose he's made his Will."

"Well, you or somebody ought to give him a look uplast of the old lot; he's a hundred, you know. They say

he's like a rummy. Where are you goin' to put him? He ought to have a pyramid by rights."

"Well, I suppose the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere else. They say he still takes an interest in

food. He might last on, you know. Don't we get anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of themaverage age

'You unsociable devil,' George's eyes seemed to answer. "Yes, that's all: Look him up in his mausoleumthe

old chap might want to prophesy." The grin died on the rich curves of his face, and he added: "Haven't you

attorneys invented a way yet of dodging this damned income tax? It hits the fixed inherited income like the

very deuce. I used to have two thousand five hundred a year; now I've got a beggarly fifteen hundred, and the

"Well," he said, "they brought me up to do nothing, and here I am in the sear and yellow, getting poorer every

day. These Labour chaps mean to have the lot before they've done. What are you going to do for a living

when it comes? I shall work a sixhour day teaching politicians how to see a joke. Take my tip, Soames; go

Soames moved along Piccadilly deep in reflections excited by his cousin's words. He himself had always

been a worker and a saver, George always a drone and a spender; and yet, if confiscation once began, it was

hethe worker and the saverwho would be looted! That was the negation of all virtue, the overturning of

all Forsyte principles. Could civilization be built on any other? He did not think so. Well, they wouldn't

confiscate his pictures, for they wouldn't know their worth. But what would they be worth, if these maniacs

once began to milk capital? A drug on the market. 'I don't care about myself,' he thought; 'I could live on five

hundred a year, and never know the difference, at my age.' But Fleur! This fortune, so widely invested, these

treasures so carefully chosen and amassed, were all forher. And if it should turn out that he couldn't give or

leave them to herwell, life had no meaning, and what was the use of going in to look at this crazy,

Arriving at the Gallery off Cork Street, however, he paid his shilling, picked up a catalogue, and entered.

Some ten persons were prowling round. Soames took steps and came on what looked to him like a lamppost

bent by collision with a motor omnibus. It was advanced some three paces from the wall, and was described

in his catalogue as "Jupiter." He examined it with curiosity, having recently turned some of his attention to

sculpture. 'If that's Jupiter,' he thought, 'I wonder what Juno's like.' And suddenly he saw her, opposite. She

appeared to him like nothing so much as a pump with two handles, lightly clad in snow. He was still gazing

at her, when two of the prowlers halted on his left. "Epatant!" he heard one say.

"Missed it, old bean; he's pulling your leg. When Jove and Juno created he them, he was saying: 'I'll see how

"You young duffer! Vospovitch is an innovator. Don't you see that he's brought satire into sculpture? The

future of plastic art, of music, painting, and even architecture, has set in satiric. It was bound to. People are

"Well, I'm quite equal to taking a little interest in beauty. I was through the War. You've dropped your

Soames saw a handkerchief held out in front of him. He took it with some natural suspicion, and approached

it to his nose. It had the right scentof distant Eau de Cologneand his initials in a corner. Slightly

reassured, he raised his eyes to the young man's face. It had rather fawnlike ears, a laughing mouth, with

half a toothbrush growing out of it on each side, and small lively eyes, above a normally dressed appearance.

"Thank you," he said; and moved by a sort of irritation, added: "Glad to hear you like beauty; that's rare,

"I dote on it," said the young man; "but you and I are the last of the old guard, sir."

"If you really care for pictures," he said, "here's my card. I can show you some quite good ones any Sunday,

"Awfully nice of you, sir. I'll drop in like a bird. My name's MontMichael." And he took off his hat.

Soames, already regretting his impulse, raised his own slightly in response, with a downward look at the

young man's companion, who had a purple tie, dreadful little sluglike whiskers, and a scornful look as if he

It was the first indiscretion he had committed for so long that he went and sat down in an alcove. What had

possessed him to give his card to a rackety young fellow, who went about with a thing like that? And Fleur,

always at the back of his thoughts, started out like a filigree figure from a clock when the hour strikes. On the

screen opposite the alcove was a large canvas with a great many square tomatocoloured blobs on it, and

nothing else, so far as Soames could see from where he sat. He looked at his catalogue: "No. 32 'The Future

Town'Paul Post." 'I suppose that's satiric too,' he thought. 'What a thing!' But his second impulse was more

cautious. It did not do to condemn hurriedly. There had been those stripey, streaky creations of Monet's,

which had turned out such trumps; and then the stippled school; and Gauguin. Why, even since the Post

Impressionists there had been one or two painters not to be sneezed at. During the thirtyeight years of his

connoisseur's life, indeed, he had marked so many "movements," seen the tides of taste and technique so ebb

and flow, that there was really no telling anything except that there was money to be made out of every

change of fashion. This too might quite well be a case where one must subdue primordial instinct, or lose the

market. He got up and stood before the picture, trying hard to see it with the eyes of other people. Above the

tomato blobs was what he took to be a sunset, till some one passing said: "He's got the airplanes wonderfully,

don't you think!" Below the tomato blobs was a band of white with vertical black stripes, to which he could

assign no meaning whatever, till some one else came by, murmuring: "What expression he gets with his

foreground!" Expression? Of what? Soames went back to his seat. The thing was "rich," as his father would

have said, and he wouldn't give a damn for it. Expression! Ah! they were all Expressionists now, he had

heard, on the Continent. So it was coming here too, was it? He remembered the first wave of influenza in

1887or '8 hatched in China, so they said. He wondered where thisthis Expressionism had been

He had become conscious of a woman and a youth standing between him and the "Future Town." Their backs

were turned; but very suddenly Soames put his catalogue before his face, and drawing his hat forward, gazed

through the slit between. No mistaking that back, elegant as ever though the hair above had gone grey. Irene!

His divorced wifeIrene! And this, no doubt, washer sonby that fellow Jolyon Forsytetheir boy, six

months older than his own girl! And mumbling over in his mind the bitter days of his divorce, he rose to get

out of sight, but quickly sat down again. She had turned her head to speak to her boy; her profile was still so

youthful that it made her grey hair seem powdery, as if fancydressed; and her lips were smiling as Soames,

first possessor of them, had never seen them smile. Grudgingly he admitted her still beautiful and in figure

almost as young as ever. And how that boy smiled back at her! Emotion squeezed Soames' heart. The sight

infringed his sense of justice. He grudged her that boy's smileit went beyond what Fleur gave him, and it

was undeserved. Their son might have been his son; Fleur might have been her daughter, if she had kept

straight! He lowered his catalogue. If she saw him, all the better! A reminder of her conduct in the presence

of her son, who probably knew nothing of it, would be a salutary touch from the finger of that Nemesis which

surely must soon or late visit her! Then, halfconscious that such a thought was extravagant for a Forsyte of

his age, Soames took out his watch. Past four! Fleur was late. She had gone to his niece Imogen Cardigan's,

and there they would keep her smoking cigarettes and gossiping, and that. He heard the boy laugh, and say

The word produced a little shock in Soames; he had never heard her use it. And then she saw him. His eyes

must have had in them something of George Forsyte's sardonic look; for her gloved hand crisped the folds of

Soames stared after them. That boy was goodlooking, with a Forsyte chin, and eyes deepgrey, deep in; but

with something sunny, like a glass of old sherry spilled over him; his smile perhaps, his hair. Better than they

deservedthose two! They passed from his view into the next room, and Soames continued to regard the

Future Town, but saw it not. A little smile snarled up his lips. He was despising the vehemence of his own

feelings after all these years. Ghosts! And yet as one grew oldwas there anything but what was ghostlike

left? Yes, there was Fleur! He fixed his eyes on the entrance. She was due; but she would keep him waiting,

of course! And suddenly he became aware of a sort of human breezea short, slight form clad in a

seagreen djibbah with a metal belt and a fillet binding unruly redgold hair all streaked with grey. She was

talking to the Gallery attendants, and something familiar riveted his gazein her eyes, her chin, her hair, her

spiritsomething which suggested a thin Skye terrier just before its dinner. Surely June Forsyte! His cousin

Juneand coming straight to his recess! She sat down beside him, deep in thought, took out a tablet, and

made a pencil note. Soames sat unmoving. A confounded thing, cousinship! "Disgusting!" he heard her

murmur; then, as if resenting the presence of an overhearing stranger, she looked at him. The worst had

Soames pointed to the Future Town. "Look at that! Who's going to live in a town like that, or with it on his

"Well," he said, "you'll find your young stepbrother here with a woman I used to know. If you take my

June looked back at him. "Oh! You Forsyte!" she said, and moved on. About her light, flyaway figure,

passing so suddenly away, was a look of dangerous decisions. Forsyte! Of course, he was a Forsyte! And so

was she! But from the time when, as a mere girl, she brought Bosinney into his life to wreck it, he had never

hit it off with June and never would! And here she was, unmarried to this day, owning a Gallery!... And

suddenly it came to Soames how little he knew now of his own family. The old aunts at Timothy's had been

dead so many years; there was no clearinghouse for news. What had they all done in the War? Young

Roger's boy had been wounded, St. John Hayman's second son killed; young Nicholas' eldest had got an O.

B. E., or whatever they gave them. They had all joined up somehow, he believed. That boy of Jolyon's and

Irene's, he supposed, had been too young; his own generation, of course, too old, though Giles Hayman had

driven a car for the Red Crossand Jesse Hayman been a special constablethose "Dromios" had always

been of a sporting type! As for himself, he had given a motor ambulance, read the papers till he was sick of

them, passed through much anxiety, bought no clothes, lost seven pounds in weight; he didn't know what

more he could have done at his age. Indeed, thinking it over, it struck him that he and his family had taken

this war very differently to that affair with the Boers, which had been supposed to tax all the resources of the

Empire. In that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had been wounded, that fellow Jolyon's first son

had died of enteric, "the Dromios" had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse; but all that had seemed

in the nature of a portent, while in this war everybody had done "their bit," so far as he could make out, as a

matter of course. It seemed to show the growth of something or otheror perhaps the decline of something

else. Had the Forsytes become less individual, or more Imperial, or less provincial? Or was it simply that one

hated Germans?... Why didn't Fleur come, so that he could get away? He saw those three return together from

the other room and pass back along the far side of the screen. The boy was standing before the Juno now.

And, suddenly, on the other side of her, Soames sawhis daughter, with eyebrows raised, as well they might

be. He could see her eyes glint sideways at the boy, and the boy look back at her. Then Irene slipped her hand

through his arm, and drew him on. Soames saw him glancing round, and Fleur looking after them as the three

The young man who had handed him his handkerchief was again passing. Soames nodded.

"Oh! That's all right, sir," answered the young man cheerfully; "they don't either."

Fleur's voice said: "Hallo, Father! Here you are!" precisely as if he had been keeping her waiting.

"Well," said Soames, looking her up and down, "you're a punctual sort of young woman!"

This treasured possession of his life was of medium height and colour, with short, dark chestnut hair; her

wideapart brown eyes were set in whites so clear that they glinted when they moved, and yet in repose were

almost dreamy under very white, blacklashed lids, held over them in a sort of suspense. She had a charming

profile, and nothing of her father in her face save a decided chin. Aware that his expression was softening as

he looked at her, Soames frowned to preserve the unemotionalism proper to a Forsyte. He knew she was only

In the doorway they passed the young man called Mont and his partner. But Soames had hung out a board

marked "Trespassers will be prosecuted," and he barely acknowledged the young fellow's salute.

"Oh, no! They've sold their farm. Cousin Val is going to train racehorses on the Sussex Downs. They've got

"Oh! no, Father; they're awfully devoted. I promised to goSaturday to Wednesday next."

"Training racehorses!" said Soames. It was extravagant, but not the reason for his distaste. Why the deuce

couldn't his nephew have stayed out in South Africa? His own divorce had been bad enough, without his

nephew's marriage to the daughter of the corespondent; a halfsister too of June, and of that boy whom

Fleur had just been looking at from under the pumphandle. If he didn't look out, she would come to know all

about that old disgrace! Unpleasant things! They were round him this afternoon like a swarm of bees!

"I want to see the racehorses," murmured Fleur; "and they've promised I shall ride. Cousin Val can't walk

much, you know; but he can ride perfectly. He's going to show me their gallops."

"Racing!" said Soames. "It's a pity the War didn't knock that on the head. He's taking after his father, I'm

"No," said Soames, grimly. "He took an interest in horses and broke his neck in Paris, walking downstairs.

Good riddance for your aunt." He frowned, recollecting the inquiry into those stairs which he had attended in

Paris six years ago, because. Montague Dartie could not attend it himselfperfectly normal stairs in a house

where they played baccarat. Either his winnings or the way he had celebrated them had gone to his

brotherinlaw's head. The French procedure had been very loose; he had had a lot of trouble with it.

A sound from Fleur distracted his attention. "Look! The people who were in the Gallery with us."

"Come into this pastrycook's," said Soames abruptly, and tightening his grip on her arm he turned into a

confectioner's. It wasfor hima surprising thing to do, and he said rather anxiously: "What will you

"We must have something now we're here," muttered Soames, keeping hold of her arm.

But no sooner was his body seated than his soul sprang up. Those threethose three were coming in! He

At that moment, most awkward of his existence, crowded with ghosts and shadows from his past, in presence

of the only two women he had ever lovedhis divorced wife and his daughter by her successor Soames

was not so much afraid of them as of his cousin June. She might make a sceneshe might introduce those

two childrenshe was capable of anything. He bit too hastily at the nougat, and it stuck to his plate.

Working at it with his finger, he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her eyes were on the

boy. The Forsyte in him said: "Think, feel, and you're done for!" And he wiggled his finger desperately.

Plate! Did Jolyon wear a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had been when he had seen her wearing

nothing! That was something, anyway, which had never been stolen from him. And she knew it, though she

might sit there calm and selfpossessed, as if she had never been his wife. An acid humour stirred in his

Forsyte blood; a subtle pain divided by hair's breadth from pleasure. If only June did not suddenly bring her

"Of course, Auntie June"so he called his halfsister "Auntie," did he?well, she must be fifty, if she was

a day!" it's jolly good of you to encourage them. Onlyhang it all!" Soames stole a glance. Irene's startled

eyes were bent watchfully on her boy. Sheshe had these devotionsfor Bosinneyfor that boy's

She would be sick! He went to the counter to pay. When he turned round again he saw Fleur standing near

the door, holding a handkerchief which the boy had evidently just handed to her.

"F. F.," he heard her say. "Fleur Forsyteit's mine all right. Thank you ever so."

Good God! She had caught the trick from what he'd told her in the Gallerymonkey!

"Really! We must be. There aren't any others. I live at Mapledurham; where do you?"

Question and answer had been so rapid that all was over before he could lift a finger. He saw Irene's face

alive with startled feeling, gave the slightest shake of his head, and slipped his arm through Fleur's.

Emerging from the "pastrycook's," Soames' first impulse was to vent his nerves by saying to his daughter:

'Dropping your handkerchief!' to which her reply might well be: 'I picked that up from you!' His second

impulse therefore was to let sleeping dogs lie. But she would surely question him. He gave her a sidelong

"Why don't you like those cousins, Father?" Soames lifted the corner of his lip.

'That sees itself!' What a way of putting it! After twenty years of a French wife Soames had still little

sympathy with her language; a theatrical affair and connected in his mind with all the refinements of

Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her Aunt Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie

and his wife, been talking? Every breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept from her at home, and

Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't have a whisper of it reach her for the world. So far as she ought

to know, he had never been married before. But her dark eyes, whose southern glint and clearness often

"Well," he said, "your grandfather and his brother had a quarrel. The two families don't know each other."

'Now, what does she mean by that?' he thought. The word was to him extravagant and dangerousit was as

"And they'll continue not to know each, other," he added, but instantly regretted the challenge in those words.

Fleur was smiling. In this age, when young people prided themselves on going their own ways and paying no

attention to any sort of decent prejudice, he had said the very thing to excite her wilfulness. Then, recollecting

"About a house. It's ancient history for you. Your grandfather died the day you were born. He was ninety."

"I don't know," said Soames. "They're all dispersed now. The old ones are dead, except Timothy."

"Not at all," said Soames. It offended him that she should think "Timothy" deliciousa kind of insult to his

breed. This new generation mocked at anything solid and tenacious. "You go and see the old boy. He might

want to prophesy." Ah! If Timothy could see the disquiet England of his greatnephews and greatnieces, he

would certainly give tongue. And involuntarily he glanced up at the Iseeum; yesGeorge was still in the

Robin Hill! Robin Hill, round which all that tragedy had centred! What did she want to know for?

"Yes. But what's all that to do with you? We're going home to morrowyou'd better be thinking about your

"Bless you! They're all thought about. A family feud? It's like the Bible, or Mark Twainawfully exciting.

She was too sharp for him; fine, as Annette sometimes called her. Nothing for it but to distract her attention.

"There's a bit of rosaline point in here," he said, stopping before a shop, "that I thought you might like."

"Don't you think that boy's mother is the most beautiful woman of her age you've ever seen?"

"What's her husband like? He must be your first cousin, if your fathers were brothers."

"Dead, for all I know," said Soames, with sudden vehemence. "I haven't seen him for twenty years."

The words: "If you want to please me you'll put those people out of your head," sprang to Soames' lips, but he

"I see! You didn't avenge it, and it rankles. Poor Father! You let me have a go!"

It was really like lying in the dark with a mosquito hovering above his face. Such pertinacity in Fleur was

"I did my best. And that's enough about these people. I'm going up till dinner."

With a parting look at her extended in a chaira look half resentful, halfadoringSoames moved into the

lift and was transported to their suite on the fourth floor. He stood by the window of the sittingroom which

gave view over Hyde Park, and drummed a finger on its pane. His feelings were confused, tetchy, troubled.

The throb of that old wound, scarred over by Time and new interests, was mingled with displeasure and

anxiety, and a slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had disagreed. Had Annette come in? Not that

she was any good to him in such a difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first marriage, he

had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save that it had been the great passion of his life, and his

marriage with herself but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the grudge of that up her sleeve, as it

were, and used it commercially. He listened. A soundthe vague murmur of a woman's movementswas

She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly clothed; a striking figure before her glass. There

was a certain magnificence about her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened since he first knew her, about

the turn of her neck, the silkiness of her garments, her darklashed, greyblue eyesshe was certainly as

handsome at forty as she had ever been. A fine possession, an excellent housekeeper, a sensible and

affectionate enough mother. If only she weren't always so frankly cynical about the relations between them!

Soames, who had no more real affection for her than she had for him, suffered from a kind of English

grievance in that she had never dropped even the thinnest veil of sentiment over their partnership. Like most

of his countrymen and women, he held the view that marriage should be based on mutual love, but that when

from a marriage love had disappeared, or, been found never to have really existedso that it was manifestly

not based on loveyou must not admit it. There it was, and the love was notbut there you were, and must

continue to be! Thus you had it both ways, and were not tarred with cynicism, realism, and immorality like

the French. Moreover, it was necessary in the interests of property. He knew that she knew that they both

knew there was no love between them, but he still expected her not to admit in words or conduct such a thing,

and he could never understand what she meant when she talked of the hypocrisy of the English. He said:

Annette went on touching her lips delicately with salvehe always wished she wouldn't do that.

"Your sister Winifred, and the Carrdigans"she took up a tiny stick of black"and Prosper Profond."

"Rrestive?" repeated Annette. "Is it the first time you see that, my friend? She was born rrestive, as you

Annette looked at him, reflected in her glass. Her justbrightened lips smiled, rather full, rather ironical.

It was his word for all that incomprehensible running in and out of shops that women went in for. "Has Fleur

"Sometimes," answered Annette, and her face had a sort of quiet enjoyment. "But sometimes very amusing."

"Well, get some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's going off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I

Since the reason could not be explained without going into family history, Soames merely answered:

"I know nothing of her except This thing's new." And Soames took up a creation from the bed.

Soames hooked. Glancing once over her shoulder into the glass, he saw the expression on her face, faintly

amused, faintly contemptuous, as much as to say: "Thanks! You will never learn!" No, thank God, he wasn't

a Frenchman! He finished with a jerk, and the words: "It's too low here." And he went to the door, with the

He knew the expressionhe had reason to. The first time she had used it he had thought it meant "What a

grocer you are!" and had not known whether to be relieved or not when better informed. He resented the

wordhe was not coarse! If he was coarse, what was that chap in the room beyond his, who made those

horrible noises in the morning when he cleared his throat, or those people in the Lounge who thought it

wellbred to say nothing but what the whole world could hear at the top of their voicesquacking inanity!

Coarse, because he had said her dress was low! Well, so it was! He went out without reply.

Coming into the Lounge from the far end, he at once saw Fleur where he had left her. She sat with crossed

knees, slowly balancing a foot in silk stocking and grey shoe, sure sign that she was dreaming. Her eyes

showed it toothey went off like that sometimes. And then, in a moment, she would come to life, and be as

quick and restless as a monkey. And she knew so much, so selfassured, and not yet nineteen. What was that

odious word? Flapper! Dreadful young creatures squealing and squawking and showing their legs! The

worst of them bad dreams, the best of them powdered angels! Fleur was not a flapper, not one of those

slangy, illbred young females. And yet she was frighteningly selfwilled, and full of life, and determined to

enjoy it. Enjoy! The word brought no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the terror suited to his

temperament. He had always been afraid to enjoy today for fear he might not enjoy tomorrow so much. And

it was terrifying to feel that his daughter was divested of that safeguard. The very way she sat in that chair

showed it lost in her dream. He had never been lost in a dream himselfthere was nothing to be had out

of it; and where she got it from he did not know! Certainly not from Annette! And yet Annette, as a young

girl, when he was hanging about her, had once had a flowery look. Well, she had lost it now!

Fleur rose from her chairswiftly, restlessly; and flung herself down at a writingtable. Seizing ink and

writing paper, she began to write as if she had not time to breathe before she got her letter written. And

suddenly she saw him. The air of desperate absorption vanished, she smiled, waved a kiss, made a pretty face

Jolyon Forsyte had spent his boy's nineteenth birthday at Robin Hill, quietly going into his affairs. He did

everything quietly now, because his heart was in a poor way, and, like all his family, he disliked the idea of

dying. He had never realised how much till one day, two years ago, he had gone to his doctor about certain

He had taken it with a smilethe natural Forsyte reaction against an unpleasant truth. But with an increase

of symptoms in the train on the way home, he had realised to the full the sentence hanging over him. To leave

Irene, his boy, his home, his workthough he did little enough work now! To leave them for unknown

darkness, for the unimaginable state, for such nothingness that he would not even be conscious of wind

stirring leaves above his grave, nor of the scent of earth and grass. Of such nothingness that, however hard he

might try to conceive it, he never could, and must still hover on the hope that he might see again those he

loved! To realise this was to endure very poignant spiritual anguish. Before he reached home that day he had

determined to keep it from Irene. He would have to be more careful than man had ever been, for the least

thing would give it away and make her as wretched as himself, almost. His doctor had passed him sound in

other respects, and seventy was nothing of an agehe would last a long time yet, if he could.

Such a conclusion, followed out for nearly two years, develops to the full the subtler side of character.

Naturally not abrupt, except when nervously excited, Jolyon had become control incarnate. The sad patience

of old people who cannot exert themselves was masked by a smile which his lips preserved even in private.

He devised continually all manner of cover to conceal his enforced lack of exertion.

Mocking himself for so doing, he counterfeited conversion to the Simple Life; gave up wine and cigars, drank

a special kind of coffee with no coffee in it. In short, he made himself as safe as a Forsyte in his condition

could, under the rose of his mild irony. Secure from discovery, since his wife and son had gone up to Town,

he had spent the fine May day quietly arranging his papers, that he might die tomorrow without

inconveniencing any one, giving in fact a final polish to his terrestrial state. Having docketed and enclosed it

in his father's old Chinese cabinet, he put the key into an envelope, wrote the words outside: "Key of the

Chinese cabinet, wherein will be found the exact state of me, J. F.," and put it in his breast pocket, where it

would be always about him, in case of accident. Then, ringing for tea, he went out to have it under the old

All are under sentence of death; Jolyon, whose sentence was but a little more precise and pressing, had

become so used to it that he thought habitually, like other people, of other things. He thought of his son now.

Jon was nineteen that day, and Jon had come of late to a decision. Educated neither at Eton like his father, nor

at Harrow, like his dead halfbrother, but at one of those establishments which, designed to avoid the evil

and contain the good of the Public School system, may or may not contain the evil and avoid the good, Jon

had left in April perfectly ignorant of whit he wanted to become. The War, which had promised to go on for

ever, had ended just as he was about to join the Army, six months before his time. It had taken him ever since

to get used to the idea that he could now choose for himself. He had held with his father several discussions,

from which, under a cheery show of being ready for anythingexcept, of course, the Church, Army, Law,

Stage, Stock Exchange, Medicine, Business, and EngineeringJolyon had gathered rather clearly that Jon

wanted to go in for nothing. He himself had felt exactly like that at the same age. With him that pleasant

vacuity had soon been ended by an early marriage, and its unhappy consequences. Forced to become an

underwriter at Lloyd's, he had regained prosperity before his artistic talent had outcropped. But havingas

the simple say "learned" his boy to draw pigs and other animals, he knew that Jon would never be a

painter, and inclined to the conclusion that his aversion from everything else meant that he was going to be a

writer. Holding, however, the view that experience was necessary even for that profession, there seemed to

Jolyon nothing in the meantime, for Jon, but University, travel, and perhaps the eating of dinners for the Bar.

After that one would see, or more probably one would not. In face of these proffered allurements, however,

Such discussions with his son had confirmed in Jolyon a doubt whether the world had really changed. People

said that it was a new age. With the profundity of one not too long for any age, Jolyon perceived that under

slightly different surfaces the era was precisely what it had been. Mankind was still divided into two species:

The few who had "speculation" in their souls, and the many who had none, with a belt of hybrids like himself

in the middle. Jon appeared to have speculation; it seemed to his father a bad lookout.

With something deeper, therefore, than his usual smile, he had heard the boy say, a fortnight ago: "I should

like to try farming, Dad; if it won't cost you too much. It seems to be about the only sort of life that doesn't

"All right; you shall skip back to where we were under the first Jolyon in 1760. It'll prove the cycle theory,

"'Twill serve, my dear; and if you should really take to it, you'll do more good than most men, which is little

To himself, however, he had said: 'But he won't take to it. I give him four years. Still, it's healthy, and

After turning the matter over and consulting with Irene, he wrote to his daughter, Mrs. Val Dartie, asking if

they knew of a farmer near them on the Downs who would take Jon as an apprentice. Holly's answer had

been enthusiastic. There was an excellent man quite close; she and Val would love Jon to live with them.

Sipping weak tea with lemon in it, Jolyon gazed through the leaves of the old oaktree at that view which had

appeared to him desirable for thirtytwo years. The tree beneath which he sat seemed not a day older! So

young, the little leaves of brownish gold; so old, the whiteygreygreen of its thick rough trunk. A tree of

memories, which would live on hundreds of years yet, unless some barbarian cut it downwould see old

England out at the pace things were going! He remembered a night three years before, when, looking from

his window, with his arm close round Irene, he had watched a German aeroplane hovering, it seemed, right

over the old tree. Next day they had found a bomb hole in a field on Gage's farm. That was before he knew

that he was under sentence of death. He could almost have wished the bomb had finished him. It would have

saved a lot of hanging about, many hours of cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He had counted on living to

the normal Forsyte age of eightyfive or more, when Irene would be seventy. As it was, she would miss him.

Still there was Jon, more important in her life than himself; Jon, who adored his mother.

Under that tree, where old Jolyonwaiting for Irene to come to him across the lawnhad breathed his last,

Jolyon wondered, whimsically, whether, having put everything in such perfect order, he had not better close

his own eyes and drift away. There was something undignified in o parasitically clinging on to the effortless

close of a life wherein he regretted two things onlythe long division between his father and himself when

>From where he sat he could see a cluster of appletrees in blossom. Nothing in Nature moved him so much

as fruittrees in blossom; and his heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again.

Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was still young enough to love beauty!

Blackbirds sang recklessly in the shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the leaves above him glistened; and

over the fields was every imaginable tint of early foliage, burnished by the level sunlight, away to where the

distant "smokebush" blue was trailed along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds had startling

individuality that evening, little deep assertions of gay life. Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps

Leonardo, had known how to get that startling little ego into each painted flower, and bird, and beast the

ego, yet the sense of species, the universality of life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that

will live!' thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateura mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall leave Jon behind

me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been

killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would do something some dayif the Age

didn't spoil himan imaginative chap! His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and about as

likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the field: Irene and the boy; walking from the station,

with their arms linked. And getting up, he strolled down through the new rose garden to meet them....

Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. She sat there without speaking till he said:

Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two years; conscious that it was bad for him.

And, now, his heart moved in a disconcerting manner, as if it had sideslipped within his chest.

"He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterward at the confectioner's where we had tea."

Jolyon's heart sideslipped again. His wife's face had a strained and puzzled look.

"No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief and he picked it up."

"I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from him. He'll find out some day."

"The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard judgment. When you were nineteen what

Yes! There it was! Jon worshipped his mother; and knew nothing of the tragedies, the inexorable necessities

of life, nothing of the prisoned grief in an unhappy marriage, nothing of jealousy or passionknew nothing

"That they were relations, but we didn't know them; that you had never cared much for your family, or they

Jolyon smiled. "This promises to take the place of airraids," he said. "After all, one misses them."

"I could never stand seeing Jon blame you. He shan't do that, even in thought. He has imagination; and he'll

understand if it's put to him properly. I think I had better tell him before he gets to know otherwise."

That was like hershe had no foresight, and never went to meet trouble. Stillwho knew?she might be

right. It was ill going against a mother's instinct. It might be well to let the boy go on, if possible, till

experience had given him some touchstone by which he could judge the values of that old tragedy; till love,

jealousy, longing, had deepened his charity. All the same, one must take precautionsevery precaution

possible! And, long after Irene had left him, he lay awake turning over those precautions. He must write to

Holly, telling her that Jon knew nothing as yet of family history. Holly was discreet, she would make sure of

her husband, she would see to it! Jon could take the letter with him when he went tomorrow.

And so the day on which he had put the polish on his material estate died out with the chiming of the stable

clock; and another began for Jolyon in the shadow of a spiritual disorder which could not be so rounded off

But Jon, whose room had once been his day nursery, lay awake too, the prey of a sensation disputed by those

who have never known it, "love at first sight!" He had felt it beginning in him with the glint of those dark

eyes gazing into his athwart the Junoa conviction that this was his 'dream'; so that what followed had

seemed to him at once natural and miraculous. Fleur! Her name alone was almost enough for one who was

terribly susceptible to the charm of words. In a homoeopathic Age, when boys and girls were coeducated,

and mixed up in early life till sex was almost abolished, Jon was singularly old fashioned. His modern

school took boys only, and his holidays had been spent at Robin Hill with boy friends, or his parents alone.

He had never, therefore, been inoculated against the germs of love by small doses of the poison. And now in

the dark his temperature was mounting fast. He lay awake, featuring Fleuras they called it recalling her

He was still so wide awake at dawn that he got up, slipped on tennis shoes, trousers, and a sweater, and in

silence crept downstairs and out through the study window. It was just light; there was a smell of grass.

'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was mysteriously white out of doors, with nothing awake except the birds just

beginning to chirp. 'I'll go down into the coppice,' he thought. He ran down through the fields, reached the

pond just as the sun rose, and passed into the coppice. Bluebells carpeted the ground there; among the

larchtrees there was mysterythe air, as it were, composed of that romantic quality. Jon sniffed its

freshness, and stared at the bluebells in the sharpening light. Fleur! It rhymed with her! And she lived at

Mapledurama jolly name, too, on the river somewhere. He could find it in the atlas presently. He would

write to her. But would she answer? Oh! She must. She had said "Au revoir!" Not goodbye! What luck that

she had dropped her handkerchief! He would never have known her but for that. And the more he thought of

that handkerchief, the more amazing his luck seemed. Fleur! It certainly rhymed with her! Rhythm thronged

Jon remained in this condition for more than half an hour, then returned to the house, and getting a ladder,

climbed in at his bedroom window out of sheer exhilaration. Then, remembering that the study window was

open, he went down and shut it, first removing the ladder, so as to obliterate all traces of his feeling. The

There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving their bodies in the limbo of

London. Such was not quite the condition of "Timothy's" on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had

one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine

To Forsyte imagination that house was now a sort of Chinese pillbox, a series of layers in the last of which

was Timothy. One did not reach him, or so it was reported by members of the family who, out of oldtime

habit or absentmindedness, would drive up once in a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle. Such

were Francie, now quite emancipated from God (she frankly avowed atheism), Euphemia, emancipated from

old Nicholas, and Winifred Dartie from her "man of the world." But, after all, everybody was emancipated

When Soames, therefore, took it on his way to Paddington station on the morning after that encounter, it was

hardly with the expectation of seeing Timothy in the flesh. His heart made a faint demonstration within him

while he stood in full south sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep of that little house where four Forsytes

had once lived, and now but one dwelt on like a winter fly; the house into which Soames had come and out of

which he had gone times without number, divested of, or burdened with, fardels of family gossip; the house

The sight of Smitherstill corseted up to the armpits because the new fashion which came in as they were

going out about 1903 had never been considered "nice" by Aunts Juley and Hesterbrought a pale

friendliness to Soames' lips; Smither, still faithfully arranged to old pattern in every detail, an invaluable

servantnone such left smiling back at him, with the words: "Why! it's Mr. Soames, after all this time!

"Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he's a wonderful man. As I said to Mrs. Dartie

when she was here last: It would please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he relishes a

baked apple still. But he's quite deaf. And a mercy, I always think. For what we should have done with him in

"We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the cellar, so that Cook and I could hear him if he

rang. It would never have done to let him know there was a war on. As I said to Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy rings,

they may do what they likeI'm going up. My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him ringing

and nobody going to him.' But he slept through them all beautiful. And the one in the daytime he was having

his bath. It was a mercy, because he might have noticed the people in the street all looking uphe often

"Quite!" murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! "I just want to look round and see if there's

"Yes, sir. I don't think there's anything except a smell of mice in the diningroom that we don't know how to

get rid of. It's funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming down, just

before the War. But they're nasty little things; you never know where they'll take you next."

"Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the window in the morning, not to risk a change of

air. And he's quite comfortable in himself; has his Will out every day regular. It's a great consolation to

"Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has anything to say to me."

"It will be an occasion!" she said. "Shall I take you round the house, sir, while I send Cook to break it to

One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt that he was going to be sentimental

nosing round those rooms so saturated with the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, had left him,

Soames entered the diningroom and sniffed. In his opinion it wasn't mice, but incipient woodrot, and he

examined the panelling. Whether it was worth a coat of paint, at Timothy's age, he was not sure. The room

had always been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile curled Soames' lips and nostrils. Walls

of a rich green surmounted the oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling divided by

imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy, a bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years

agothree Snyder "still lifes," two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather charming, which

bore the initials "J. R."Timothy had always believed they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but

Soames, who admired them, had discovered that they were only John Robinson; and a doubtful Morland of a

white pony being shod. Deepred plush curtains, ten highbacked dark mahogany chairs with deepred plush

seats, a Turkey carpet, and a mahogany diningtable as large as the room was small, such was an apartment

which Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body since he was four years old. He looked especially

>From the diningroom he passed into Timothy's study. He did not remember ever having been in that room.

It was lined from floor to ceiling with volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity. One wall seemed

devoted to educational books, which Timothy's firm had published two generations backsometimes as many

as twenty copies of one book. Soames read their titles and shuddered. The middle wall had precisely the same

books as used to be in the library at his own father's in Park Lane, from which he deduced the fancy that

James and his youngest brother had gone out together one day and bought a brace of small libraries. The third

wall he approached with more excitement. Here, surely, Timothy's own taste would be found. It was. The

books were dummies. The fourth wall was all heavily curtained window. And turned toward it was a large

chair with a mahogany readingstand attached, on which a yellowish and folded copy of The Times, dated

July 6, 1914, the day Timothy first failed to come down, as if in preparation for the War, seemed waiting for

him still. In a corner stood a large globe of that world never visited by Timothy, deeply convinced of the

unreality of everything but England, and permanently upset by the sea, on which he had been very sick one

Sunday afternoon in 1836, out of a pleasure boat off the pier at Brighton, with Juley and Hester, Swithin and

Hatty Chessman; all due to Swithin, who was always taking things into his head, and who, thank goodness,

had been sick too. Soames knew all about it, having heard the tale fifty times at least from one or other of

them. He went up to the globe, and gave it a spin; it emitted a faint creak and moved about an inch, bringing

'Mausoleum!' he thought. 'George was right!' And he went out and up the stairs. On the halflanding he

stopped before the case of stuffed hummingbirds which had delighted his childhood. They looked not a day

older, suspended on wires above pampasgrass. If the case were opened the birds would not begin to hum,

but the whole thing would crumble, he suspected. It wouldn't be worth putting that into the sale! And

suddenly he was caught by a memory of Aunt Anndear old Aunt Annholding him by the hand in front

of that case and saying: "Look, Soamey! Aren't they bright and pretty, dear little hummingbirds!" Soames

remembered his own answer: "They don't hum, Auntie." He must have been six, in a black velveteen suit

with a lightblue collarhe remembered that suit well! Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind

hands, and her grave old aquiline smilea fine old lady, Aunt Ann! He moved on up to the drawingroom

door. There on each side of it were the groups of miniatures. Those he would certainIy buy in! The miniatures

of his four aunts, one of his Uncle Swithin adolescent, and one of his Uncle Nicholas as a boy. They had all

been painted by a young lady friend of the family at a time, 1830, about, when miniatures were considered

very genteel, and lasting too, painted as they were on ivory. Many a time had he heard the tale of that young

lady: "Very talented, my dear; she had quite a weakness for Swithin, and very soon after she went into a

Well, there they were! Ann, Juley, Hester, Susanquite a small child; Swithin, with skyblue eyes, pink

cheeks, yellow curls, white waistcoatlarge as life; and Nicholas, like Cupid with an eye on heaven. Now he

came to think of it, Uncle Nick had always been rather like thata wonderful man to the last. Yes, she must

have had talent, and miniatures always had a certain backwatered cachet of their own, little subject to the

currents of competition on aesthetic Change. Soames opened the drawingroom door. The room was dusted,

the furniture uncovered, the curtains drawn back, precisely as if his aunts still dwelt there patiently waiting.

And a thought came to him: When Timothy diedwhy not? Would it not be almost a duty to preserve this

houselike Carlyle'sand put up a tablet, and show it? "Specimen of midVictorian abodeentrance, one

shilling, with catalogue." After all, it was the completest thing, and perhaps the deadest in the London of

today. Perfect in its special taste and culture, if, that is, he took down and carried over to his own collection

the four Barbizon pictures he had given them. The still skyblue walls, tile green curtains patterned with red

flowers and ferns; the crewelworked firescreen before the castiron grate; the mahogany cupboard with

glass windows, full of little knickknacks; the beaded footstools; Keats, Shelley, Southey, Cowper, Coleridge,

Byron's Corsair (but nothing else), and the Victorian poets in a bookshelf row; the marqueterie cabinet lined

with dim red plush, full of family relics: Hester's first fan; the buckles of their mother's father's shoes; three

bottled scorpions; and one very yellow elephant's tusk, sent home from India by Greatuncle Edgar Forsyte,

who had been in jute; a yellow bit of paper propped up, with spidery writing on it, recording God knew what!

And the pictures crowding on the wallsall watercolours save those four Barbizons looking like tile

foreigners they were, and doubtful customers at thatpictures bright and illustrative, "Telling the Bees,"

"Hey for the Ferry!" and two in the style of Frith, all thimblerig and crinolines, given them by Swithin. Oh!

many, many pictures at which Soames had gazed a thousand times in supercilious fascination; a marvellous

And the boudoirgrand piano, beautifully dusted, hermetically sealed as ever; and Aunt Juley's album of

pressed seaweed on it. And the giltlegged chairs, stronger than they looked. And on one side of the fireplace

the sofa of crimson silk, where Aunt Ann, and after her Aunt Juley, had been wont to sit, facing the light and

bolt upright. And on the other side of the fire the one really easy chair, back to the light, for Aunt Hester.

Soames screwed up his eyes; he seemed to see them sitting there. Ah! and the atmosphereeven now, of too

many stuffs and washed lace curtains, lavender in bags, and dried bees' wings. 'No,' he thought, 'there's

nothing like it left; it ought to be preserved.' And, by George, they might laugh at it, but for a standard of

gentle life never departed from, for fastidiousness of skin and eye and nose and feeling, it beat today

hollowtoday with its Tubes and cars, its perpetual smoking, its crosslegged, barenecked girls visible

up to the knees and down to the waist if you took the trouble (agreeable to the satyr within each Forsyte but

hardly his idea of a lady), with their feet, too, screwed round the legs of their chairs while they ate, and their

"So longs," and their "Old Beans," and their laughtergirls who gave him the shudders whenever he thought

of Fleur in contact with them; and the hardeyed, capable, older women who managed life and gave him the

shudders too. No! his old aunts, if they never opened their minds, their eyes, or very much their windows, at

With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing up stairs. He looked in at a place on the

way: H'm! in perfect order of the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the walls. At the top of the

stairs he hesitated between four doors. Which of them was Timothy's? And he listened. A sound, as of a child

slowly dragging a hobbyhorse about, came to his ears. That must be Timothy! He tapped, and a door was

Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get him to attend. If Mr. Soames would come

The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most impressive slowness, and an air of perfect

concentration on his own affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and the window, a

distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of his square face, no longer cleanshaven, was covered with

snowy beard clipped as short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as his brow where the hair was also

quite white, while nose and cheeks and brow were a good yellow. One hand held a stout stick, and the other

grasped the skirt of his Jaeger dressinggown, from under which could be seen his bedsocked ankles and

feet thrust into Jaeger slippers. The expression on his face was that of a crossed child, intent on something

that he has not got. Each time he turned he stumped the stick, and then dragged it, as if to show that he could

"Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bathit's wonderful; he does enjoy it so."

Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had resumed his babyhood.

"Oh I yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see him turn it over and over, not to read it, of course;

and every now and then he asks the price of Consols, and I write it on a slate for him very large. Of course, I

always write the same, what they were when he last took notice, in 1914. We got the doctor to forbid him to

read the paper when the War broke out. Oh! he did take on about that at first. But he soon came round,

because he knew it tired him; and he's a wonder to conserve energy as he used to call it when my dear

mistresses were alive, bless their hearts! How he did go on at them about that; they were always so active, if

"What would happen if I were to go in?" asked Soames: "Would he remember me? I made his Will, you

"Oh! that, sir," replied Smither doubtfully, "I couldn't take on me to say. I think he might; he really is a

Soames moved into the doorway, and waiting for Timothy to turn, said in a loud voice: "Uncle Timothy!"

"Soames," cried Soames at the top of his voice, holding out his hand, "Soames Forsyte!"

"No!" said Timothy, and stumping his stick loudly on the floor, he continued his walk.

"No, sir," replied Smither, rather crestfallen; "you see, he hasn't finished his walk. It always was one thing at

a time with him. I expect he'll ask me this afternoon if you came about the gas, and a pretty job I shall have to

Smither held up her hands. "A man! Oh! no. Cook and me can manage perfectly. A strange man about would

send him crazy in no time. And my mistresses wouldn't like the idea of a man in the house. Besides, we're

"Every morning. He makes special terms for such a quantity, and Mr. Timothy's so used, he doesn't take a bit

"Oh! sir," returned Smither anxiously, "you mustn't think that. Now that he can't worry about things, he quite

enjoys his life, really he does. As I say to Cook, Mr. Timothy is more of a man than he ever was. You see,

when he's not walkin', or takin' his bath, he's eatin', and when he's not eatin', he's sleepin'; and there it is.

"Well," said Soames, "there's something in that. I'll go down. By the way, let me see his Will."

"I should have to take my time about that, sir; he keeps it under his pillow, and he'd see me, while he's

"I only want to know if it's the one I made," said Soames; "you take a look at its date some time, and let me

"Yes, sir; but I'm sure it's the same, because me and Cook witnessed, you remember, and there's our names

"Quite," said Soames. He did remember. Smither and Jane had been proper witnesses, having been left

nothing in the Will that they might have no interest in Timothy's death. It had beenhe fully admittedan

almost improper precaution, but Timothy had wished it, and, after all, Aunt Hester had provided for them

"Very well," he said; "goodbye, Smither. Look after him, and if he should say anything at any time, put it

"Oh I yes, Mr. Soames; I'll be sure to do that. It's been such a pleasant change to see you. Cook will be quite

Soames shook her hand and went downstairs. He stood for fully two minutes by the hatstand whereon he

had hung his hat so many times. 'So it all passes,' he was thinking; 'passes and begins again. Poor old chap!'

And he listened, if perchance the sound of Timothy trailing his hobbyhorse might come down the well of

the stairs; or some ghost of an old face show over the bannisters, and an old voice say: 'Why, it's dear

Nothingnothing! Just the scent of camphor, and dustmotes in a sunbeam through the fanlight over the

door. The little old house! A mausoleum! And, turning on his heel, he went out, and caught his train.

With some such feeling did Val Dartie, in the fortieth year of his age, set out that same Thursday morning

very early from the old manorhouse he had taken on the north side of the Sussex Downs. His destination

was Newmarket, and he had not been there since the autumn of 1899, when he stole over from Oxford for the

Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to give his wife a kiss, and put a flask of port into his pocket.

With the pressure of her chest against his own, and her eyes looking into his, Val felt both leg and pocket

safe. He should be moderate; Holly was always rightshe had a natural aptitude. It did not seem so

remarkable to him, perhaps, as it might to others, thathalf Dartie as he washe should have been perfectly

faithful to his young first cousin during the twenty years since he married her romantically out in the Boer

War; and faithful without any feeling of sacrifice or boredomshe was so quick, so slyly always a little in

front of his mood. Being first cousins they had decided, rather needlessly, to have no children; and, though a

little sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness, and the colour of her dark hair. Val particularly admired

the life of her own she carried on, besides carrying on his, and riding better every year. She kept up her

music, she read an awful lotnovels, poetry, all sorts of stuff. Out on their farm in Cape colony she had

looked after all the "nigger" babies and women in a miraculous manner. She was, in fact, clever; yet made no

fuss about it, and had no "side." Though not remarkable for humility, Val had come to have the feeling that

she was his superior, and he did not grudge ita great tribute. It might be noted that he never looked at

He had kissed her in the porch because he should not be doing so on the platform, though she was going to

the station with him, to drive the car back. Tanned and wrinkled by Colonial weather and the wiles

inseparable from horses, and handicapped by the leg which, weakened in the Boer War, had probably saved

his life in the War just past, Val was still much as he had been in the days of his courtship; his smile as wide

and charming, his eyelashes, if anything, thicker and darker, his eyes screwed up under them, as bright a

grey, his freckles rather deeper, his hair a little grizzled at the sides. He gave the impression of one who has

Val gave the Ford full rein; he still drove like a man in a new country on bad roads, who refuses to

"That's a young woman who knows her way about," he said. "I say, has it struck you?"

"She won't know, and he won't know, and nothing must be said, of course. It's only for five days, Val."

"Stable secret! Righto!" If Holly thought it safe, it was. Glancing slyly round at him, she said: "Did you

"Pretty and clever; but she might run out at any corner if she got her monkey up, I should say."

"I'm wondering," Holly murmured, "whether she is the modern young woman. One feels at sea coming home

"You keep one in the know," said Val encouraged. "What do you think of that Belgian fellow, Profond?"

"He seems to me a queer fish for a friend of our family. In fact, our family is in pretty queer waters, with

Uncle Soames marrying a Frenchwoman, and your Dad marrying Soames's first. Our grandfathers would

"This car," Val said suddenly, "wants rousing; she doesn't get her hind legs under her uphill. I shall have to

There was that about horses which had prevented him from ever really sympathising with a car, and the

running of the Ford under his guidance compared with its running under that of Holly was always noticeable.

In the train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between thoughts of Holly, his morning paper, the look of

the bright day, and his dim memory of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of a small square book, all

names, pedigrees, taproots, and notes about the make and shape of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent on

the acquisition of a certain strain of blood, and he was subduing resolutely as yet the Dartie hankering for a

Nutter. On getting back to England, after the profitable sale of his South African farm and stud, and

observing that the sun seldom shone, Val had said to himself: "I've absolutely got to have an interest in life,

or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's not enough, I'll breed and I'll train." With just that extra

pinch of shrewdness and decision imparted by long residence in a new country, Val had seen the weak point

of modern breeding. They were all hypnotised by fashion and high price. He should buy for looks, and let

names go hang! And here he was already, hypnotised by the prestige of a certain strain of blood!

Halfconsciously, he thought: 'There's something in this damned climate which makes one go round in a

In this mood he reached the Mecca of his hopes. It was one of those quiet meetings favourable to such as

wish to look into horses, rather than into the mouths of bookmakers; and Val clung to the paddock. His

twenty years of Colonial life, divesting him of the dandyism in which he had been bred, had left him the

essential neatness of the horseman, and given him a queer and rather blighting eye over what he called "the

silly hawhaw" of some Englishmen, the "flapping cockatoory" of some EnglishwomenHolly had none

of that and Holly was his model. Observant, quick, resourceful, Val went straight to the heart of a transaction,

a horse, a drink; and he was on his way to the heart of a Mayfly filly, when a slow voice said at his elbow:

"Mr. Val Dartie? How's Mrs. Val Dartie? She's well, I hope." And he saw beside him the Belgian he had met

"I'm very well," replied Monsieur Profond, smiling with a certain inimitable slowness. "A good devil," Holly

had called him. Well! He looked a little like a devil, with his dark, clipped, pointed beard; a sleepy one

Val saw a large form, and a face cleanshaven, bulllike, a little lowering, with sardonic humour bubbling

behind a full grey eye; he remembered it dimly from old days when he would dine with his father at the

"I used to go racing with your father," George was saying: "How's the stud? Like to buy one of my screws?"

Val grinned, to hide the sudden feeling that the bottom had fallen out of breeding. They believed in nothing

over here, not even in horses. George Forsyte, Prosper Profond! The devil himself was not more disillusioned

"I'm not. I don't care for it. I'm a yachtin' man. I don't care for yachtin' either, but I like to see my friends. I've

got some lunch, Mr. Val Dartie, just a small lunch, if you'd like to 'ave some; not muchjust a small

"Thanks," said Val; "very good of you. I'll come along in about quarter of an hour."

"Over there. Mr. Forsyde's comin'," and Monsieur Profond "poinded" with a yellowgloved finger; "small

car, with a small lunch"; he moved on, groomed, sleepy, and remote, George Forsyte following, neat, huge,

Val remained gazing at the Mayfly filly. George Forsyte, of course, was an old chap, but this Profond might

be about his own age; Val felt extremely young, as if the Mayfly filly were a toy at which those two had

"That 'small' mare"he seemed to hear the voice of Monsieur Profond "what do you see in her?we

And George Forsyte, crony of his father, racing still! The Mayfly strainwas it any better than any other?

"No, by gum!" he muttered suddenly, "if it's no good breeding horses, it's no good doing anything. What did I

He stood back and watched the ebb of the paddock visitors toward the stand. Natty old chips, shrewd portly

fellows, Jews, trainers looking as if they had never been guilty of seeing a horse in their lives; tall, flapping,

languid women, or brisk, loudvoiced women; young men with an air as if trying to take it seriouslytwo or

'Life over here's a game!' thought Val. 'Muffin bell rings, horses run, money changes hands; ring again, run

But, alarmed at his own philosophy, he went to the paddock gate to watch the Mayfly filly canter down. She

moved well; and he made his way over to the "small" car. The "small" lunch was the sort a man dreams of

but seldom gets; and when it was concluded Monsieur Profond walked back with him to the paddock.

Val looked at him suspiciously, but something kindly and direct in the heavy diabolism of his companion

The Belgian's eyes smiled. "Oh! I don't know. I've done everything; it's the last thing I'm doin'."

"Yees. I've done that too. I was gassed; it was a small bit unpleasant." He smiled with a deep and sleepy air

Whether his saying "small" when he ought to have said "little" was genuine mistake or affectation Val could

Among the ring of buyers round the Mayfly filly who had won her race, Monsieur Profond said:

Val nodded. With this sleepy Satan at his elbow, he felt in need of faith. Though placed above the ultimate

blows of Providence by the forethought of a grandfather who had tied him up a thousand a year to which

was added the thousand a year tied up for Holly by her grandfather, Val was not flush of capital that he

could touch, having spent most of what he had realised from his South African farm on his establishment in

Sussex. And very soon he was thinking: 'Dash it! she's going beyond me!' His limitsix hundredwas

exceeded; he dropped out of the bidding. The Mayfly filly passed under the hammer at seven hundred and

fifty guineas. He was turning away vexed when the slow voice of Monsieur Profond said in his ear:

"Well, I've bought that small filly, but I don't want her; you take her and give her to your wife."

Val looked at the fellow with renewed suspicion, but the good humour in his eyes was such that he really

"I made a small lot of money in the War," began Monsieur Profond in answer to that look. "I 'ad armament

shares. I like to give it away. I'm always makin' money. I want very small lot myself. I like my friends to 'ave

"All right; you keep her for me till I want her, and do what you like with her."

Val watched; he might be "a good devil," but then again he might not. He saw him rejoin George Forsyte, and

Winifred Dartie at sixtytwo was marvellously preserved, considering the threeandthirty years during

which she had put up with Montague Dartie, till almost happily released by a French staircase. It was to her a

vehement satisfaction to have her favourite son back from South Africa after all this time, to feel him so little

changed, and to have taken a fancy to his wife. Winifred, who in the late seventies, before her marriage, had

been in the vanguard of freedom, pleasure, and fashion, confessed her youth outclassed by the donzellas of

the day. They seemed, for instance, to regard marriage as an incident, and Winifred sometimes regretted that

she had not done the same; a second, third, fourth incident might have secured her a partner of less dazzling

inebriety; though, after all, he had left her Val, Imogen, Maud, Benedict (almost a colonel and unharmed by

the Warnone of whom had been divorced as yet. The steadiness of her children often amazed one who

remembered their father; but, as she was fond of believing, they were really all Forsytes, favouring herself,

with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her brother's "little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child

was as restless as any of these modern young women0"She's a small flame in a draught," Prosper Profond

had said one day after dinnerbut she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in

Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto:

"All's much of a muchness! Spend, tomorrow we shall be poor!" She found it a saving grace in Fleur that,

having set her heart on a thing, she had no change of heart until she got itthoughwhat happened after,

Fleur was, of course, too young to have made evident. The child was a "very pretty little thing," too, and quite

a credit to take about, with her mother's French taste and gift for wearing clothes; everybody turned to look at

Fleurgreat consideration to Winifred, a lover of the style and distinction which had so cruelly deceived her

In discussing her with Val, at breakfast on Saturday morning, Winifred dwelt on the family skeleton.

"That little affair of your fatherinlaw and your Aunt Irene, Val it's old as the hills, of course, Fleur need

know nothing about it making a fuss. Your Uncle Soames is very particular about that. So you'll be

"Yes! But it's dashed awkwardHolly's young halfbrother is coming to live with us while he learns

"Only saw him onceat Robin Hill, when we were home in 1909; he was naked and painted blue and yellow

Winifred thought that "rather nice," and added comfortably: "Well, Holly's sensible; she'll know how to deal

with it. I shan't tell your uncle. It'll only bother him. It's a great comfort to have you back, my dear boy, now

"Getting on! Why! you're as young as ever. That chap Profond, Mother, is he all right?"

"Well," said Val shrewdly, "our family haven't been too lucky with that kind of cattle; they're too

It was true, and Winifred's blue study lasted a full minute before she answered:

And soon after he gave her his blessing, received a kiss, and left her for his bookmaker's, the Iseeum Club,

Mrs. Val Dartie, after twenty years of South Africa, had fallen deeply in love, fortunately with something of

her own, for the object of her passion was the prospect in front of her windows, the cool clear light on the

green Downs. It was England again, at last! England more beautiful than she had dreamed. Chance had, in

fact, guided the Val Darties to a spot where the South Downs had real charm when the sun shone. Holly had

enough of her father's eye to apprehend the rare quality of their outlines and chalky radiance; to go up there

by the ravinelike lane and wander along toward Chanctonbury or Amberley, was still a delight which she

hardly attempted to share with Val, whose admiration of Nature was confused by a Forsyte's instinct for

getting something out of it, such as the condition of the turf for his horses' exercise.

Driving the Ford home with a certain humouring, smoothness, she promised herself that the first use she

would make of Jon would be to take him up there, and show him "the view" under this Mayday sky.

She was looking forward to her young halfbrother with a motherliness not exhausted by Val. A threeday

visit to Robin Hill, soon after their arrival home, had yielded no sight of himhe was still at school; so that

her recollection, like Val's, was of a little sunny haired boy, striped blue and yellow, down by the pond.

Those three days at Robin Hill had been exciting, sad, embarrassing. Memories of her dead brother,

memories of Val's courtship; the ageing of her father, not seen for twenty years, something funereal in his

ironic gentleness which did not escape one who had much subtle instinct; above all, the presence of her

stepmother, whom she could still vaguely remember as the "lady in grey" of days when she was little and

grandfather alive and Mademoiselle Beauce so cross because that intruder gave her music lessonsall these

confused and tantalised a spirit which had longed to find Robin Hill untroubled. But Holly was adept at

Her father had kissed her when she left him, with lips which she was sure had trembled.

"Well, my dear," he said, "the War hasn't changed Robin Hill, has it? If only you could have brought Jolly

back with you! I say, can you stand this spiritualistic racket? When the oaktree dies, it dies, I'm afraid."

>From the warmth of her embrace he probably divined that he had let the cat out of the bag, for he rode off at

"Spiritualismqueer word, when the more they manifest the more they prove that they've got hold of

"Why! Look at their photographs of auric presences. You must have something material for light and shade to

fall on before you can take a photograph. No, it'll end in our calling all matter spirit, or all spirit matterI

Jolyon had looked at her, and the sad whimsicality of his face impressed her deeply.

"Well, my dear, I should like to get something out of death. I've been looking into it a bit. But for the life of

me I can't find anything that telepathy, subconsciousness, and emanation from the storehouse of this world

can't account for just as well. Wish I could! Wishes father thought but they don't breed evidence." Holly had

pressed her lips again to his forehead with the feeling that it confirmed his theory that all matter was

But the most poignant memory of that little visit had been watching, unobserved, her stepmother reading to

herself a letter from Jon. It wasshe decidedthe prettiest sight she had ever seen. Irene, lost as it were in

the letter of her boy, stood at a window where the light fell on her face and her fine grey hair; her lips were

moving, smiling, her dark eyes laughing, dancing, and the hand which did not hold the letter was pressed

against her breast. Holly withdrew as from a vision of perfect love, convinced that Jon must be nice.

When she saw him coming out of the station with a kitbag in either hand, she was confirmed in her

predisposition. He was a little like Jolly, that longlost idol of her childhood, but eagerlooking and less

formal, with deeper eyes and brightercoloured hair, for he wore no hat; altogether a very interesting "little"

His tentative politeness charmed one who was accustomed to assurance in the youthful manner; he was

disturbed because she was to drive him home, instead of his driving her. Shouldn't he have a shot? They

hadn't a car at Robin Hill since the War, of course, and he had only driven once, and landed up a bank, so she

oughtn't to mind his trying. His laugh, soft and infectious, was very attractive, though that word, she had

heard, was now quite oldfashioned. When they reached the house he pulled out a crumpled letter which she

read while he was washinga quite short letter, which must have cost her father many a pang to write.

"You and Val will not forget, I trust, that Jon knows nothing of family history. His mother and I think he is

too young at present. The boy is very dear, and the apple of her eye. Verbum sapientibus. your loving father,

After tea she fulfilled that promise to herself and took Jon up the hill. They had a long talk, sitting above an

old chalkpit grown over with brambles and goosepenny. Milkwort and liverwort starred the green slope, the

larks sang, and thrushes in the brake, and now and then a gull flighting inland would wheel very white against

the paling sky, where the vague moon was coming up. Delicious fragrance came to them, as if little invisible

"I say, this is wonderful! There's no fat on it at all. Gull's flight and sheepbells"

"Did you? Mother says 'try' too; but I'm so rotten. Have you any of yours for me to see?"

"My dear," Holly murmured, "I've been married nineteen years. I only wrote verses when I wanted to be."

"Oh!" said Jon, and turned over on his face: the one cheek she could see was a charming colour. Was Jon

"touched in the wind," then, as Val would have called it? Already? But, if so, all the better, he would take no

notice of young Fleur. Besides, on Monday he would begin his farming. And she smiled. Was it Burns who

followed the plough, or only Piers Plowman? Nearly every young man and most young women seemed to be

poets now, judging from the number of their books she had read out in South Africa, importing them from

Hatchus and Bumphards; and quite goodoh! quite; much better than she had been herself! But then poetry

had only really come in since her daywith motorcars. Another long talk after dinner over a wood fire in

the low hall, and there seemed little left to know about Jon except anything of real importance. Holly parted

from him at his bedroom door, having seen twice over that he had everything, with the conviction that she

would love him, and Val would like him. He was eager, but did not gush; he was a splendid listener,

sympathetic, reticent about himself. He evidently loved their father, and adored his mother. He liked riding,

rowing, and fencing better than games. He saved moths from candles, and couldn't bear spiders, but put them

out of doors in screws of paper sooner than kill them. In a word, he was amiable. She went to sleep, thinking

Jon, on the other hand, sat awake at his window with a bit of paper and a pencil, writing his first "real poem"

by the light of a candle because there was not enough moon to see by, only enough to make the night seem

fluttery and as if engraved on silver. Just the night for Fleur to walk, and turn her eyes, and lead onover the

hills and far away. And Jon, deeply furrowed in his ingenuous brow, made marks on the paper and rubbed

them out and wrote them in again, and did all that was necessary for the completion of a work of art; and he

had a feeling such as the winds of Spring must have, trying their first songs among the coming blossom. Jon

was one of those boys (not many) in whom a hometrained love of beauty had survived school life. He had

had to keep it to himself, of course, so that not even the drawingmaster knew of it; but it was there,

fastidious and clear within him. And his poem seemed to him as lame and stilted as the night was winged.

But he kept it, all the same. It was a "beast," but better than nothing as an expression of the inexpressible.

And he thought with a sort of discomfiture: 'I shan't be able to show it to Mother.' He slept terribly well, when

To avoid the awkwardness of questions which could not be answered, all that had been told Jon was:

For the same reason, all that had been told Fleur was: "We've got a youngster staying with us."

The two yearlings, as Val called them in his thoughts, met therefore in a manner which for unpreparedness

Jon, who was coming in through a French window out of strong sunlight, was so confounded by the

providential nature of this miracle, that he had time to hear Fleur say calmly: "Oh, how do you do?" as if he

had never seen her, and to understand dimly from the quickest imaginable little movement of her head that he

never had seen her. He bowed therefore over her hand in an intoxicated manner, and became more silent than

the grave. He knew better than to speak. Once in his early life, surprised reading by a nightlight, he had said

fatuously "I was just turning over the leaves, Mum," and his mother had replied: "Jon, never tell stories,

The saying had permanently undermined the confidence necessary to the success of spoken untruth. He

listened therefore to Fleur's swift and rapt allusions to the jolliness of everything, plied her with scones and

jam, and got away as soon as might be. They say that in delirium tremens you see a fixed object, preferably

dark, which suddenly changes shape and position. Jon saw the fixed object; it had dark eyes and passably

dark hair, and changed its position, but never its shape. The knowledge that between him and that object there

was already a secret understanding (however impossible to understand) thrilled him so that he waited

feverishly, and began to copy out his poemwhich of course he would never dare toshow her till the

sound of horses' hoofs roused him, and, leaning from his window, he saw her riding forth with Val. It was

clear that she wasted no time, but the sight filled him with grief. He wasted his. If he had not bolted, in his

fearful ecstasy, he might have been asked to go too. And from his window he sat and watched them

disappear, appear again in the chine of the road, vanish, and emerge once more for a minute clear on the

Why couldn't he be selfconfident and ready? And, leaning his chin on his hands, he imagined the ride he

might have had with her. A weekend was but a weekend, and he had missed three hours of it. Did he know

He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no more. But he missed Fleur, who came

down last. He sat opposite her at dinner, and it was terribleimpossible to say anything for fear of saying the

wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed on her in the only natural way; in sum, impossible to treat

normally one with whom in fancy he had already been over the hills and far away; conscious, too, all the

time, that he must seem to her, to all of them, a dumb gawk. Yes, it was terrible! And she was talking so

wellswooping with swift wing this way and that. Wonderful how she had learned an art which he found so

His sister's eyes, fixed on him with a certain astonishment, obliged him at last to look at Fleur; but instantly

her eyes, very wide and eager, seeming to say, "Oh! for goodness' sake!" obliged him to look at Val, where a

grin obliged him to look at his cutletthat, at least, had no eyes, and no grin, and he ate it hastily.

He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow just like their father's, laughed, and felt

Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing could have been more favourable, for, in

relating it, he regarded Holly, who in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be regarding with a slight

frown some thought of her own, and Jon was really free to look at her at last. She had on a white frock, very

simple and well made; her arms were bare, and her hair had a white rose in it. In just that swift moment of

free vision, after such intense discomfort, Jon saw her sublimated, as one sees in the dark a slender white

fruit tree; caught her like a verse of poetry flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a tune which floats out in

the distance and dies. He wondered giddily how old she wasshe seemed so much more self possessed and

experienced than himself. Why mustn't he say they had met? He remembered suddenly his mother's face;

puzzled, hurt looking, when she answered: "Yes, they're relations, but we don't know them." Impossible that

Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and answered the advances of this newfound

brotherinlaw. As to riding (always the first consideration with Val) he could have the young chestnut,

saddle and unsaddle it himself, and generally look after it when he brought it in. Jon said he was accustomed

"Fleur," said Val, "can't ride much yet, but she's keen. Of course, her father doesn't know a horse from a

"He used to; but now he'syou know, he's"He stopped, so hating the word "old." His father was old, and

"Quite," muttered Val. "I used to know your brother up at Oxford, ages ago, the one who died in the Boer

War. We had a fight in New College Gardens. That was a queer business," he added, musing; "a good deal

Jon's eyes opened wide; all was pushing him toward historical research, when his sister's voice said gently

"Come along, you two," and he rose, his heart pushing him toward something far more modern.

Fleur having declared that it was "simply too wonderful to stay indoors," they all went out. Moonlight was

frosting the dew, and an old sundial threw a long shadow. Two box hedges at right angles, dark and square,

"Come on!" she called. Jon glanced at the others, and followed. She was running among the trees like a ghost.

All was lovely and foamlike above her, and there was a scent of old trunks, and of nettles. She vanished. He

"It's ever so romantic and silly. That's why I pretended we hadn't met. Shall we get up early tomorrow

morning and go for a walk before breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about things, don't you?"

"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. I don't like Greek things a bit."

"Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I think beauty's always swift. I like to look at

one picture, for instance, and then run off. I can't bear a lot of things together. Look!" She held up her

"Of all things in the world, don't you think caution's the most awful? Smell the moonlight!"

She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that of all things in the world caution was the

"That's nice and oldfashioned," said Fleur calmly. "You're frightfully silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's

swift." She let go his hand. "Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on purpose?"

"Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're doing this on purpose too." And again she ran like

a ghost among the trees. Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his heart, and over all the moonlit

white unearthly blossom. They came out where they had gone in, Fleur walking demurely.

She bade him a casual and demure goodnight, which made him think he had been dreaming....

In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a shapeless garment, with the white flower still

in her hair, she looked like a mousme, sitting crosslegged on her bed, writing by candlelight.

"I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, only the feeling is really lower down. He's a second cousinsuch

a child, about six months older and ten years younger than I am. Boys always fall in love with their seniors,

and girls with their juniors or with old men of forty. Don't laugh, but his eyes are the truest things I ever saw;

and he's quite divinely silent! We had a most romantic first meeting in London under the Vospovitch Juno.

And now he's sleeping in the next room and the moonlight's on the blossom; and tomorrow morning, before

anybody's awake, we're going to walk off into Down fairyland. There's a feud between our families, which

makes it really exciting. Yes! and I may have to use subterfuge and come on you for invitationsif so, you'll

know why! My father doesn't want us to know each other, but I can't help that. Life's too short. He's got the

most beautiful mother, with lovely silvery hair and a young face with dark eyes. I'm staying with his

sisterwho married my cousin; it's all mixed up, but I mean to pump her tomorrow. We've often talked

about love being a spoilsport; well, that's all tosh, it's the beginning of sport, and the sooner you feel it, my

"Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a name in my family, they say) is the sort that

lights up and goes out; about five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going to be a poet. If you laugh at

me I've done with you forever. I perceive all sorts of difficulties, but you know when I really want a thing I

get it. One of the chief effects of love is that you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the moon;

and you feelyou feel dancey and soft at the same time, with a funny sensationlike a continual first sniff

of orangeblossomJust above your stays. This is my first, and I feel as if it were going to be my last,

which is absurd, of course, by all the laws of Nature and morality. If you mock me I will smite you, and if

you tell anybody I will never forgive you. So much so, that I almost don't think I'll send this letter. Anyway,

When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and set their faces east toward the sun, there

was not a cloud in heaven, and the Downs were dewy. They had come at a good bat up the slope and were a

little out of breath; if they had anything to say they did not say it, but marched in the early awkwardness of

unbreakfasted morning under the songs of the larks. The stealing out had been fun, but with the freedom of

"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they had gone half a mile. "I'm hungry."

Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their tongues were loosened. They discussed the nature

of their homes and previous existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely height.

There remained but one thing solid in Jon's pasthis mother; but one thing solid in Fleur'sher father; and

of these figures, as though seen in the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.

The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of far sea came into view, a

sparrowhawk hovered in the sun's eye so that the bloodnourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red.

Jon had a passion for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch them; keensighted, and with a

memory for what interested him, on birds he was almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there

were noneits great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early hour; they came out

willingly again into the sun on the far side. It was Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people

treated them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to flog people who did that. Jon was

astonished to find her so humanitarian. She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her home kept

chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all weathers, till it had almost lost its voice from barking!

"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing didn't bark at every one who passes it

wouldn't be kept there. I do think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's nearly bitten me

both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up

again. If I had my way, I'd chain that man up." Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him on his

"It's their sense of property," he said, "which makes people chain things. The last generation thought of

"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and mine quarrelled about property. And anyway

Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm. Fleur looked straight before her and chanted:

Jon dropped his arm. But when she laughed his arm stole back again; and Fleur began to sing:

"O who will oer the downs so free, O who will with me ride? O who will up and follow me"

Jon sang. The larks joined in, sheepbells, and an early morning church far away over in Steyning. They

And she pressed his hand against her waist. Jon almost reeled from happiness. A yellowandwhite dog

coursing a hare startled them apart. They watched the two vanish down the slope, till Fleur said with a sigh:

"He'll never catch it, thank goodness! What's the time? Mine's stopped. I never wound it."

"We are goats!" cried Fleur, jumping up; "we shall be most fearfully late, and look so silly, and put them on

their guard. Look here, Jon We only came out to get an appetite for breakfast, and lost our way. See?"

"You see, I'm an only child. And so are youof your mother. Isn't it a bore? There's so much expected of

"Yes," muttered Jon, "life's beastly short. One wants to live forever, and know everything."

"Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalkpit; we can't be very far now. Let's run."

The chalkpit was full of sunshine and the murmuration of bees. Fleur flung back her hair.

"Well," she said, "in case of accidents, you may give me one kiss, Jon," and she pushed her cheek forward.

"Now, remember! We lost our way; and leave it to me as much as you can. I'm going to be rather beastly to

"Well, do your best. Look! There they are! Wave your hat! Oh! you haven't got one. Well, I'll cooee! Get a

Five minutes later, entering the house and doing his utmost to look sulky, Jon heard her clear voice in the

"Oh! I'm simply ravenous! He's going to be a farmerand he loses his way! The boy's an idiot!"

Lunch was over and Soames mounted to the picturegallery in his house near Mapleduram. He had what

Annette called "a grief." Fleur was not yet home. She had been expected on Wednesday; had wired that it

would be Friday; and again on Friday that it would be Sunday afternoon; and here were her aunt, and her

cousins the Cardigans, and this fellow Profond, and everything flat as a pancake for the want of her. He stood

before his Gauguinsorest point of his collection. He had bought the ugly great thing with two early

Matisses before the War, because there was such a fuss about those PostImpressionist chaps. He was

wondering whether Profond would take them off his handsthe fellow seemed not to know what to do with

his moneywhen he heard his sister's voice say: "I think that's a horrid thing, Soames," and saw that

"Yes," drawled Winifred; "he's gone to live with them there while he learns farming."

Soames had turned away, but her voice pursued him as he walked up and down. "I warned Val that neither of

"Fleur does what she likes. You've always spoiled her. Besides, my dear boy, what's the harm?"

"The harm!" muttered Soames. "Why, she" he checked himself. The Juno, the handkerchief, Fleur's eyes,

her questions, and now this delay in her returnthe symptoms seemed to him so sinister that, faithful to his

"I think you take too much care," said Winifred. "If I were you, I should tell her of that old matter. It's no

good thinking that girls in these days are as they used to be. Where they pick up their knowledge I can't tell,

Over Soames' face, closely composed, passed a sort of spasm, and Winifred added hastily:

Soames shook his head. Unless there was absolute necessity the thought that his adored daughter should learn

"Twenty years is a long time," muttered Soames. "Outside our family, who's likely to remember?"

Winifred was silenced. She inclined more and more to that peace and quietness of which Montague Dartie

had deprived her in her youth. And, since pictures always depressed her, she soon went down again.

Soames passed into the corner where, side by side, hung his real Goya and the copy of the fresco "La

Vendimia." His acquisition of the real Goya rather beautifully illustrated the cobweb of vested interests and

passions which mesh the brightwinged fly of human life. The real Goya's noble owner's ancestor had come

into possession of it during some Spanish warit was in a word loot. The noble owner had remained in

ignorance of its value until in the nineties an enterprising critic discovered that a Spanish painter named Goya

was a genius. It was only a fair Goya, but almost unique in England, and the noble owner became a marked

man. Having many possessions and that aristocratic culture which, independent of mere sensuous enjoyment,

is founded on the sounder principle that one must know everything and be fearfully interested in life, he had

fully intended to keep an article which contributed to his reputation while he was alive, and to leave it to the

nation after he was dead. Fortunately for Soames, the House of Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the

noble owner became alarmed and angry. 'If,' he said to himself, 'they think they can have it both ways they

are very much mistaken. So long as they leave me in quiet enjoyment the nation can have some of my

pictures at my death. But if the nation is going to bait me, and rob me like this, I'm damned if I won't sell the

lot. They can't have my private property and my public spiritboth.' He brooded in this fashion for several

months till one morning, after reading the speech of a certain statesman, he telegraphed to his agent to come

down and bring Bodkin. On going over the collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on market values none

was more sought, pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America, Germany, and other places where there

was an interest in art, a lot more money could be made than by selling in England. The noble owner's public

spirithe saidwas well known but the pictures were unique. The noble owner put this opinion in his pipe

and smoked it for a year. At the end of that time he read another speech by the same statesman, and

telegraphed to his agents: "Give Bodkin a free hand." It was at this juncture that Bodkin conceived the idea

which salved the Goya and two other unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner. With one

hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign market, with the other he formed a list of private British

collectors. Having obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from across the seas, he submitted

pictures and bids to the private British collectors, and invited them, of their public spirit, to outbid. In three

instances (including the Goya) out of twentyone he was successful. And why? One of the private collectors

made buttonshe had made so many that he desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons." He

therefore bought a unique picture at great cost, and gave it to the nation. It was "part," his friends said, "of his

general game." The second of the private collectors was an Americophobe, and bought an unique picture to

"spite the damned Yanks." The third of the private collectors was Soames, whomore sober than either of

the, othersbought after a visit to Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up grade. Goya

was not booming at the moment, but he would come again; and, looking at that portrait, Hogarthian,

Manetesque in its directness, but with its own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied still that

he had made no error, heavy though the price had beenheaviest he had ever paid. And next to it was

hanging the copy of "La Vendimia." There she wasthe little wretchlooking back at him in her dreamy

mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so much safer when she looked like that.

He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his nostrils, and a voice said:

That Belgian chap, whose motheras if Flemish blood were not enough had been Armenian! Subduing a

Soames checked his instinctive "Not particularly"he would not chaffer with this alien.

"All right," said Monsieur Profond. "I'll be glad to take that small picture. PostImpressioniststhey're

awful dead, but they're amusin'. I don' care for pictures much, but I've got some, just a small lot."

"You're young," said Soames. If the fellow must make a generalization, he needn't suggest that the forms of

"I don' worry," replied Monsieur Profond smiling; "we're born, and we die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a

small lot of babies out in my mother's country; but what's the use? Might as well throw my money in the

Soames looked at him, and turned back toward his Goya. He didn't know what the fellow wanted.

"Five hundred," said Soames shortly; "but I don't want you to take it if you don't care for it more than that."

"That's all right," said Monsieur Profond; "I'll be 'appy to 'ave that picture."

He wrote a cheque with a fountainpen heavily chased with gold. Soames watched the process uneasily. How

on earth had the fellow known that he wanted to sell that picture? Monsieur Profond held out the cheque.

"The English are awful funny about pictures," he said. "So are the French, so are my people. They're all awful

"It's like hats," said Monsieur Profond enigmatically, "small or large, turnin' up or down just the fashion.

Awful funny." And, smiling, he drifted out of the gallery again, blue and solid like the smoke of his excellent

Soames had taken the cheque, feeling as if the intrinsic value of ownership had been called in question. 'He's

a cosmopolitan,' he thought, watching Profond emerge from under the verandah with Annette, and saunter

down the lawn toward the river. What his wife saw in the fellow he didn't know, unless it was that he could

speak her language; and there passed in Soames what Monsieur Profond would have called a "small doubt"

whether Annette was not too handsome to be walking with any one so "cosmopolitan." Even at that distance

he could see the blue fumes from Profond's cigar wreath out in the quiet sunlight; and his grey buckskin

shoes, and his grey hatthe fellow was a dandy! And he could see the quick turn of his wife's head, so very

straight on her desirable neck and shoulders. That turn of her neck always seemed to him a little too showy,

and in the "Queen of all I survey" mannernot quite distinguished. He watched them walk along the path at

the bottom of the garden. A young man in flannels joined them down therea Sunday caller no doubt, from

up the river. He went back to his Goya. He was still staring at that replica of Fleur, and worrying over

"Turned up, you see, sir; I live only four miles from Pangbourne. Jolly day, isn't it?"

Confronted with the results of his expansiveness, Soames scrutinized his visitor. The young man's mouth was

excessively large and curly he seemed always grinning. Why didn't he grow the rest of those idiotic little

moustaches, which made him look like a musichall buffoon? What on earth were young men about,

deliberately lowering their class with these toothbrushes, or little slug whiskers? Ugh! Affected young

The young man, who had been turning his head from side to side, became transfixed. "I say!" he said, "'some'

Soames saw, with mixed sensations, that he had addressed the remark to the Goya copy.

"Yes," he said dryly, "that's not a Goya. It's a copy. I had it painted because it reminded me of my daughter."

And Soames began that round which never tired him. He had not anticipated much intelligence from one who

had mistaken a copy for an original, but as they passed from section to section, period to period, he was

startled by the young man's frank and relevant remarks. Natively shrewd himself, and even sensuous beneath

his mask, Soames had not spent thirtyeight years over his one hobby without knowing something more

about pictures than their market values. He was, as it were, the missing link between the artist and the

commercial public. Art for art's sake and all that, of course, was cant. But aesthetics and good taste were

necessary. The appreciation of enough persons of good taste was what gave a work of art its permanent

market value, or in other words made it "a work of art." There was no real cleavage. And he was sufficiently

accustomed to sheeplike and unseeing visitors, to be intrigued by one who did not hesitate to say of Mauve:

"Good old haystacks!" or of James Maris: "Didn't he just paint and paper 'em! Mathew was the real swell, sir;

you could dig into his surfaces!" It was after the young man had whistled before a Whistler, with the words,

"I, sir? I was going to be a painter, but the War knocked that. Then in the trenches, you know, I used to dream

of the Stock Exchange, snug and warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace knocked that, shares seem off,

"Well," answered the young man, "I've got a father; I kept him alive during the War, so he's bound to keep

me alive now. Though, of course, there's the question whether he ought to be allowed to hang on to his

"The old man has fits when I tell him he may have to work yet. He's got land, you know; it's a fatal disease."

"By George! He was a swell. I saw a Goya in Munich once that bowled me middle stump. A most

evillooking old woman in the most gorgeous lace. He made no compromise with the public taste. That old

boy was 'some' explosive; he must have smashed up a lot of convention in his day. Couldn't he just paint! He

The young man stared. "No," he said; "only nations or profiteers can afford him, I suppose. I say, why

shouldn't all the bankrupt nations sell their Velasquez and Titians and other swells to the profiteers by force,

and then pass a law that any one who holds a picture by an Old Mastersee schedulemust hang it in a

The young man's ears seemed to droop on his skull. 'He's not dense,' thought Soames, following him off the

Goya, with his satiric and surpassing precision, his original "line," and the daring of his light and shade, could

have reproduced to admiration the group assembled round Annette's teatray in the ingle nook below. He

alone, perhaps, of painters would have done justice to the sunlight filtering through a screen of creeper, to the

lovely pallor of brass, the old cut glasses, the thin slices of lemon in pale amber tea; justice to Annette in her

black lacey dress; there was something of the fair Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of

that rare type; to Winifred's greyhaired, corseted solidity; to Soames, of a certain grey and flatcheeked

distinction; to the vivacious Michael Mont, pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark, luscious of glance,

growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond, with his expression as who should say, "Well, Mr. Goya, what's the

use of paintin' this small party?" finally, to Jack Cardigan, with his shining stare and tanned sanguinity

Curious, by the way, that Imogen, who as a girl had declared solemnly one day at Timothy's that she would

never marry a good manthey were so dullshould have married Jack Cardigan, in whom health had so

destroyed all traces of original sin, that she might have retired to rest with ten thousand other Englishmen

without knowing the difference from the one she had chosen to repose beside. "Oh!" she would say of him, in

her "amusing" way, "Jack keeps himself so fearfully fit; he's never had a day's illness in his life. He went

right through the War without a fingerache. You really can't imagine how fit he is!" Indeed, he was so "fit"

that he couldn't see when she was flirting, which was such a comfort in a way. All the same she was quite

fond of him, so far as one could be of a sports machine, and of the two little Cardigans made after his

pattern. Her eyes just then were comparing him maliciously with Prosper Profond. There was no "small"

sport or game which Monsieur Profond had not played at too, it seemed, from skittles to tarponfishing, and

worn out every one. Imogen would sometimes wish that they had worn out Jack, who continued to play at

them and talk of them with the simple zeal of a schoolgirl learning hockey; at the age of Greatuncle

Timothy she well knew that Jack would be playing carpet golf in her bedroom, and "wiping somebody's eye."

He was telling them now how he had "pipped the proa charmin' fellow, playin' a very good game," at the

last hole this morning; and how he had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and trying to incite Prosper

Jack Cardigan stared with all his health. The questions were like the buzz of a mosquito, and he put up his

hand to wipe them away. During the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now that it was over he

either did not know, or shrank in delicacy from explanation of his moving principle.

"But he's right," said Monsieur Profond unexpectedly, "there's nothin' left but keepin' fit."

The saying, too deep for Sunday afternoon, would have passed unanswered, but for the mercurial nature of

"Good!" he cried. "That's the great discovery of the War. We all thought we were progressingnow we

"You come and play tennis!" said Jack Cardigan; "you've got the hump. We'll soon take that down. D'you

At this juncture Soames rose, ruffled in that deep instinct of preparation for the future which guided his

Ah! and why didn't she come? He passed through drawingroom, hall, and porch out on to the drive, and

stood there listening for the car. All was still and Sundayfied; the lilacs in full flower scented the air. There

were white clouds, like the feathers of ducks gilded by the sunlight. Memory of the day when Fleur was born,

and he had waited in such agony with her life and her mother's balanced in his hands, came to him sharply.

He had saved her then, to be the flower of his life. And now! was she going to give him troublepaingive

him trouble? He did not like the look of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie with an evening songa

great big fellow up in that acaciatree. Soames had taken quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and

Fleur would walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as needles, and she knew every nest. He saw

her dog, a retriever, lying on the drive in a patch of sunlight, and called to him. "Hallo, old fellowwaiting for

her too!" The dog came slowly with a grudging tail, and Soames mechanically laid a pat on his head. The

dog, the bird, the lilac, all were part of Fleur for him; no more, no less. 'Too fond of her!' he thought, 'too

fond!' He was like a man uninsured, with his ships at sea. Uninsured againas in that other time, so long

ago, when he would wander dumb and jealous in the wilderness of London, longing for that womanhis frst

wife the mother of this infernal boy. Ah! There was the car at last! It drew up, it had luggage, but no Fleur.

Walking all those miles? Soames stared. The man's face had the beginning of a smile on it. What was he

grinning at? And very quickly he turned, saying, "All right, Sims!" and went into the house. He mounted to

the picturegallery once more. He had from there a view of the river bank, and stood with his eyes fixed on

it, oblivious of the fact that it would be an hour at least before her figure showed there. Walking up! And that

fellow's grin! The boy! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn't spy on her. If she wanted to keep

things from himshe must; he could not spy on her. His heart felt empty, and bitterness mounted from it

into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack Cardigan pursuing the ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in

the stillness and came in. He hoped they were making that chap Profond run. And the girl in "La Vendimia"

stood with her arm akimbo arid her dreamy eyes looking past him. 'I've done all I could for you,' he thought,

But the Goya copy answered not, brilliant in colour just beginning to tone down. 'There's no real life in it,'

Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say, fourth generation, at Wansdon under the

Downs, a weekend prolonged unto the ninth day had stretched the crossing threads of tenacity almost to

snappingpoint. Never had Fleur been so "fine," Holly so watchful, Val so stablesecretive, Jon so silent and

disturbed. What he learned of farming in that week might have been balanced on the point of a penknife and

puffed off. He, whose nature was essentially averse from intrigue, and whose adoration of Fleur disposed him

to think that any need for concealing it was "skittles," chafed and fretted, yet obeyed, taking what relief he

could in the few moments when they were alone. On Thursday, while they were standing in the bay window

"Jon, I'm going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if you were to go home on Saturday you could

come up on Sunday and take me down, and just get back here by the last train, after. You were going home

"You have no instinct, Jon; you must leave things to me. It's serious about our people. We've simply got to be

secret at present, if we want to be together." The door was opened, and she added loudly: "You are a duffer,

Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this subterfuge about a feeling so natural, so

On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was leaning out of his window, half miserable, and

half lost in a dream of Paddington station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a fingernail tapping on his

door. He rushed to it and listened. Again the sound. It was a nail. He opened. Oh! What a lovely thing came

"I wanted to show you my fancy dress," it said, and struck an attitude at the foot of his bed.

Jon drew a long breath and leaned against the door. The apparition wore white muslin on its head, a fichu

round its bare neck over a winecoloured dress, fulled out below its slender waist.

It held one arm akimbo, and the other raised, rightangled, holding a fan which touched its head.

"This ought to be a basket of grapes," it whispered, "but I haven't got it here. It's my Goya dress. And this is

Jon's fingers scarcely touched each side of the waist; he looked up, with adoring eyes.

"Oh! Jon," it whispered; bent, kissed his forehead, pirouetted again, and, gliding out, was gone.

Jon stayed on his knees, and his head fell forward against the bed. How long he stayed like that he did not

know. The little noisesof the tapping nail, the feet, the skirts rustlingas in a dreamwent on about him;

and before his closed eyes the figure stood and smiled and whispered, a faint perfume of narcissus lingering

in the air. And his forehead where it had been kissed had a little cool place between the brows, like the

imprint of a flower. Love filled his soul, that love of boy for girl which knows so little, hopes so much, would

not brush the down off for the world, and must become in time a fragrant memorya searing passiona

humdrum mateshipor, once in many times, vintage full and sweet with sunset colour on the grapes.

Enough has been said about Jon Forsyte here and in another place to show what long marches lay between

him and his greatgreat grandfather, the first Jolyon, in Dorset down by the sea. Jon was sensitive as a girl,

more sensitive than nine out of ten girls of the day; imaginative as one of his halfsister June's "lame duck"

painters; affectionate as a son of his father and his mother naturally would be. And yet, in his inner tissue,

there was something of the old founder of his family, a secret tenacity of soul, a dread of showing his

feelings, a determination not to know when he was beaten. Sensitive, imaginative, affectionate boys get a bad

time at school, but Jon had instinctively kept his nature dark, and been but normally unhappy there. Only

with his mother had he, up till then, been absolutely frank and natural; and when he went home to Robin Hill

that Saturday his heart was heavy because Fleur had said that he must not be frank and natural with her from

whom he had never yet kept anything, must not even tell her that they had met again, unless he found that she

knew already. So intolerable did this seem to him that he was very near to telegraphing an excuse and staying

"So you've had our little friend of the confectioner's there, Jon. What is she like on second thoughts?"

Jon had never loved her so much as in that minute which seemed to falsify Fleur's fears and to release his

soul. He turned to look at her, but something in her smiling facesomething which only he perhaps would

have caughtstopped the words bubbling up in him. Could fear go with a smile? If so, there was fear in her

face. And out of Jon tumbled quite other words, about farming, Holly, and the Downs. Talking fast, he waited

for her to come back to Fleur. But she did not. Nor did his father mention her, though of course he, too, must

know. What deprivation, and killing of reality was in his silence about Fleurwhen he was so full of her;

when his mother was so full of Jon, and his father so full of his mother! And so the trio spent the evening of

After dinner his mother played; she seemed to play all the things he liked best, and he sat with one knee

clasped, and his hair standing up where his fingers had run through it. He gazed at his mother while she

played, but he saw FleurFleur in the moonlit orchard, Fleur in the sunlit gravelpit, Fleur in that fancy

dress, swaying, whispering, stooping, kissing his forehead. Once, while he listened, he forgot himself and

glanced at his father in that other easy chair. What was Dad looking like that for? The expression on his face

was so sad and puzzling. It filled him with a sort of remorse, so that he got up and went and sat on the arm of

his father's chair. From there he could not see his face; and again he saw Fleurin his mother's hands, slim

and white on the keys, in the profile of her face and her powdery hair; and down the long room in the open

When he went up to bed his mother came into his room. She stood at the window, and said:

"Those cypresses your grandfather planted down there have done wonderfully. I always think they look

Jon slipped his hand through his mother's arm. "Tell me about the family quarrel, Mum."

He felt her arm quivering. "No, dear; that's for your Father some day, if he thinks fit."

"Yes." And there was a silence, during which neither knew whether the arm or the hand within it were

"Some people," said Irene softly, "think the moon on her back is evil; to me she's always lovely. Look at

those cypress shadows! Jon, Father says we may go to Italy, you and I, for two months. Would you like?"

Jon took his hand from under her arm; his sensation was so sharp and so confused. Italy with his mother! A

fortnight ago it would have been perfection; now it filled him with dismay; he felt that the sudden suggestion

"Oh! yes; onlyI don't know. Ought Inow I've just begun? I'd like to think it over."

"Yes, dear; think it over. But better now than when you've begun farming seriously. Italy with you! It would

"Father suggested it; he thinks you ought to see Italy at least before you settle down to anything."

The sense of meanness died in Jon; he knew, yeshe knewthat his father and his mother were not

speaking frankly, no more than he himself. They wanted to keep him from Fleur. His heart hardened. And, as

"Goodnight, darling. Have a good sleep and think it over. But it would be lovely!"

She pressed him to her so quickly that he did not see her face. Jon stood feeling exactly as he used to when he

was a naughty little boy; sore because he was not loving, and because he was justified in his own eyes.

But Irene, after she had stood a moment in her own room, passed through the dressingroom between it and

"You had better let me tell him, and have done with it. After all, Jon has the instincts of a gentleman. He has

Irene caught his hand. "You were always more of a realist than Jon; and never so innocent."

"That's true," said Jolyon. "It's queer, isn't it? You and I would tell our stories to the world without a particle

"Oh! Jolyon, yes. He's in love, I feel he's in love. And he'd say: 'My mother once married without love! How

"Ah! why on earth are we born young? Now, if only we were born old and grew younger year by year, we

should understand how things happen, and drop all our cursed intolerance. But you know if the boy is really

in love, he won't forget, even if he goes to Italy. We're a tenacious breed; and he'll know by instinct why he's

Jolyon stood a moment without speaking. Between this devil and this deep seathe pain of a dreaded

disclosure and the grief of losing his wife for two monthshe secretly hoped for the devil; yet if she wished

for the deep sea he must put up with it. After all, it would be training for that departure from which there

That "small" emotion, love, grows amazingly when threatened with extinction. Jon reached Paddington

station half an hour before his time and a full week after, as it seemed to him. He stood at the appointed

bookstall, amid a crowd of Sunday travellers, in a Harris tweed suit exhaling, as it were, the emotion of his

thumping heart. He read the names of the novels on the bookstall, and bought one at last, to avoid being

regarded with suspicion by the bookstall clerk. It was called "The Heart of the Trail!" which must mean

something, though it did not seem to. He also bought "The Lady's Mirror" and "The Landsman." Every

minute was an hour long, and full of horrid imaginings. After nineteen had passed, he saw her with a bag and

a porter wheeling her luggage. She came swiftly; she came cool. She greeted him as if he were a brother.

Jon screwed his features into a scowl. They got inwith two other beasts!oh! heaven! He tipped the

porter unnaturally, in his confusion. The brute deserved nothing for putting them in there, and looking as if he

Fleur hid herself behind "The Lady's Mirror." Jon imitated her behind "The Landsman." The train started.

"Look natural," murmured Fleur, and went off into a bubble of laughter. It hurt him. How could he look

natural with Italy hanging over him? He had meant to break it to her gently, but now he blurted it out.

Fleur drooped her eyelids; turned a little pale, and bit her lips. "Oh!" she said. It was all, but it was much.

That "Oh!" was like the quick drawback of the wrist in fencing ready for riposte. It came.

"No," said Fleur, "six weeks. You'll have forgotten me by then. We'll meet in the National Gallery the day

Jon blew his nose, and scowled; never in all his life had he scowled like that! An old lady recoiled, a young

one tried the handle. It turned, but the door would not open. The train moved, the young lady darted to

Her lips met his. And though their kiss only lasted perhaps ten seconds, Jon's soul left his body and went so

far beyond, that, when he was again sitting opposite that demure figure, he was pale as death. He heard her

sigh, and the sound seemed to him the most precious he had ever heardan exquisite declaration that he

"Six weeks isn't really long," she said; "and you can easily make it six if you keep your head out there, and

"This is just what's really wanted, Jon, to convince them, don't you see? If we're just as bad when you come

back they'll stop being ridiculous about it. Only, I'm sorry it's not Spain; there's a girl in a Goya picture at

It was to Jon like a ray of sunshine piercing through a fog. "I'll make it Spain," he said, "Mother won't mind;

"When we come to Reading, Jon, get out first and go down to Caversham lock and wait for me. I'll send the

Jon seized her hand in gratitude, and they sat silent, with the world well lost, and one eye on the corridor. But

the train seemed to run twice as fast now, and its sound was almost lost in that of Jon's sighing.

"We're getting near," said Fleur; "the towingpath's awfully exposed. One more! Oh! Jon, don't forget me."

Jon answered with his kiss. And very soon, a flushed, distracted looking youth could have been seenas

they sayleaping from the train and hurrying along the platform, searching his pockets for his ticket.

When at last she rejoined him on the towingpath a little beyond Caversham lock he had made an effort, and

regained some measure of equanimity. If they had to part, he would not make a scene! A breeze by the bright

river threw the white side of the willow leaves up into the sunlight, and followed those two with its faint

"I told our chauffeur that I was traingiddy," said Fleur. "Did you look pretty natural as you went out?"

"It's natural to you to look seriously happy. When I first saw you I thought you weren't a bit like other

"Exactly what I thought when I saw you. I knew at once I should never love anybody else."

"We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date, Jon. Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of

all the fun you might have. You haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And there's me. I wonder!"

Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things just as they were going to part?

"If you feel like that," he said, "I can't go. I shall tell Mother that I ought to try and work. There's always the

Fleur shook her head. "No, no, I never, never will make myself miserable for nothing."

"Nothing! But there's an awful state of things, and of course one ought to help."

"Oh! yes, I know all that. But you can't help people, Jon; they're hopeless. When you pull them out they only

get into another hole. Look at them, still fighting and plotting and struggling, though they're dying in heaps

"Oh! sorryyes, but I'm not going to make myself unhappy about it; that's no good."

"I think they're poor wretches," said Jon. It was as if they had quarrelledand at this supreme and awful

Jon stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his limbs trembled. Fleur too had stopped, and was

"I must believe in things," said Jon with a sort of agony; "we're all meant to enjoy life."

Fleur laughed. "Yes; and that's what you won't do, if you don't take care. But perhaps your idea of enjoyment

She was pale, her eyes had darkened, her lips had thinned. Was it Fleur thus staring at the water? Jon had an

unreal feeling as if he were passing through the scene in a book where the lover has to choose between love

and duty. But just then she looked round at him. Never was anything so intoxicating as that vivacious look. It

acted on him exactly as the tug of a chain acts on a dogbrought him up to her with his tail wagging and his

"Don't let's be silly," she said, "time's too short. Look, Jon, you can just see where I've got to cross the river.

Jon saw a gable, a chimney or two, a patch of wall through the trees and felt his heart sink.

"I mustn't dawdle any more. It's no good going beyond the next hedge, it gets all open. Let's get on to it and

They went side by side, hand in hand, silently toward the hedge, where the mayflower, both pink and white,

"My Club's the 'Talisman,' Stratton Street, Piccadilly. Letters there will be quite safe, and I'm almost always

Jon nodded. His face had become extremely set, his eyes stared straight before him.

"Today's the twentythird of May," said Fleur; "on the ninth of July I shall be in front of the 'Bacchus and

"Domesticity!" said Fleur, and blotted herself against the hawthorn hedge. The blossom sprayed out above

her head, and one pink cluster brushed her cheek. Jon put up his hand jealously to keep it off.

"Goodbye, Jon." For a second they stood with hands hard clasped. Then their lips met for the third time, and

when they parted Fleur broke away and fled through the wicket gate. Jon stood where she had left him, with

his forehead against that pink cluster. Gone! For an eternityfor seven weeks all but two days! And here he

was, wasting the last sight of her! He rushed to the gate. She was walking swiftly on the heels of the

straggling children. She turned her head, he saw her hand make a little flitting gesture; then she sped on, and

came into his head, and he sped incontinently back to Reading station. All the way up to London and down to

Wansdon he sat with "The Heart of the Trail" open on his knee, knitting in his head a poem so full of feeling

Fleur sped on. She had need of rapid motion; she was late, and wanted all her wits about her when she got in.

She passed the islands, the station, and hotel, and was about to take the ferry, when she saw a skiff with a

"It's all right, I've been having tea with your people. I thought I'd save you the last bit. It's on my way, I'm just

off back to Pangbourne. My name's Mont. I saw you at the picturegalleryyou rememberwhen your

To this young man she owed Jon; and, taking his hand, she stepped down into the skiff. Still emotional, and a

little out of breath, she sat silent; not so the young man. She had never heard any one say so much in so short

a time. He told her his age, twentyfour; his weight, ten stone eleven; his place of residence, not far away;

described his sensations under fire, and what it felt like to be gassed; criticized the Juno, mentioned his own

conception of that goddess; commented on the Goya copy, said Fleur was not too awfully like it; sketched in

rapidly the condition of England; spoke of Monsieur Profondor whatever his name wasas "an awful

sport"; thought her father had some "ripping" pictures and some rather "dug up"; hoped he might row down

again and take her on the river because he was quite trustworthy; inquired her opinion of Tchekov, gave her

his own; wished they could go to the Russian ballet together some timeconsidered the name Fleur Forsyte

simply topping; cursed his people for giving him the name of Michael on the top of Mont; outlined his father,

and said that if she wanted a good book she should read "Job"; his father was rather like Job while Job still

"But Job didn't have land," Fleur murmured; "he only had flocks and herds and moved on."

"Ah!" answered Michael Mont, "I wish my gov'nor would move on. Not that I want his land. Land's an awful

"We never have it in my family," said Fleur. "We have everything else. I believe one of my greatuncles

once had a sentimental farm in Dorset, because we came from there originally, but it cost him more than it

"Splendid!" cried Mont, dipping his sculls vaguely; "it's good to meet a girl who's got wit."

"Ah!" said Mont; "but when you get in, you see, I shan't see you any more today. Fini, as the French girl

said when she jumped on her bed after saying her prayers. Don't you bless the day that gave you a French

"Which is absurd. Do you mind calling me M. M. and letting me call you F. F.? It's in the spirit of the age."

"I am." And he did for several strokes, looking at her with rueful eagerness. "Of course, you know," he

When she stepped out on to the garden landingstage he rose, and grasping his hair with both hands, looked

"Don't!" cried the irrepressible Mont. "I know you're going to say: 'Out, damned hair!'"

Fleur whisked round, threw him a wave of her hand. "Goodbye, Mr. M.M.!" she called, and was gone

among the rosetrees. She looked at her wristwatch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously

uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their

snowy feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiardballs came

from the inglenookJack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an eucalyptustree, startling

Southerner in this old English garden. She reached the verandah and was passing in, but stopped at the sound

of voices from the drawingroom to her left. Mother! Monsieur Profond! From behind the verandah screen

Did Father know that he called her mother "Annette"? Always on the side of her Fatheras children are ever

on one side or the other in houses where relations are a little strainedshe stood, uncertain. Her mother was

speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly metallic voiceone word she caught: "Demain." And Profond's

answer: "All right." Fleur frowned. A little sound came out into the stillness. Then Profond's voice: "I'm

Fleur darted through the window into the morningroom. There he came from the drawingroom, crossing

the verandah, down the lawn; and the click of billiardballs which, in listening for other sounds, she had

ceased to hear, began again. She shook herself, passed into the hall, and opened the drawingroom door. Her

mother was sitting on the sofa between the windows, her knees crossed, her head resting on a cushion, her

Fleur crossed the room, stooped, received a kiss on her forehead, and went out past the impress of a form on

Fleur was by no means the oldfashioned daughter who demands the regulation of her parents' lives in

accordance with the standard imposed upon herself. She claimed to regulate her own life, not those of others;

besides, an unerring instinct for what was likely to advantage her own case was already at work. In a

disturbed domestic atmosphere the heart she had set on Jon would have a better chance. None the less was

she offended, as a flower by a crisping wind. If that man had really been kissing her mother it wasserious,

and her father ought to know. "Demain!" "All right!" And her mother going up to Town! She turned into her

bedroom and hung out of the window to cool her face, which had suddenly grown very hot. Jon must be at

the station by now! What did her father know about Jon? Probably everythingpretty nearly!

She changed her dress, so as to look as if she had been in some time, and ran up to the gallery.

Soames was standing stubbornly still before his Alfred Stevensthe picture he loved best. He did not turn at

the sound of the door, but she knew he had heard, and she knew he was hurt. She came up softly behind him,

put her arms round his neck, and poked her face over his shoulder till her cheek lay against his. It was an

advance which had never yet failed, but it failed her now, and she augured the worst. "Well," he said stonily,

"Is that all," murmured Fleur, "from a bad parent?" And she rubbed her cheek against his.

Her father had turned from his picture, and was staring at his feet. He looked very grey. 'He has nice small

Again Soames gave her a look which, but for the affection in it, might have been called furtive.

"You know what I told you," he said. "I don't choose to have anything to do with that branch of our family."

The way he spoke those words affected Fleur, but she thought of Jon, and was silent, tapping her foot against

the wainscot. Unconsciously she had assumed a modern attitude, with one leg twisted in and out of the other,

with her chin on one bent wrist, her other arm across her chest, and its hand hugging her elbow; there was not

a line of her that was not involuted, and yetin spite of allshe retained a certain grace.

"You knew my wishes," Soames went on, "and yet you stayed on there four days. And I suppose that boy

"I don't ask you anything," said Soames; "I make no inquisition where you're concerned."

Fleur suddenly stood up, leaning out at the window with her chin on her hands. The sun had sunk behind

trees, the pigeons were perched, quite still, on the edge of the dovecot; the click of the billiard balls

mounted, and a faint radiance shone out below where Jack Cardigan had turned the light up.

"Will it make you any happier," she said suddenly, "if I promise you not to see him for saythe next six

weeks?" She was not prepared for a sort of tremble in the blankness of his voice.

"Six weeks? Six yearssixty years more like. Don't delude yourself, Fleur; don't delude yourself!"

"Don't tell me," he said, "that you're foolish enough to have any feeling beyond caprice. That would be too

Fleur, who had never heard him laugh like that, thought: 'Then it is deep! Oh! what is it?' And putting her

"No, of course; caprice. Only, I like my caprices and I don't like yours, dear."

The light outside had chilled, and threw a chalky whiteness on the river. The trees had lost all gaiety of

colour. She felt a sudden hunger for Jon's face, for his hands, and the feel of his lips again on hers. And

"O la! la! What a small fuss! as Profond would say. Father, I don't like that man."

"No," said Soames; "not caprice!" And he tore what was in his hands across. "You're right. I don't like him

"Look!" said Fleur softly. "There he goes! I hate his shoes; they don't make any noise."

Down in the failing light Prosper Profond moved, his hands in his side pockets, whistling softly in his beard;

he stopped, and glanced up at the sky, as if saying: "I don't think much of that small moon."

Fleur drew back. "Isn't he a great cat?" she whispered; and the sharp click of the billiardballs rose, as if Jack

Cardigan had capped the cat, the moon, caprice, and tragedy with: "In off the red!"

Monsieur Profond had resumed his stroll, to a teasing little tune in his beard. What was it? Oh! yes, from

"Rigoletto": "Donna a mobile." Just what he would think! She squeezed her father's arm.

"Prowling!" she muttered, as he turned the corner of the house. It was past that disillusioned moment which

divides the day and night still and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac scent clinging on the

riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst out. Jon would be in London by now; in the Park perhaps, crossing

the Serpentine, thinking of her! A little sound beside her made her turn her eyes; her father was again tearing

"I shan't sell him my Gauguin," he said. "I don't know what your aunt and Imogen see in him."

'Poor Father!' she thought. 'He never looks happynot really happy. I don't want to make him worse, but of

course I shall have to, when Jon comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!'

In her room she had a fancy to put on her "freak" dress. It was of gold tissue with little trousers of the same,

tightly drawn in at the ankles, a page's cape slung from the shoulders, little gold shoes, and a goldwinged

Mercury helmet; and all over her were tiny gold bells, especially on the helmet; so that if she shook her head

she pealed. When she was dressed she felt quite sick because Jon could not see her; it even seemed a pity that

the sprightly young man Michael Mont would not have a view. But the gong had sounded, and she went

She made a sensation in the drawingroom. Winifred thought it "Most amusing." Imogen was enraptured.

Monsieur Profond, smiling with his eyes, said: "That's a nice small dress!" Her mother, very handsome in

black, sat looking at her, and said nothing. It remained for her father to apply the test of common sense.

Soames stared at her, and, turning away, gave his arm to Winifred. Jack Cardigan took her mother. Prosper

The "small" moon had soon dropped down, and May night had fallen soft and warm, enwrapping with its

grapebloom colour and its scents the billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and regrets of men and

women. Happy was Jack Cardigan who snored into Imogen's white shoulder, fit as a flea; or Timothy in his

"mausoleum," too old for anything but baby's slumber. For so many lay awake, or dreamed, teased by the

The dew fell and the flowers closed; cattle grazed on in the river meadows, feeling with their tongues for the

grass they could not see; and the sheep on the Downs lay quiet as stones. Pheasants in the tall trees of the

Pangbourne woods, larks on their grassy nests above the gravelpit at Wansdon, swallows in the eaves at

Robin Hill, and the sparrows of Mayfair, all made a dreamless night of it, soothed by the lack of wind. The

Mayfly filly, hardly accustomed to her new quarters, scraped at her straw a little; and the few nightflitting

thingsbats, moths, owlswere vigorous in the warm darkness; but the peace of night lay in the brain of all

daytime Nature, colourless and still. Men and women, alone, riding the hobbyhorses of anxiety or love,

Fleur, leaning out of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled chime of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the

sudden shaking of an aspen's leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the river, the distant rumble of a

night train, and time and again the sounds which none can put a name to in the darkness, soft obscure

expressions of uncatalogued emotions from man and beast, bird and machine, or, maybe, from departed

Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, taking night strolls back into a world which had once suited their embodied

spirits. But Fleur heeded not these sounds; her spirit, far from disembodied, fled with swift wing from

railwaycarriage to flowery hedge, straining after Jon, tenacious of his forbidden image, and the sound of his

voice, which was taboo. And she crinkled her nose, retrieving from the perfume of the riverside night that

moment when his hand slipped between the mayflowers and her cheek. Long she leaned out in her freak

dress, keen to burn her wings at life's candle; while the moths brushed her cheeks on their pilgrimage to the

lamp on her dressingtable, ignorant that in a Forsyte's house there is no open flame. But at last even she felt

Through the open window of his room, alongside Annette's, Soames, wakeful too, heard their thin faint

tinkle, as it might be shaken from stars, or the dewdrops falling from a flower, if one could hear such sounds.

To say that Jon Forsyte accompanied his mother to Spain unwillingly would scarcely have been adequate. He

went as a wellnatured dog goes for a walk with its mistress, leaving a choice muttonbone on the lawn. He

went looking back at it. Forsytes deprived of their muttonbones are wont to sulk. But Jon had little sulkiness

in his composition. He adored his mother, and it was his first travel. Spain had become Italy by his simply

saying: "I'd rather go to Spain, Mum; you've been to Italy so many times; I'd like it new to both of us."

The fellow was subtle besides being naive. He never forgot that he was going to shorten the proposed two

months into six weeks, and must therefore show no sign of wishing to do so. For one with so enticing a

muttonbone and so fixed an idea, he made a good enough travelling companion, indifferent to where or

when he arrived, superior to food, and thoroughly appreciative of a country strange to the most travelled

Englishman. Fleur's wisdom in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new place entirely

without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention on the donkeys and tumbling bells, the

priests, patios, beggars, children, crowing cocks, sombreros, cactushedges, old high white villages, goats,

olivetrees, greening plains, singing birds in tiny cages, watersellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches,

It was already hot, and they enjoyed an absence of their compatriots. Jon, who, so far as he knew, had no

blood in him which was not English, was often innately unhappy in the presence of his own countrymen. He

felt they had no nonsense about them, and took a more practical view of things than himself. He confided to

his mother that he must be an unsociable beastit was jolly to be away from everybody who could talk

In this isolation he had unparalleled opportunities of appreciating what few sons can apprehend, the

wholeheartedness of a mother's love. Knowledge of something kept from her made him, no doubt, unduly

sensitive; and a Southern people stimulated his admiration for her type of beauty, which he had been

accustomed to hear called Spanish, but which he now perceived to be no such thing. Her beauty was neither

English, French, Spanish, nor Italianit was special! He appreciated, too, as never before, his mother's

subtlety of instinct. He could not tell, for instance, whether she had noticed his absorption in that Goya

picture, "La Vendimia," or whether she knew that he had slipped back there after lunch and again next

morning, to stand before it full half an hour, a second and third time. It was not Fleur, of course, but like

enough to give him heartacheso dear to loversremembering her standing at the foot of his bed with her

hand held above her head. To keep a postcard reproduction of this picture in his pocket and slip it out to look

at became for Jon one of those bad habits which soon or late disclose themselves to eyes sharpened by love,

fear, or jealousy. And his mother's were sharpened by all three. In Granada he was fairly caught, sitting on a

sunwarmed stone bench in a little battlemented garden on the Alhambra hill, whence he ought to have been

looking at the view. His mother, he had thought, was examining the potted stocks between the polled acacias,

He checked, too late, a movement such as he might have made at school to conceal some surreptitious

"It certainly is most charming; but I think I prefer the 'Quitasol' Your father would go crazy about Goya; I

In '92nine years before he had been born! What had been the previous existences of his father and his

mother? If they had a right to share in his future, surely he had a right to share in their pasts. He looked up at

her. But something in her facea look of life hardlived, the mysterious impress of emotions, experience,

and sufferingseemed, with its incalculable depth, its purchased sanctity, to make curiosity impertinent. His

mother must have had a wonderfully interesting life; she was so beautiful, and sosobut he could not

frame what he felt about her. He got up, and stood gazing down at the town, at the plain all green with crops,

and the ring of mountains glamorous in sinking sunlight. Her life was like the past of this old Moorish city,

full, deep, remotehis own life as yet such a baby of a thing, hopelessly ignorant and innocent! They said

that in those mountains to the West, which rose sheer from the bluegreen plain, as if out of a sea,

Phoenicians had dwelta dark, strange, secret race, above the land! His mother's life was as unknown to

him, as secret, as that Phoenician past was to the town down there, whose cocks crowed and whose children

played and clamoured so gaily, day in, day out. He felt aggrieved that she should know all about him and he

nothing about her except that she loved him and his father, and was beautiful. His callow ignorance he had

not even had the advantage of the War, like nearly everybody else!made him small in his own eyes.

That night, from the balcony of his bedroom, he gazed down on the roof of the townas if inlaid with

honeycomb of jet, ivory, and gold; and, long after, he lay awake, listening to the cry of the sentry as the hours

"Voice in the night crying, down in the old sleeping Spanish city darkened under her white stars!

What says the voiceits clearlingering anguish? Just the watchman, telling his dateless tale of safety? Just a

No! Tis one deprived, whose lover's heart is weeping, Just his cry: 'How long?'"

The word "deprived" seemed to him cold and unsatisfactory, but "bereaved" was too final, and no other word

of two syllables short long came to him, which would enable him to keep "whose lover's heart is weeping."

It was past two by the time he had finished it, and past three before he went to sleep, having said it over to

himself at least twentyfour times. Next day he wrote it out and enclosed it in one of those letters to Fleur

which he always finished before he went down, so as to have his mind free and companionable.

About noon that same day, on the tiled terrace of their hotel, he felt a sudden dull pain in the back of his head,

a queer sensation in the eyes, and sickness. The sun had touched him too affectionately. The next three days

were passed in semidarkness, and a dulled, aching indifference to all except the feel of ice on his forehead

and his mother's smile. She never moved from his room, never relaxed her noiseless vigilance, which seemed

to Jon angelic. But there were moments when he was extremely sorry for himself, and wished terribly that

Fleur could see him. Several times he took a poignant imaginary leave of her and of the earth, tears oozing

out of his eyes. He even prepared the message he would send to her by his motherwho would regret to her

dying day that she had ever sought to separate them his poor mother! He was not slow, however, in

Toward halfpast six each evening came a "gasgacha" of bellsa cascade of tumbling chimes, mounting

from the city below and falling back chime on chime. After listening to them on the fourth day he said

"Very well, darling. As soon as you're fit to travel" And at once he felt better, andmeaner.

They had been out five weeks when they turned toward home. Jon's head was restored to its pristine clarity,

but he was confined to a hat lined by his mother with many layers of orange and green silk and he still

walked from choice in the shade. As the long struggle of discretion between them drew to its close, he

wondered more and more whether she could see his eagerness to get back to that which she had brought him

away from. Condemned by Spanish Providence to spend a day in Madrid between their trains, it was but

natural to go again to the Prado. Jon was elaborately casual this time before his Goya girl. Now that he was

going back to her, he could afford a lesser scrutiny. It was his mother who lingered before the picture, saying:

Jon heard her uneasily. Did she understand? But he felt once more that he was no match for her in

selfcontrol and subtlety. She could, in some supersensitive way, of which he had not the secret, feel the

pulse of his thoughts; she knew by instinct what he hoped and feared and wished. It made him terribly

uncomfortable and guilty, having, beyond most boys, a conscience. He wished she would be frank with him,

he almost hoped for an open struggle. But none came, and steadily, silently, they travelled north. Thus did he

first learn how much better than men women play a waiting game. In Paris they had again to pause for a day.

Jon was grieved because it lasted two, owing to certain matters in connection with a dressmaker; as if his

mother, who looked beautiful in anything, had any need of dresses! The happiest moment of his travel was

"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed it much, Jon. But you've been very sweet to me."

And now that the end had come, he really had, feeling a sort of glamour over the past weeksa kind of

painful pleasure, such as he had tried to screw into those lines about the voice in the night crying; a feeling

such as he had known as a small boy listening avidly to Chopin, yet wanting to cry. And he wondered why it

"You were very sweet to me." Oddone never could be nice and natural like that! He substituted the words:

They were, and reached London somewhat attenuated, having been away six weeks and two days, without a

single allusion to the subject which had hardly ever ceased to occupy their minds.

Deprived of his wife and son by the Spanish adventure, Jolyon found the solitude at Robin Hill intolerable. A

philosopher when he has all that he wants is different from a philosopher when he has not. Accustomed,

however, to the idea, if not to the reality of resignation, he would perhaps have faced it out but for his

daughter June. He was a "lame duck" now, and on her conscience. Having achievedmomentarilythe

rescue of an etcher in low circumstances, which she happened to have in hand, she appeared at Robin Hill a

fortnight after Irene and Jon had gone. June was living now in a tiny house with a big studio at Chiswick. A

Forsyte of the best period, so far as the lack of responsibility was concerned, she had overcome the difficulty

of a reduced income in a manner satisfactory to herself and her father. The rent of the Gallery off Cork Street

which he had bought for her and her increased income tax happening to balance, it had been quite

simplshe no longer paid him the rent. The Gallery might be expected now at any time, after eighteen years

of barren usufruct, to pay its way, so that she was sure her father would not feel it. Through this device she

still had twelve hundred a year, and by reducing what she ate, and, in place of two Belgians in a poor way,

employing one Austrian in a poorer, practically the same surplus for the relief of genius. After three days at

Robin Hill she carried her father back with her to Town. In those three days she had stumbled on the secret he

had kept for two years, and had instantly decided to cure him. She knew, in fact, the very man. He had done

wonders with. Paul Postthat painter a little in advance of Futurism; and she was impatient with her father

because his eyebrows would go up, and because he had heard of neither. Of course, if he hadn't "faith" he

would never get well! It was absurd not to have faith in the man who had healed Paul Post so that he had only

just relapsed, from having overworked, or overlived, himself again. The great thing about this healer was that

he relied on Nature. He had made a special study of the symptoms of Naturewhen his patient failed in any

natural symptom he supplied the poison which caused itand there you were! She was extremely hopeful.

Her father had clearly not been living a natural life at Robin Hill, and she intended to provide the symptoms.

He wasshe feltout of touch with the times, which was not natural; his heart wanted stimulating. In the

little Chiswick house she and the Austriana grateful soul, so devoted to June for rescuing her that she was

in danger of decease from overworkstimulated Jolyon in all sorts of ways, preparing him for his cure. But

they could not keep his eyebrows down; as, for example, when the Austrian woke him at eight o'clock just as

he was going to sleep, or June took The Times away from him, because it was unnatural to read "that stuff"

when he ought to be taking an interest in "life." He never failed, indeed, to be astonished at her resource,

especially in the evenings. For his benefit, as she declared, though he suspected that she also got something

out of it, she assembled the Age so far as it was satellite to genius; and with some solemnity it would move

up and down the studio before him in the Foxtrot, and that more mental form of dancingthe

Onestepwhich so pulled against the music, that Jolyon's eyebrows would be almost lost in his hair from

wonder at the strain it must impose on the dancer's willpower. Aware that, hung on the line in the Water

Colour Society, he was a back number to those with any pretension to be called artists, he would sit in the

darkest corner he could find, and wonder about rhythm, on which so long ago he had been raised. And when

June brought some girl or young man up to him, he would rise humbly to their level so far as that was

possible, and think: 'Dear me! This is very dull for them!' Having his father's perennial sympathy with Youth,

he used to get very tired from entering into their points of view. But it was all stimulating, and he never failed

in admiration of his daughter's indomitable spirit. Even genius itself attended these gatherings now and then,

with its nose on one side; and June always introduced it to her father. This, she felt, was exceptionally good

for him, for genius was a natural symptom he had never hadfond as she was of him.

Certain as a man can be that she was his own daughter, he often wondered whence she got herselfher

redgold hair, now greyed into a special colour; her direct, spirited face, so different from his own rather

folded and subtilised countenance, her little lithe figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he

would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought,

from her pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not too much to say that he preferred her to

the Age with which she was surrounded, youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She took, however, too

much interest in his teeth, for he still had some of those natural symptoms. Her dentist at once found

"Staphylococcus aureus present in pure culture" (which might cause boils, of course), and wanted to take out

all the teeth he had and supply him with two complete sets of unnatural symptoms. Jolyon's native tenacity

was roused, and in the studio that evening he developed his objections. He had never had any boils, and his

own teeth would last his time. Of courseJune admittedthey would last his time if he didn't have them

out! But if he had more teeth he would have a better heart and his time would be longer. His

recalcitranceshe saidwas a symptom of his whole attitude; he was taking it lying down. He ought to be

fighting. When was he going to see the man who had cured Paul Post? Jolyon was very sorry, but the fact was

he was not going to see him. June chafed. Pondridgeshe saidthe healer, was such a fine man, and he had

such difficulty in making two ends meet, and getting his theories recognised. It was just such indifference and

prejudice as her father manifested which was keeping him back. It would be so splendid for both of them!

"I perceive," said Jolyon, "that you are trying to kill two birds with one stone."

"That," said Jolyon, "is a fact, but I wish to remain hopeless as long as possible. I shall let sleeping dogs lie,

"That's not giving science a chance," cried June. "You've no idea how devoted Pondridge is. He puts his

"Just," replied Jolyon, puffing the mild cigarette to which he was reduced, "as Mr. Paul Post puts his art, eh?

Art for Art's sake Science for the sake of Science. I know those enthusiastic egomaniac gentry. They

vivisect you without blinking. I'm enough of a Forsyte to give them the goby, June."

"Dad," said June, "if you only knew how oldfashioned that sounds! Nobody can afford to be halfhearted

"I'm afraid," murmured Jolyon, with his smile, "that's the only natural symptom with which Mr. Pondridge

need not supply me. We are born to be extreme or to be moderate, my dear; though, if you'll forgive my

saying so, half the people nowadays who believe they're extreme are really very moderate. I'm getting on as

June was silent, having experienced in her time the inexorable character of her father's amiable obstinacy so

How he came to let her know why Irene had taken Jon to Spain puzzled Jolyon, for he had little confidence in

her discretion. After she had brooded on the news, it brought a rather sharp discussion, during which he

perceived to the full the fundamental opposition between her active temperament and his wife's passivity. He

even gathered that a little soreness still remained from that generationold struggle between them over the

body of Philip Bosinney, in which the passive had so signally triumphed over the active principle.

According to June, it was foolish and even cowardly to hide the past from Jon. Sheer opportunism, she called

"Which," Jolyon put in mildly, "is the working principle of real life, my dear."

"Oh!" cried June, "you don't really defend her for not telling Jon, Dad. If it were left to you, you would."

"I might, but simply because I know he must find out, which will be worse than if we told him."

"My dear," said Jolyon, "I wouldn't for the world go against Irene's instinct. He's her boy."

And that was all she got from him; but the matter rankled in her brain. She could not bear sleeping dogs. And

there stirred in her a tortuous impulse to push the matter toward decision. Jon ought to be told, so that either

his feeling might be nipped in the bud, or, flowering in spite of the past, come to fruition. And she determined

to see Fleur, and judge for herself. When June determined on anything, delicacy became a somewhat minor

consideration. After all, she was Soames' cousin, and they were both interested in pictures. She would go and

tell him that he ought to buy a Paul Post, or perhaps a piece of sculpture by Boris Strumolowski, and of

course she would say nothing to her father. She went on the following Sunday, looking so determined that

she had some difficulty in getting a cab at Reading station. The river country was lovely in those days of her

own month, and June ached at its loveliness. She who had passed through this life without knowing what

union was had a love of natural beauty which was almost madness. And when she came to that choice spot

where Soames had pitched his tent, she dismissed her cab, because, business over, she wanted to revel in the

bright water and the woods. She appeared at his front door, therefore, as a mere pedestrian, and sent in her

card. It was in June's character to know that when her nerves were fluttering she was doing something worth

while. If one's nerves did not flutter, she was taking the line of least resistance, and knew that nobleness was

not obliging her. She was conducted to a drawingroom, which, though not in her style, showed every mark

of fastidious elegance. Thinking, 'Too much taste too many knickknacks,' she saw in an old

lacquerframed mirror the figure of a girl coming in from the verandah. Clothed in white, and holding some

white roses in her hand, she had, reflected in that silverygrey pool of glass, a visionlike appearance, as if a

"Your name's Fleur, isn't it? I've heard of you from Holly. What do you think of Jon?"

And suddenly the girl said: "I wish you'd tell me why our families don't get on?"

Confronted with the question she had advised her father to answer, June was silent; whether because this girl

was trying to get something out of her, or simply because what one would do theoretically is not always what

"You know," said the girl, "the surest way to make people find out the worst is to keep them ignorant. My

father's told me it was a quarrel about property. But I don't believe it; we've both got heaps. They wouldn't

"My grandfather," she said, "was very generous, and my father is, too; neither of them was in the least

"Well, what was it then?" repeated the girl: Conscious that this young Forsyte meant having what she wanted,

June at once determined to prevent her, and to get something for herself instead.

The girl smelled at her roses. "I only want to know because they won't tell me."

June's small and resolute face quivered. She was wearing a round cap, and her hair had fluffed out under it.

"You know," she said, "I saw you drop your handkerchief. Is there anything between you and Jon? Because,

"I like you; but I don't like your father; I never have. We may as well be frank."

"I'm two and a half times your age," said June, "but I quite sympathize. It's horrid not to have one's own

"It's not my secret. But I'll see what I can do, because I think both you and Jon ought to be told. And now I'll

"Look!" said June impulsively, "next time you're in London, come and see me. This is where I live. I

generally have young people in the evening. But I shouldn't tell your father that you're coming."

Watching her scull the skiff across, June thought: 'She's awfully pretty and well made. I never thought

Soames would have a daughter as pretty as this. She and Jon would make a lovely couple.

The instinct to couple, starved within herself, was always at work in June. She stood watching Fleur row

back; the girl took her hand off a scull to wave farewell, and June walked languidly on between the meadows

and the river, with an ache in her heart. Youth to youth, like the dragonflies chasing each other, and love

like the sun warming them through and through. Her youth! So long agowhen Phil and sheAnd since?

Nothingno one had been quite what she had wanted. And so she had missed it all. But what a coil was

round those two young things, if they really were in love, as Holly would have itas her father, and Irene,

and Soames himself seemed to dread. What a coil, and what a barrier! And the itch for the future, the

contempt, as it were, for what was overpast, which forms the active principle, moved in the heart of one who

ever believed that what one wanted was more important than what other people did not want. From the bank,

awhile, in the warm summer stillness, she watched the waterlily plants and willow leaves, the fishes rising;

sniffed the scent of grass and meadowsweet, wondering how she could force everybody to be happy. Jon

and Fleur! Two little lame ducks charming callow yellow little ducks! A great pity! Surely something

could be done! One must not take such situations lying down. She walked on, and reached a station, hot and

That evening, faithful to the impulse toward direct action, which made many people avoid her, she said to her

"Dad, I've been down to see young Fleur. I think she's very attractive. It's no good hiding our heads under our

"It's what you appear to be doing," he said. "Do you realise whose daughter she is?"

"I disagree," said June. "It's that which stands in the way of all happiness and progress. You don't understand

the Age, Dad. It's got no use for outgrown things. Why do you think it matters so terribly that Jon should

know about his mother? Who pays any attention to that sort of thing now? The marriage laws are just as they

were when Soames and Irene couldn't get a divorce, and you had to come in. We've moved, and they haven't.

So nobody cares. Marriage without a decent chance of relief is only a sort of slaveowning; people oughtn't

to own each other. Everybody sees that now. If Irene broke such laws, what does it matter?"

"It's not for me to disagree there," said Jolyon; "but that's all quite beside the mark. This is a matter of human

"I'm not. If they prove to be really fond of each other, why should they be made unhappy because of the

"You haven't lived that past. I havethrough the feelings of my wife; through my own nerves and my

"If," she said suddenly, "she were the daughter of Philip Bosinney, I could understand you better. Irene loved

Jolyon uttered a deep soundthe sort of noise an Italian peasant woman utters to her mule. His heart had

begun beating furiously, but he paid no attention to it, quite carried away by his feelings.

"That shows how little you understand. Neither I nor Jon, if I know him, would mind a lovepast. It's the

brutality of a union without love. This girl is the daughter of the man who once owned Jon's mother as a

negroslave was owned. You can't lay that ghost; don't try to, June! It's asking us to see Jon joined to the

flesh and blood of the man who possessed Jon's mother against her will. It's no good mincing words; I want it

clear once for all. And now I mustn't talk any more, or I shall have to sit up with this all night." And, putting

his hand over his heart, Jolyon turned his back on his daughter and stood looking at the river Thames.

June, who by nature never saw a hornet's nest until she had put her head into it, was seriously alarmed. She

came and slipped her arm through his. Not convinced that he was right, and she herself wrong, because that

was not natural to her, she was yet profoundly impressed by the obvious fact that the subject was very bad for

After taking her elderly cousin across, Fleur did not land at once, but pulled in among the reeds, into the

sunshine. The peaceful beauty of the afternoon seduced for a little one not much given to the vague and

poetic. In the field beyond the bank where her skiff lay up, a machine drawn by a grey horse was turning an

early field of hay. She watched the grass cascading over and behind the light wheels with fascinationit

looked so cool and fresh. The click and swish blended with the rustle of the willows and the poplars, and the

cooing of a woodpigeon, in a true river song. Alongside, in the deep green water, weeds, like yellow snakes,

were writhing and nosing with the current; pied cattle on the farther side stood in the shade lazily swishing

their tails. It was an afternoon to dream. And she took out Jon's lettersnot flowery effusions, but haunted in

their recital of things seen and done by a longing very agreeable to her, and all ending "Your devoted J."

Fleur was not sentimental, her desires were ever concrete and concentrated, but what poetry there was in the

daughter of Soames and Annette had certainly in those weeks of waiting gathered round her memories of Jon.

They all belonged to grass and blossom, flowers and running water. She enjoyed him in the scents absorbed

by her crinkling nose. The stars could persuade her that she was standing beside him in the centre of the map

of Spain; and of an early morning the dewy cobwebs, the hazy sparkle and promise of the day down in the

Two white swans came majestically by, while she was reading his letters, followed by their brood of six

young swans in a line, with just so much water between each tail and head, a flotilla of grey destroyers. Fleur

thrust her letters back, got out her sculls, and pulled up to the landingstage. Crossing the lawn, she

wondered whether she should tell her father of June's visit. If he learned of it from the butler, he might think

it odd if she did not. It gave her, too, another chance to startle out of him the reason of the feud. She went,

Soames had gone to look at a patch of ground on which the Local Authorities were proposing to erect a

Sanatorium for people with weak lungs. Faithful to his native individualism, he took no part in local affairs,

content to pay the rates which were always going up. He could not, however, remain indifferent to this new

and dangerous scheme. The site was not half a mile from his own house. He was quite of opinion that the

country should stamp out tuberculosis; but this was not the place. It should be done farther away. He took,

indeed, an attitude common to all true Forsytes, that disability of any sort in other people was not his affair,

and the State should do its business without prejudicing in any way the natural advantages which he had

acquired or inherited. Francie, the most freespirited Forsyte of his generation (except perhaps that fellow

Jolyon) had once asked him in her malicious way: "Did you ever see the name Forsyte in a subscription list,

Soames? "That was as it might be, but a Sanatorium would depreciate the neighbourhood, and he should

certainly sign the petition which was being got up against it. Returning with this decision fresh within him, he

She was showing him more affection of late, and the quiet time down here with her in this summer weather

had been making him feel quite young; Annette was always running up to Town for one thing or another, so

that he had Fleur to himself almost as much as he could wish. To be sure, young Mont had formed a habit of

appearing on his motorcycle almost every other day. Thank goodness, the young fellow had shaved off his

halftoothbrushes, and no longer looked like a mountebank! With a girl friend of Fleur's who was staying in

the house, and a neighbouring youth or so, they made two couples after dinner, in the hall, to the music of the

electric pianola, which performed Foxtrots unassisted, with a surprised shine on its expressive surface.

Annette, even, now and then passed gracefully up and down in the arms of one or other of the young men.

And Soames, coming to the drawingroom door, would lift his nose a little sideways, and watch them,

waiting to catch a smile from Fleur; then move back to his chair by the drawingroom hearth, to peruse The

Times or some other collector's price list. To his everanxious eyes Fleur showed no signs of remembering

"Enemy!" repeated Soames. "It's ancient history. I don't know where you get your notions."

It had come to her as an inspiration that if he thought she knew, or were on the edge of knowledge, he would

"I don't want to plague you, darling. As you say, why want to know more? Why want to know anything of

That chap, indeed, played a considerable, if invisible, part this summerfor he had not turned up again. Ever

since the Sunday when Fleur had drawn attention to him prowling on the lawn, Soames had thought of him a

good deal, and always in connection with Annette, for no reason, except that she was looking handsomer than

for some time past. His possessive instinct, subtle, less formal, more elastic since the War, kept all misgiving

underground. As one looks on some American river, quiet and pleasant, knowing that an alligator perhaps is

lying in the mud with his snout just raised and indistinguishable from a snag of woodso Soames looked on

the river of his own existence, subconscious of Monsieur Profond, refusing to see more than the suspicion of

his snout. He had at this epoch in his life practically all he wanted, and was as nearly happy as his nature

would permit. His senses were at rest; his affections found all the vent they needed in his daughter; his

collection was well known, his money well invested; his health excellent, save for a touch of liver now and

again; he had not yet begun to worry seriously about what would happen after death, inclining to think that

nothing would happen. He resembled one of his own giltedged securities, and to knock the gilt off by seeing

anything he could avoid seeing would be, he felt instinctively, perverse and retrogressive. Those two

crumpled roseleaves, Fleur's caprice and Monsieur Profond's snout, would level away if he lay on them

That evening Chance, which visits the lives of even the bestinvested Forsytes, put a clue into Fleur's hands.

Her father came down to dinner without a handkerchief, and had occasion to blow his nose.

"I'll get you one, dear," she had said, and ran upstairs. In the sachet where she sought for itan old sachet of

very faded silk there were two compartments: one held ,handkerchiefs; the other was buttoned, and

contained something flat and hard. By some childish impulse Fleur unbuttoned it. There was a frame and in it

a photograph of herself as a little girl. She gazed at it, fascinated, as one is by one's own presentment. It

slipped under her fidgeting thumb, and she saw that another photograph was behind. She pressed her own

down further, and perceived a face, which she seemed to know, of a young woman, very goodlooking, in a

very old style of evening dress. Slipping her own photograph up over it again, she took out a handkerchief

and went down. Only on the stairs did she identify that face. Surelysurely Jon's mother! The conviction

came as a shock. And she stood still in a flurry of thought. Why, of course! Jon's father had married the

woman her father had wanted to marry, had cheated him out of her, perhaps. Then, afraid of showing by her

manner that she had lighted on his secret, she refused to think further, and, shaking out the silk handkerchief,

That evening passed for Fleur in putting two and two together; recalling the look on her father's face in the

confectioner's shopa look strange and coldly intimate, a queer look. He must have loved that woman very

much to have kept her photograph all this time, in spite of having lost her. Unsparing and matteroffact, her

mind darted to his relations with her own mother. Had he ever really loved her? She thought not. Jon was the

son of the woman he had really loved. Surely, then, he ought not to mind his daughter loving him; it only

wanted getting used to. And a sigh of sheer relief was caught in the folds of her nightgown slipping over her

Youth only recognises Age by fits and starts. Jon, for one, had never really seen his father's age till he came

back from Spain. The face of the fourth Jolyon, worn by waiting, gave him quite a shock it looked so wan

and old. His father's mask had been forced awry by the emotion of the meeting, so that the boy suddenly

realised how much he must have felt their absence. He summoned to his aid the thought: 'Well, I didn't want

to go!' It was out of date for Youth to defer to Age. But Jon was by no means typically modern. His father

had always been "so jolly" to him, and to feel that one meant to begin again at once the conduct which his

At the question, "Well, old man, how did the great Goya strike you?" his conscience pricked him badly. The

On the night of their return, he went to bed full of compunction; but awoke full of anticipation. It was only

the fifth of July, and no meeting was fixed with Fleur until the ninth. He was to have three days at home

In the lives of men an inexorable rhythm, caused by the need for trousers, not even the fondest parents can

deny. On the second day, therefore, Jon went to Town, and having satisfied his conscience by ordering what

was indispensable in Conduit Street, turned his face toward Piccadilly. Stratton Street, where her Club was,

adjoined Devonshire House. It would be the merest chance that she should be at her Club. But he dawdled

down Bond Street with a beating heart, noticing the superiority of all other young men to himself. They wore

their clothes with such an air; they had assurance; they were old. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the

conviction that Fleur must have forgotten him. Absorbed in his own feeling for her all these weeks, he had

mislaid that possibility. The corners of his mouth drooped, his hands felt clammy. Fleur with the pick of

youth at the beck of her smileFleur incomparable! It was an evil moment. Jon, however, had a great idea

that one must be able to face anything. And he braced himself with that dour refection in front of a brica

brac shop. At this highwater mark of what was once the London season, there was nothing to mark it out

from any other except a grey top hat or two, and the sun. Jon moved on, and turning the corner into

Piccadilly, ran into Val Dartie moving toward the Iseeum Club, to which he had just been elected.

Val looked him up and down. "That's good! I'm going in here to order some cigarettes; then come and have

The condition of England, that nightmare of its Press and Public men, was seen in different perspective

"Yes, sir; precisely the cigarette I used to supply your father with. Bless me! Mr. Montague Dartie was a

customer here fromlet me see the year Melton won the Derby. One of my very best customers he was."

A faint smile illumined the tobacconist's face. "Many's the tip he's given me, to be sure! I suppose he took a

couple of hundred of these every week, year in, year out, and never changed his cigarette. Very affable

gentleman, brought me a lot of custom. I was sorry he met with that accident. One misses an old customer

Val smiled. His father's decease had closed an account which had been running longer, probably, than any

other; and in a ring of smoke puffed out from that timehonoured cigarette he seemed to see again his father's

face, dark, goodlooking, moustachioed, a little puffy, in the only halo it had earned. His father had his fame

here, anywaya man who smoked two hundred cigarettes a week, who could give tips, and run accounts for

"To his son, sir, and cashten and six. I shall never forget Mr. Montague Dartie. I've known him stand

talkin' to me half an hour. We don't get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry. The War was

"No," said Val, tapping his knee, "I got this in the war before. Saved my life, I expect. Do you want any

Rather ashamed, Jon murmured, "I don't smoke, you know," and saw the tobacconist's lips twisted, as if

"That's right," said Val; "keep off it while you can. You'll want it when you take a knock. This is really the

"Identical, sir; a little dearer, that's all. Wonderful staying powerthe British Empire, I always say."

"Send me down a hundred a week to this address, and invoice it monthly. Come on, Jon."

Jon entered the Iseeum with curiosity. Except to lunch now and then at the HotchPotch with his father, he

had never been in a London Club. The Iseeum, comfortable and unpretentious, did not move, could not, so

long as George Forsyte sat on its Committee, where his culinary acumen was almost the controlling force.

The Club had made a stand against the newly rich, and it had taken all George Forsyte's prestige, and praise

The two were lunching together when the halfbrothersinlaw entered the diningroom, and attracted by

George's forefinger, sat down at their table, Val with his shrewd eyes and charming smile, Jon with solemn

lips and an attractive shyness in his glance. There was an air of privilege around that corner table, as though

past masters were eating there. Jon was fascinated by the hypnotic atmosphere. The waiter, lean in the chaps,

pervaded with such freemasonical deference. He seemed to hang on George Forsyte's lips, to watch the

gloat in his eye with a kind of sympathy, to follow the movements of the heavy clubmarked silver fondly.

His liveried arm and confidential voice alarmed Jon, they came so secretly over his shoulder.

Except for George's "Your grandfather tipped me once; he was a deuced good judge of a cigar!" neither he

nor the other past master took any notice of him, and he was grateful for this. The talk was all about the

breeding, points, and prices of horses, and he listened to it vaguely at first, wondering how it was possible to

retain so much knowledge in a head. He could not take his eyes off the dark past masterwhat he said was

so deliberate and discouragingsuch heavy, queer, smiledout words. Jon was thinking of butterflies, when

With all his might Jon tried not to grow red, while the dark past master went on.

"His daughter's an attractive small girl. Mr. Soames Forsyde is a bit oldfashioned. I want to see him have a

"Don't you worry; he's not so miserable as he looks. He'll never show he's enjoying anythingthey might try

"Old George Forsyte is a first cousin of your father's and of my Uncle Soames. He's always been here. The

other chap, Profond, is a queer fish. I think he's hanging round Soames' wife, if you ask me!"

"You're right," said Val suddenly; "but things aren't what they were when I was your age. There's a

'Tomorrow we die' feeling. That's what old George meant about my Uncle Soames. He doesn't mean to die

"Stable secret, Jon. Take my advice, and bottle up. You'll do no good by knowing. Have a liqueur?"

"I hate the way people keep things from one," he muttered, "and then sneer at one for being green."

"Well, you can ask Holly. If she won't tell you, you'll believe it's for your own good, I suppose."

And he did not. This conspiracy of silence made him desperate. It was humiliating to be treated like a child!

He retraced his moody steps to Stratton Street. But he would go to her Club now, and find out the worst! To

his enquiry the reply was that Miss Forsyte was not in the Club. She might be in perhaps later. She was often

in on Mondaythey could not say. Jon said he would call again, and, crossing into the Green Park, flung

himself down under a tree. The sun was bright, and a breeze fluttered the leaves of the young lime tree

beneath which he lay; but his heart ached. Such darkness seemed gathered round his happiness. He heard Big

Ben chime "Three" above the traffic. The sound moved something in him, and, taking out a piece of paper, he

began to scribble on it with a pencil. He had jotted a stanza, and was searching the grass for another verse,

when something hard touched his shouldera green parasol. There above him stood Fleur!

"They told me you'd been, and were coming back. So I thought you might be out here; and you areit's

"It's too much luck! Let's get away from this side." He almost dragged her on through that too thoughtfully

regulated Park, to find some cover where they could sit and hold each other's hands.

"Hasn't anybody cut in?" he said, gazing round at her lashes, in suspense above her cheeks.

"Nothing. Except that I think I've found out what's wrong between our families, Jon."

"I believe my father wanted to marry your mother, and your father got her instead."

"I came on a photo of her; it was in a frame behind a photo of me. Of course, if he was very fond of her, that

"If we were engaged, and you found you loved somebody better, I might go cracked, but I shouldn't grudge it

"You see, we don't know," went on Fleur; "it may have been a great shock. She may have behaved badly to

Fleur shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think we know much about our fathers and mothers. We just see them

in the light of the way they treat us; but they've treated other people, you know, before we were bornplenty,

I expect. You see, they're both old. Look at your father, with three separate families!"

"Isn't there any place," cried Jon, "in all this beastly London where we can be alone?"

When they were installed, Fleur asked suddenly: "Are you going back to Robin Hill? I should like to see

where you live, Jon. I'm staying with my aunt for the night, but I could get back in time for dinner. I wouldn't

"Splendid! I can show it you from the copse, we shan't meet anybody. There's a train at four."

The god of property and his Forsytes great and small, leisured, official, commercial, or professional, like the

working classes, still worked their seven hours a day, so that those two of the fourth generation travelled

down to Robin Hill in an empty firstclass carriage, dusty and sunwarmed, of that too early train. They

At the station they saw no one except porters, and a villager or two unknown to Jon, and walked out up the

For Jonsure of her now, and without separation before himit was a miraculous dawdle, more wonderful

than those on the Downs, or along the river Thames. It was loveinamistone of those illumined pages of

Life, where every word and smile, and every light touch they gave each other were as little gold and red and

blue butterflies and flowers and birds scrolled in among the texta happy communing, without afterthought,

which lasted thirtyseven minutes. They reached the coppice at the milking hour. Jon would not take her as

far as the farmyard; only to where she could see the field leading up to the gardens, and the house beyond.

They turned in among the larches, and suddenly, at the winding of the path, came on Irene, sitting on an old

There are various kinds of shocks: to the vertebrae; to the nerves; to moral sensibility; and, more potent and

permanent, to personal dignity. This last was the shock Jon received, coming thus on his mother. He became

suddenly conscious that he was doing an indelicate thing. To have brought Fleur down openlyyes! But to

sneak her in like this! Consumed with shame, he put on a front as brazen as his nature would permit.

Fleur was smiling, a little defiantly; his mother's startled face was changing quickly to the impersonal and

"I'm very glad to see you. It was nice of Jon to think of bringing you down to us."

"We weren't coming to the house," Jon blurted out. "I just wanted Fleur to see where I lived."

Feeling that he had but aggravated his breach of breeding, he heard Fleur answer:

"Thanks very much; I have to get back to dinner. I met Jon by accident, and we thought it would be rather

"Of course; but you must have tea. We'll send you down to the station. My husband will enjoy seeing you."

The expression of his mother's eyes, resting on him for a moment, cast Jon down level with the grounda

true worm. Then she led on, and Fleur followed her. He felt like a child, trailing after those two, who were

talking so easily about Spain and Wansdon, and the house up there beyond the trees and the grassy slope. He

watched the fencing of their eyes, taking each other inthe two beings he loved most in the world.

He could see his father sitting under the oaktree; and suffered in advance all the loss of caste he must go

through in the eyes of that tranquil figure, with his knees crossed, thin, old, and elegant; already he could feel

"This is Fleur Forsyte, Jolyon; Jon brought her down to see the house. Let's have tea at onceshe has to

To leave her alone with them was strange, and yet, as no doubt his mother had foreseen, the least of evils at

the moment; so he ran up into the house. Now he would not see Fleur alone againnot for a minute, and

they had arranged no further meeting! When he returned under cover of the maids and teapots, there was not

a trace of awkwardness beneath the tree; it was all within himself, but not the less for that. They were talking

"We back numbers," his father was saying, "are awfully anxious to find out why we can't appreciate the new

"The young are tired of us, our gods and our ideals. Off with their heads, they saysmash their idols! And

let's get back tonothing! And, by Jove, they've done it! Jon's a poet. He'll be going in, too, and stamping on

what's left of us. Property, beauty, sentiment all smoke. We mustn't own anything nowadays, not even our

Jon listened, bewildered, almost outraged by his father's words, behind which he felt a meaning that he could

"Nothing's the god of today," continued Jolyon; "we're back where the Russians were sixty years ago, when

"No, Dad," cried Jon suddenly, "we only want to live, and we don't know how, because of the Pastthat's

"By George!" said Jolyon, "that's profound, Jon. Is it your own? The Past! Old ownerships, old passions, and

Conscious that his mother had lifted her hand to her lips, quickly, as if to hush something, Jon handed the

cigarettes. He lighted his father's and Fleur's, then one for himself. Had he taken the knock that Val had

spoken of? The smoke was blue when he had not puffed, grey when he had; he liked the sensation in his nose,

and the sense of equality it gave him. He was glad no one said: "So you've begun!" He felt less young.

Fleur looked at her watch, and rose. His mother went with her into the house. Jon stayed with his father,

"See her into the car, old man," said Jolyon; "and when she's gone, ask your mother to come back to me."

Jon went. He waited in the hall. He saw her into the car. There was no chance for any word; hardly for a

pressure of the hand. He waited all that evening for something to be said to him. Nothing was said. Nothing

might have happened. He went up to bed, and in the mirror on his dressingtable met himself. He did not

Uncertain whether the impression that Prosper Profond was dangerous should be traced to his attempt to give

Val the Mayfly filly; to a remark of Fleur's: "He's like the hosts of Midianhe prowls and prowls around"; to

his preposterous inquiry of Jack Cardigan: "What's the use of keepin' fit?" or, more simply, to the fact that he

was a foreigner, or alien as it was now called. Certain, that Annette was looking particularly handsome, and

that Soameshad sold him a Gauguin and then torn up the cheque, so that Monsieur Profond himself had

However suspiciously regarded, he still frequented Winifred's evergreen little house in Green Street, with a

goodnatured obtuseness which no one mistook for naiv ete, a word hardly applicable to Monsieur Prosper

Profond. Winifred still found him "amusing," and would write him little notes saying: "Come and have a

'jolly' with us"it was breath of life to her to keep up with the phrases of the day.

The mystery, with which all felt him to be surrounded, was due to his having done, seen, heard, and known

everything, and found nothing in itwhich was unnatural. The English type of disillusionment was familiar

enough to Winifred, who had always moved in fashionable circles. It gave a certain cachet or distinction, so

that one got something out of it. But to see nothing in anything, not as a pose, but because there was nothing

in anything, was not English; and that which was not English one could not help secretly feeling dangerous, if

not precisely bad form. It was like having the mood which the War had left, seateddark, heavy, smiling,

indifferentin your Empire chair; it was like listening to that mood talking through thick pink lips above a

little diabolic beard. It was, as Jack Cardigan expressed itfor the English character at large"a bit too

thick" for if nothing was really worth getting excited about, there were always games, and one could make

it so! Even Winifred, ever a Forsyte at heart, felt that there was nothing to be had out of such a mood of

disillusionment, so that it really ought not to be there. Monsieur Profond, in fact, made the mood too plain in

When Fleur, after her hurried return from Robin Hill, came down to dinner that evening, the mood was

standing at the window of Winifred's little drawingroom, looking out into Green Street, with an air of seeing

nothing in it. And Fleur gazed promptly into the fireplace with an air of seeing a fire which was not there.

Monsieur Profond came from the window. He was in full fig, with a white waistcoat and a white flower in his

"Well, Miss Forsyde," he said, "I'm awful pleased to see you. Mr. Forsyde well? I was sayin' today I want to

Fleur spun round. "Shall I tell you," she said, "what would give him pleasure?" But the words, "To hear that

you had cleared out," died at the expression on his face. All his fine white teeth were showing.

"I was hearin' at the Club today about his old trouble." Fleur opened her eyes. "What do you mean?"

Though conscious that he had cleverly diverted her from his own share in her father's worry, Fleur was

Choking back the words, "He was never married before," she said: "Well, what about her?"

"Mr. George Forsyde was tellin' me about your father's first wife marryin' his cousin Jolyon afterward. It was

Fleur looked up. Monsieur Profond was swimming, heavily diabolical, before her. Thatthe reason! With

the most heroic effort of her life so far, she managed to arrest that swimming figure. She could not tell

"Oh! here you both are already; Imogen and I have had the most amusing afternoon at the Babies' bazaar."

"The 'Save the Babies.' I got such a bargain, my dear. A piece of old Armenian workfrom before the

Monsieur Profond had withdrawn into the window, where he was practically out of hearing.

"Auntie, hehe told me that father has been married before. Is it true that he divorced her, and she married

Never in all the life of the mother of four little Darties had Winifred felt more seriously embarrassed. Her

"Your father didn't wish you to hear," she said, with all the aplomb she could muster. "These things will

"Oh!" said Fleur, and that was all, but it made Winifred pat her shouldera firm little shoulder, nice and

white! She never could help an appraising eye and touch in the matter of her niece, who would have to be

"We've forgotten all about it years and years ago," she said comfortably. "Come and have dinner!"

"My dear!" murmured Winifred, concerned, "you're not taking this to heart? Why, you haven't properly come

"Well, well," said Winifred, "go and lie down. I'll send you some bromide, and I shall talk to Prosper

Profond. What business had he to gossip? Though I must say I think it's much better you should know."

She went up with her head whirling, a dry sensation in her throat, a guttered frightened feeling in her breast.

Never in her life as yet had she suffered from even momentary fear that she would not get what she had set

her heart on. The sensations of the afternoon had been full and poignant, and this gruesome discovery coming

on the top of them had really made her head ache. No wonder her father had hidden that photograph, so

secretly behind her ownashamed of having kept it! But could he hate Jon's mother and yet keep her

photograph? She pressed her hands over her forehead, trying to see things clearly. Had they told Jonhad

her visit to Robin Hill forced them to tell him? Everything now turned on that! She knew, they all knew,

She walked up and down, biting her lip and thinking desperately hard. Jon loved his mother. If they had told

him, what would he do? She could not tell. But if they had not told him, should she notcould she not get

him for herselfget married to him, before he knew? She searched her memories of Robin Hill. His mother's

face so passive with its dark eyes and as if powdered hair, its reserve, its smile baffled her; and his

father'skindly, sunken, ironic. Instinctively she felt they would shrink from telling Jon, even now, shrink

Her aunt must be made not to tell her father that she knew. So long as neither she herself nor Jon were

supposed to know, there was still a chancefreedom to cover one's tracks, and get what her heart was set on.

But she was almost overwhelmed by her isolation. Every one's hand was against herevery one's! It was as

Jon had saidhe and she just wanted to live and the past was in their way, a past they hadn't shared in, and

didn't understand! Oh! What a shame! And suddenly she thought of June. Would she help them? For

somehow June had left on her the impression that she would be sympathetic with their love, impatient of

obstacle. Then, instinctively, she thought: 'I won't give anything away, though, even to her. I daren't. I mean

Soup was brought up to her, and one of Winifred's pet headache cachets. She swallowed both. Then Winifred

"You know, Auntie, I do wish people wouldn't think I'm in love with that boy. Why, I've hardly seen him!"

Winifred, though experienced, was not "fine." She accepted the remark with considerable relief. Of course, it

was not pleasant for the girl to hear of the family scandal, and she set herself to minimise the matter, a task

for which she was eminently qualified, "raised" fashionably under a comfortable mother and a father whose

nerves might not be shaken, and for many years the wife of Montague Dartie. Her description was a

masterpiece of understatement. Fleur's father's first wife had been very foolish. There had been a young man

who had got run over, and she had left Fleur's father. Then, years after, when it might all have comeright

again, she had taken up with their cousin Jolyon; and, of course, her father had been obliged to have a

divorce. Nobody remembered anything of it now, except just the family. And, perhaps, it had all turned out

for the best; her father had Fleur; and Jolyon and Irene had been quite happy, they said, and their boy was a

nice boy. "Val having Holly, too, is a sort of plaster, don't you know?" With these soothing words, Winifred

patted her niece's shoulder; thought: 'She's a nice, plump little thing!' and went back to Prosper Profond, who,

For some minutes after her aunt had gone Fleur remained under influence of bromide material and spiritual.

But then reality came back. Her aunt had left out all that matteredall the feeling, the hate, the love, the

unforgivingness of passionate hearts. She, who knew so little of life, and had touched only the fringe of love,

was yet aware by instinct that words have as little relation to fact and feeling as coin to the bread it buys.

'Poor Father!' she thought. 'Poor me! Poor Jon! But I don't care, I mean to have him!' From the window of her

darkened room she saw "that man" issue from the door below and "prowl" away. If he and her motherhow

would that affect her chance? Surely it must make her father cling to her more closely, so that he would

consent in the end to anything she wanted, or become reconciled the sooner to what she did without his

She took some earth from the flowerbox in the window, and with all her might flung it after that

And a little puff of air came up from Green Street, smelling of petrol, not sweet.

Soames, coming up to the City, with the intention of calling in at Green Street at the end of his day and taking

Fleur back home with him, suffered from rumination. Sleeping partner that he was, he seldom visited the City

now, but he still had a room of his own at Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte's, and one special clerk and a half

assigned to the management of purely Forsyte affairs. They were somewhat in flux just nowan auspicious

moment for the disposal of house property. And Soames was unloading the estates of his father and Uncle

Roger, and to some extent of his Uncle Nicholas. His shrewd and matterofcourse probity in all money

concerns had made him something of an autocrat in connection with these trusts. If Soames thought this or

thought that, one had better save oneself the bother of thinking too. He guaranteed, as it were, irresponsibility

to numerous Forsytes of the third and fourth generations. His fellow trustees, such as his cousins Roger or

Nicholas, his cousinsinlaw Tweetyman and Spender, or his sister Cicely's husband, all trusted him; he

signed first, and where he signed first they signed after, and nobody was a penny the worse. Just now they

were all a good many pennies the better, and Soames was beginning to see the close of certain trusts, except

for distribution of the income from securities as giltedged as was compatible with the period.

Passing the more feverish parts of the City toward the most perfect backwater in London, he ruminated.

Money was extraordinarily tight; and morality extraordinarily loose! The War had done it. Banks were not

lending; people breaking contracts all over the place. There was a feeling in the air and a look on faces that he

did not like. The country seemed in for a spell of gambling and bankruptcies. There was satisfaction in the

thought that neither he nor his trusts had an investment which could be affected by anything less maniacal

than national repudiation or a levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was in what he called "English common

sense"or the power to have things, if not one way then another. He mightlike his father James before

himsay he didn't know what things were coming to, but he never in his heart believed they were. If it

rested with him, they wouldn'tand, after all, he was only an Englishman like any other, so quietly tenacious

of what he had that he knew he would never really part with it without something more or less equivalent in

exchange. His mind was essentially equilibristic in material matters, and his way of putting the national

situation difficult to refute in a world composed of human beings. Take his own case, for example! He was

well off. Did that do anybody harm? He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no more than, perhaps not so

much as, a poor man. He spent no money on vice; breathed no more air, used no more water to speak of than

the mechanic or the porter. He certainly had pretty things about him, but they had given employment in the

making, and somebody must use them. He bought pictures, but Art must be encouraged. He was, in fact, an

accidental channel through which money flowed, employing labour. What was there objectionable in that? In

his charge money was in quicker and more useful flux than it would be in charge of the State and a lot of

slowfly money sucking officials. And as to what he saved each yearit was just as much in flux as what

he didn't save, going into Water Board or Council Stocks, or something sound and useful. The State paid him

no salary for being trustee of his own or other people's money he did all that for nothing. Therein lay the

whole case against nationalisationowners of private property were unpaid, and yet had every incentive to

quicken up the flux. Under nationalisationjust the opposite! In a country smarting from officialism he felt

It particularly annoyed him, entering that backwater of perfect peace, to think that a lot of unscrupulous

Trusts and Combinations had been cornering the market in goods of all kinds, and keeping prices at an

artificial height. Such abusers of the individualistic system were the ruffians who caused all the trouble, and it

was some satisfaction to see them getting into a stew at fast lest the whole thing might come down with a

The offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte occupied the ground and first floors of a house on the

righthand side; and, ascending to his room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of paint.'

His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge bureau with countless pigeonholes.

Halftheclerk stood beside him, with a broker's note recording investment of the proceeds from sale of the

Soames skewered the document on to a number of other papers and hung up his hat.

Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out two drafts from the bottom lefthand drawer.

Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to the stout brindled yard dog they had

been wont to keep on his chain at The Shelter, till one day Fleur had come and insisted it should be let loose,

so that it had at once bitten the cook and been destroyed. If you let Gradman off his chain, would he bite the

Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage Settlement. He had not looked at it for over

eighteen years, not since he remade his Will when his father died and Fleur was born. He wanted to see

whether the words "during coverture" were in. Yes, they wereodd expression, when you thought of it, and

derived perhaps from horsebreeding! Interest on fifteen thousand pounds (which he paid her without

deducting income tax) so long as she remained his wife, and afterward during widowhood "dum

casta"old fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to insure the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will

made it up to an annuity of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned the copies to

Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung the chair, restored the papers to their drawer, and went

"Gradman! I don't like the condition of the country; there are a lot of people about without any common

sense. I want to find a way by which I can safeguard Miss Fleur against anything which might arise."

"Suppose those Labour fellows come in, or worse! It's these people with fixed ideas who are the danger.

"Suppose I were to make a settlement on her at once with myself as beneficiary for life, they couldn't take

"That's not the point. Draw a form of settlement that passes all my property to Miss Fleur's children in equal

shares, with antecedent lifeinterests first to myself and then to her without power of anticipation, and add a

clause that in the event of anything happening to divert her lifeinterest, that interest passes to the trustees, to

Gradman wrote on a piece of paper: "Lifeinterestanticipation divert interestabsolute discretion...."

"Yes, he might do for one. I must have three. There isn't a Forsyte now who appeals to me."

A smile oozed out on Gradman's face, greasy from countless mutton chops, the smile of a man who sits all

"Well, put him in; but I want somebody who'll take a personal interest. There's no one that I can see."

"Weell," murmured Gradman, "he's been dead seven yearsthe Statute runs against him."

"No," said Soames. "I don't like the connection." He rose. Gradman said suddenly:

"If they were makin' a levy on capital, they could come on the trustees, sir. So there you'd be just the same.

"That's true," said Soames. "I will. What have you done about that dilapidation notice in Vere Street?"

"I 'aven't served it yet. The party's very old. She won't want to go out at her age."

"Better serve it," said Soames, "and see what she says. Oh! and Mr. Timothy? Is everything in order in case

"I've got the inventory of his estate all ready; had the furniture and pictures valued so that we know what

reserves to put on. I shall be sorry when he goes, though. Dear me! It is a time since I first saw Mr. Timothy!"

"Nao," said Gradman; "but it'll be a pitythe last of the old family! Shall I take up the matter of that

Soames went out, musing: "Old Gradman! If he were younger I'd put him in the trust. There's nobody I can

Leaving the bilious and mathematical exactitude, the preposterous peace of that backwater, he thought

suddenly: 'During coverture! Why can't they exclude fellows like Profond, instead of a lot of hard working

Germans?' and was surprised at the depth of uneasiness which could provoke so unpatriotic a thought. But

there it was! One never got a moment of real peace. There was always something at the back of everything!

Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring in his swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his

bureau, and putting into his waistcoat pocket a bunch of keys so fat that they gave him a protuberance on the

liver side, brushed his old top hat round with his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended. Thick, short, and

buttoned closely into his old frock coat, he walked toward Covent Garden market. He never missed that daily

promenade to the Tube for Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on the way in connection with

vegetables and fruit. Generations might be born, and hats might change, wars be fought, and Forsytes fade

away, but Thomas Gradman, faithful and grey, would take his daily walk and buy his daily vegetable. Times

were not what they were, and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave him those nice little plaited baskets

to carry the stuff in now, and these Tubes were convenient thingsstill he mustn't complain; his health was

good considering his time of life, and after fiftyfour years in the Law he was getting a round eight hundred a

year and a little worried of late, because it was mostly collector's commission on the rents, and with all this

conversion of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying up, and the price of living still so high; but it

was no good worrying" The good God made us all"as he was in the habit of saying; still, house property

in Londonhe didn't know what Mr. Roger or Mr. James would say if they could see it being sold like

thisseemed to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soameshe worried. Life and lives in being and twentyone

years afterbeyond that you couldn't go; still, he kept his health wonderfullyand Miss Fleur was a pretty

little thingshe was; she'd marry; but lots of people had no children nowadayshe had had his first child at

twentytwo; and Mr. Jolyon, married while he was at Cambridge, had his child the same year gracious

Peter! That was back in '69, a long time before old Mr. Jolyonfine judge of propertyhad taken his Will

away from Mr. Jamesdear, yes! Those were the days when they were buyin' property right and left, and

none of this khaki and fallin' over one another to get out of things; and cucumbers at twopence; and a

melonthe old melons, that made your mouth water! Fifty years since he went into Mr. James' office, and

Mr. James had said to him: "Now, Gradman, you're only a shaveryou pay attention, and you'll make your

five hundred a year before you've done." And he had, and feared God, and served the Forsytes, and kept a

vegetable diet at night. And, buying a copy of Jobn Bullnot that he approved of it, an extravagant

affairhe entered the Tube elevator with his mere brownpaper parcel, and was borne down into the bowels

On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to go into Dumetrius' in Suffolk Street about

the possibility of the Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the war to have the Bolderby

Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby had died, his son and grandson had been killeda cousin was

coming into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because of the condition of England, others said

If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out

whether Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He therefore confined himself to discussing

with Dumetrius whether Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a picture to be

anything except a picture; and the future of Johns, with a sideslip into Buxton Knights. It was only when

leaving that he added: "So they're not selling the Bolderby Old Crome, after all? "In sheer pride of racial

The flutter of his eyelid fortified Soames in a resolution to write direct to the new Bolderby, suggesting that

the only dignified way of dealing with an Old Crome was to avoid dealers. He therefore said, "Well,

At Green Street he found that Fleur was out and would be all the evening; she was staying one more night in

He reached his house about six o'clock. The air was heavy, midges biting, thunder about. Taking his letters he

An uninteresting post. A receipt, a bill for purchases on behalf of Fleur. A circular about an exhibition of

That would be an appeal or something unpleasant. He looked at once for the signature. There was none!

Incredulously he turned the page over and examined each corner. Not being a public man, Soames had never

yet had an anonymous letter, and his first impulse was to tear it up, as a dangerous thing; his second to read

"SIR, "I feel it my duty to inform you that having no interest in the matter your lady is carrying on with a

Reaching that word Soames stopped mechanically and examined the postmark. So far as he could pierce the

impenetrable disguise in which the Post Office had wrapped it, there was something with a "sea" at the end

"These foreigners are all the same. Sack the lot. This one meets your lady twice a week. I know it of my own

knowledgeand to see an Englishman put on goes against the grain. You watch it and see if what I say isn't

true. I shouldn't meddle if it wasn't a dirty foreigner that's in it. Yours obedient."

The sensation with which Soames dropped the letter was similar to that he would have had entering his

bedroom and finding it full of blackbeetles. The meanness of anonymity gave a shuddering obscenity to the

moment. And the worst of it was that this shadow had been at the back of his mind ever since the Sunday

evening when Fleur had pointed down at Prosper Profond strolling on the lawn, and said: "Prowling cat!"

Had he not in connection therewith, this very day, perused his Will and Marriage Settlement? And now this

anonymous ruffian, with nothing to gain, apparently, save the venting of his spite against foreigners, had

wrenched it out of the obscurity in which he had hoped and wished it would remain. To have such knowledge

forced on him, at his time of life, about Fleur's mother I He picked the letter up from the carpet, tore it across,

and then, when it hung together by just the fold at the back, stopped tearing, and reread it. He was taking at

that moment one of the decisive resolutions of his life. He would not be forced into another scandal. No!

However he decided to deal with this matterand it required the most farsighted and careful consideration

he would do nothing that might injure Fleur. That resolution taken, his mind answered the helm again, and he

made his ablutions. His hands trembled as he dried them. Scandal he would not have, but something must be

done to stop this sort of thing! He went into his wife's room and stood looking around him. The idea of

searching for anything which would incriminate, and entitle him to hold a menace over her, did not even

come to him. There would be nothingshe was much too practical. The idea of having her watched had been

dismissed before it cametoo well he remembered his previous experience of that. No! He had nothing but

this tornup letter from some anonymous ruffian, whose impudent intrusion into his private life he so

violently resented. It was repugnant to him to make use of it, but he might have to. What a mercy Fleur was

Michael Mont in flannels stood on the verandah smoking a cigarette. He threw it away as Soames came up,

Soames' feeling toward this young man was singular. He was no doubt a rackety, irresponsible young fellow

according to old standards, yet somehow likeable, with his extraordinarily cheerful way of blurting out his

"I thought Fleur would have been back, sir; but I'm glad she isn't. The fact is, II'm fearfully gone on her; so

fearfully gone that I thought you'd better know. It's oldfashioned, of course, coming to fathers first, but I

thought you'd forgive that. I went to my own Dad, and he says if I settle down he'll see me through. He rather

"You see," resumed Mont, twiddling his straw hat, while his hair, ears, eyebrows, all seemed to stand up from

"Oh! no, sir. We're awfully old nowadays. My Dad seems to me a perfect babe; his thinking apparatus hasn't

Young Mont said imploringly: "Oh! no, sir. I simply must hang around, or I shouldn't have a dog's chance.

"You don't really bar me, do you?" and the young man looked so doleful that Soames smiled.

"You may think you're very old," he said; "but you strike me as extremely young. To rattle ahead of

"All right, sir; I give you our age. But to show you I mean businessI've got a job."

Soames put his hand over his mouthhe had so very nearly said: "God help the publisher!" His grey eyes

"I don't dislike you, Mr. Mont, but Fleur is everything to me: Everythingdo you understand?"

"That's as may be. I'm glad you've told me, however. And now I think there's nothing more to be said."

"No," said Soames, "my experience of life has not made me anxious to couple people in a hurry. Goodnight,

"Oh!" murmured Mont blankly; "I really could knock my brains out for want of her. She knows that perfectly

"I dare say." And Soames held out his hand. A distracted squeeze, a heavy sigh, and soon after sounds from

'The younger generation!' he thought heavily, and went out on to the lawn. The gardeners had been mowing,

and there was still the smell of freshcut grassthe thundery air kept all scents close to earth. The sky was

of a purplish huethe poplars black. Two or three boats passed on the river, scuttling, as it were, for shelter

before the storm. 'Three days' fine weather,' thought Soames, 'and then a storm!' Where was Annette? With

that chap, for all he knewshe was a young woman! Impressed with the queer charity of that thought, he

entered the summerhouse and sat down. The fact wasand he admitted itFleur was so much to him that

his wife was very littlevery little; Frenchhad never been much more than a mistress, and he was getting

indifferent to that side of things! It was odd how, with all this ingrained care for moderation and secure

investment, Soames ever put his emotional eggs into one basket. First Irenenow Fleur. He was dimly

conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal

once, but nownow it should save him! He cared so much for Fleur that he would have no further scandal.

If only he could get at that anonymous letterwriter, he would teach him not to meddle and stir up mud at the

bottom of water which he wished should remain stagnant!... A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops of

rain spattered on the thatch above him. He remained indifferent, tracing a pattern with his finger on the dusty

surface of a little rustic table. Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at

my time of life.' A lonely businesslife! What you had you never could keep to yourself! As you warned

one off, you let another in. One could make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose

from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and droppedNature was a queer thing! The

thunder rumbled and crashed, travelling east along a river, the paling flashes flicked his eyes; the poplar tops

showed sharp and dense against the sky, a heavy shower rustled and rattled and veiled in the little house

When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the wet path to the river bank.

Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the birds well, and stood watching the dignity

in the curve of those white necks and formidable snakelike heads. 'Not dignifiedwhat I have to do!' he

thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse befell. Annette must be back by now from wherever she had

gone, for it was nearly dinnertime, and as the moment for seeing her approached, the difficulty of knowing

what to say and how to say it had increased. A new and scaring thought occurred to him. Suppose she wanted

her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The

image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced

that momentary scare. 'He had better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented! But what

did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the

worldunmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from

him: "Je m'en fiche! "A fatalistic chap! A continentala cosmopolitana product of the age! If there were

The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some distance of their own. One of them

uttered a little hiss, wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam away. The other followed.

Their white bodies, their stately necks, passed out of his sight, and he went toward the house.

Annette was in the drawingroom, dressed for dinner, and he thought as he went upstairs 'Handsome is as

handsome does.' Handsome! Except for remarks about the curtains in the drawingroom, and the storm, there

was practically no conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of quantity and perfection of

quality. Soames drank nothing. He followed her into the drawingroom afterward, and found her smoking a

cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows. She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black

frock, with her knees crossed and her blue eyes halfclosed; greyblue smoke issued from her red, rather full

lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes with very high heels

showing off her instep. A fine piece in any room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep into

He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream panelled wall close by.

What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his lifeexcept Fleurand Fleur not

always! His heart beat fast. But if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David Cox, he

"It's torn, but you can read it." And he turned back to the David Coxa seapiece, of good tonebut

without movement enough. 'I wonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll astonish him

yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side

under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyes. She dropped the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled,

"I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should not ask. It is dangerous."

"Do you remember," he said, halting in front of her, "what you were when I married you? Working at

Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back to the David Cox.

"I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up this friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it

"No, Soames," she said. "You are helpless. Do not say things that you will regret."

Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to vent that emotion, and could not. Annette

Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by this woman who had deserved he did not

"When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they had better be quiet about each other. There

are things one does not drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be quiet, then; not for my sake

for your own. You are getting old; I am not, yet. You have made me verry practical"

Soames, who had passed through all the sensations of being choked, repeated dully:

"I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it is true; but I am not a bad woman. I am

"Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of me as you want; and you wish the rest

of me to be dead. I admit nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you had better be

quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal; none. Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do."

She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the

tumult of his feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her, and this was a revelation of

their relationship, startling to one little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another word he

went out and up to the picturegallery. This came of marrying a Frenchwoman! And yet, without her there

'She's right,' he thought; 'I can do nothing. I don't even know that there's anything in it.' The instinct of

selfpreservation warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with want of air. Unless one

That night he went into her room. She received him in the most matteroffact way, as if there had been no

scene between them. And he returned to his own room with a curious sense of peace. If one didn't choose to

see, one needn't. And he did not choosein future he did not choose. There was nothing to be gained by

itnothing! Opening the drawer he took from the sachet a handkerchief, and the framed photograph of

Fleur. When he had looked at it a little he slipped it down, and there was that other onethat old one of

Irene. An owl hooted while he stood in his window gazing at it. The owl hooted, the red climbing roses

seemed to deepen in colour, there came a scent of limeblossom. God! That had been a different thing!

One who was a sculptor, a Slav, a sometime resident in New York, an egoist, and impecunious, was to be

found of an evening in June Forsyte's studio on the bank of the Thames at Chiswick. On the evening of July

6, Boris Strumolowskiseveral of whose works were on show there because they were as yet too advanced

to be on show anywhere elsehad begun well, with that aloof and rather Christlike silence which

admirably suited his youthful, round, broad cheekboned countenance framed in bright hair banged like a

girl's. June had known him three weeks, and he still seemed to her the principal embodiment of genius, and

hope of the future; a sort of Star of the East which had strayed into an unappreciative West. Until that evening

he had conversationally confined himself to recording his impressions of the United States, whose dust he

had just shaken from off his feeta country, in his opinion, so barbarous in every way that he had sold

practically nothing there, and become an object of suspicion to the police; a country, as he said, without a

race of its own, without liberty, equality, or fraternity, without principles, traditions, taste, withoutin a

worda soul. He had left it for his own good, and come to the only other country where he could live well.

June had dwelt unhappily on him in her lonely moments, standing before his creationsfrightening, but

powerful and symbolic once they had been explained! That he, haloed by bright hair like an early Italian

painting, and absorbed in his genius to the exclusion of all elsethe only sign of course by which real genius

could be toldshould still be a "lame duck" agitated her warm heart almost to the exclusion of Paul Post.

And she had begun to take steps to clear her Gallery, in order to fill it with Strumolowski masterpieces. She

had at once encountered trouble. Paul Post had kicked; Vospovitch had stung. With all the emphasis of a

genius which she did not as yet deny them, they had demanded another six weeks at least of her Gallery. The

American stream, still flowing in, would soon be flowing out. The American stream was their right, their

only hope, their salvationsince nobody in this "beastly" country cared for Art. June had yielded to the

demonstration. After all Boris would not mind their having the full benefit of an American stream, which he

This evening she had put that to Boris with nobody else present, except Hannah Hobdey, the mediaeval

blackandwhitist, and Jimmy Portugal, editor of the NeoArtist. She had put it to him with that sudden

confidence which continual contact with the neoartistic world had never been able to dry up in her warm

and generous nature. He had not broken his Christlike silence, however, for more than two minutes before

she began to move her blue eyes from side to side, as a cat moves its tail. Thishe saidwas characteristic

of England, the most selfish country in the world; the country which sucked the blood of other countries;

destroyed the brains and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians, Boers, and Burmese, all the best races in the

world; bullying, hypocritical England! This was what he had expected, coming to, such a country, where the

climate was all fog, and the people all tradesmen perfectly blind to Art, and sunk in profiteering and the

grossest materialism. Conscious that Hannah Hobdey was murmuring, "Hear, hear!" and Jimmy Portugal

The remark was so singularly at variance with all she had led him to expect from her, that Strumolowski

But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset; old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it

were, from bed. "You come and sponge on us," she said, "and then abuse us. If you think that's playing the

She now discovered that which others had discovered before herthe thickness of hide beneath which the

sensibility of genius is sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face became the incarnation

"Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owinga tenth part of what is owing. You will repent to

"Ah! We know very well, we artistsyou take us to get what you can out of us. I want nothing from

Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame within her. "Very well, then, you can take

And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare.

Young Strumolowski shook his head violently; his hair, thick, smooth, close as a golden plate, did not fall

"I can live on nothing," he said shrilly; "I have often had to for the sake of my Art. It is you bourgeois who

The words hit June like a pebble, in the ribs. After all she had done for Art, all her identification with its

troubles and lame ducks. She was struggling for adequate words when the door was opened, and her Austrian

With a glance at Boris Strumolowski, at Hannah Hobdey, at Jimmy Portugal, June said nothing, and went

out, devoid of equanimity. Entering the "little mealroom," she perceived the young lady to be

Fleurlooking very pretty, if pale. At this disenchanted moment a little lame duck of her own breed was

The girl must have come, of course, because of Jon; or, if not, at least to get something out of her. And June

"Yes. What a jolly little duck of a house! But please don't let me bother you, if you've got people."

"Not at all," said June. "I want to let them stew in their own juice for a bit. Have you come about Jon?"

They were standing one on each side of the little bare table at which June took her meals. A vase on it was

full of Iceland poppies; the girl raised her hand and touched them with a gloved finger. To her newfangled

dress, frilly about the hips and tight below the knees, June took a sudden likinga charming colour,

'She makes a picture,' thought June. Her little room, with its whitewashed walls, its floor and hearth of old

pink brick, its black paint, and latticed window athwart which the last of the sunlight was shining, had never

looked so charming, set off by this young figure, with the creamy, slightly frowning face. She remembered

with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked in those old days when her heart was set on Philip

Bosinney, that dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene's allegiance to this girl's father.

"I suppose you're right," she muttered. "I know my father thinks so; butI should never have done it myself.

Fleur shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have known it,' thought June; 'she's Soames' daughterfish! And

"Could I see Jon here tomorrow on his way down to Holly's? He'd come if you sent him a line tonight.

And perhaps afterward you'd let them know quietly at Robin Hill that it's all over, and that they needn't tell

"All right!" said June abruptly. "I'll write now, and you can post it. Halfpast two tomorrow. I shan't be in,

She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she looked round with the finished note Fleur

June licked a stamp. "Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky."

'Coldblooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her father, to love, and not to be loved by the

"Goodbye!... Little piece of fashion!" muttered June, closing the door. "That family!" And she marched

back toward her studio. Boris Strumolowski had regained his Christlike silence and Jimmy Portugal was

damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf he ran the NeoArtist. Among the condemned were

Eric Cobbley, and several other "lameduck" genii who at one time or another had held first place in the

repertoire of June's aid and adoration. She experienced a sense of futility and disgust, and went to the window

But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with Hannah Hobdey, she sat down and mothered

young Strumolowski for half an hour, promising him a month, at least, of the American stream; so that he

went away with his halo in perfect order. 'In spite of all,' June thought, 'Boris is wonderful'

To know that your hand is against every one's isfor some natures to experience a sense of moral release.

Fleur felt no remorse when she left June's house. Reading condemnatory resentment in her little kinswoman's

blue eyesshe was glad that she had fooled her, despising June because that elderly idealist had not seen what

End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only just beginning. And she smiled to herself

on the top of the bus which carried her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed out by spasms of

anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to manage Jon? She had taken the bit between her teeth, but

could she make him take it too? She knew the truth and the real danger of delayhe knew neither; therein

'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?' This hideous luck had no right to spoil their

love; he must see that! They could not let it! People always accepted an accomplished fact in time! From that

piece of philosophyprofound enough at her age she passed to another consideration less philosophic. If

she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage, and he found out afterward that she had known the truth.

What then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better to tell him? But the memory of his

mother's face kept intruding on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him; more power

perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It was too great a risk. Deep sunk in these instinctive calculations

she was carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She got down there, and walked back on the

Green Park side. The storm had washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to her frills, and to

avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of the Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur

Profond with a tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she heard her name called, and

saw "that prowler" coming up. He took off his hata glossy "bowler" such as she particularly detested.

Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to convey that he was breaking with her mother.

"Goodnight, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I'm not so bad really. Goodnight!" Fleur left him

standing there with his hat raised. Stealing a look round, she saw him strollimmaculate and heavyback

Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and unrested, and went at once to the study of

Whitaker's Almanac. A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation. She might

conquer Jon's prejudice, but without exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would

happen. >From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each be twenty one; or some one's consent

would be necessary, which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions concerning

licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming finally to the word "perjury." But that was nonsense! Who

would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and

went back to Whitaker. The more she studied the less sure she became; till, idly turning the pages, she came

to Scotland. People could be married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go and stay there

twentyone days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could declare themselves married.

And what was morethey would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran over her schoolfellows.

She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She

well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away

together for a weekend and then say to their people: "We are married by Nature, we must now be married by

Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when

he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could

not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland.

More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on

to Kew Gardens. She found no peace among its flowerbeds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and

having lunched off anchovypaste sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June's bell. The

Austrian admitted her to the "little mealroom." Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her

longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they

had tried to take from her as a child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like

dying of privation. By hook or crook she must and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung

over the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes;

little shudders kept passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and, stealing to the window, saw

him standing on the doorstep smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue the fluttering of

She was sitting on one of the two rushseated chairs, with her back to the door, when he came in, and she

"But" stammered Jon, "at Robin Hillit was all smoothand they've said nothing to me."

"But," said Jon eagerly, "I can't see how they can feel like that after all these years."

Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely two months ago, when she first saw

"We're utterly dependentby putting money pressure, and all sorts of other pressure. I'm not patient, Jon."

"You can't really love me, or you wouldn't hesitate. 'He either fears his fate too much!'"

Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again. She hurried on:

"I've planned it all out. We've only to go to Scotland. When we're married they'll soon come round. People

So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! "All right, then; let me go!"

She could see that he was seething with feelings he wanted to express; but she did not mean to help him. She

hated herself at this moment and almost hated him. Why had she to do all the work to secure their love? It

It was the pointblank question she had dreaded. She looked straight at him, and answered: "No." She had

burnt her boats; but what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And throwing her arms round

his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She was winning! She felt it in the beating of his heart against her, in the

closing of his eyes. "I want to make sure! I want to make sure!" she whispered. "Promise!"

Jon did not answer. His face had the stillness of extreme trouble. At last he said:

"Oh! Very well!" And suddenly she burst into tears of disappointment, shame, and overstrain. Followed five

minutes of acute misery. Jon's remorse and tenderness knew no bounds; but he did not promise. Despite her

will to cry, "Very well, then, if you don't love me enoughgoodbye!" she dared not. From birth accustomed

to her own way, this check from one so young, so tender, so devoted, baffled and surprised her. She wanted

to push him away from her, to try what anger and coldness would do, and again she dared not. The

knowledge that she was scheming to rush him blindfold into the irrevocable weakened

everythingweakened the sincerity of pique, and the sincerity of passion; even her kisses had not the lure

She went stealthily, mopping her gushed, stained cheeks, frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred

Jon up so fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the more uncertain and hazardous the

future, the more "the will to have" worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heartlike some burrowing tick!

No one was at Green Street. Winifred had gone with Imogen to see a play which some said was allegorical,

and others "very exciting, don't you know." It was because of what others said that Winifred and Imogen had

gone. Fleur went on to Paddington. Through the carriage the air from the brickkilns of West Drayton and

the late hayfields fanned her still gushed cheeks. Flowers had seemed to be had for the picking; now they

were all thorned and prickled. But the golden flower within the crown of spikes seemed to her tenacious spirit

On reaching home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it penetrated even the perplexed aura of her

own private life. Her mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father contemplating fate in

the vinery. Neither of them had a word to throw to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because of

"By the way," murmured Fleur, "Monsieur Profond is going a 'small' voyage on his yacht, to the South Seas."

"This vine's a failure," he said. "I've had young Mont here. He asked me something about you."

She avoided looking at him while she said that, but she saw him well enough. His pale face had reddened, his

eyebrows, where darkness was still mingled with the grey, had come close together.

"Yesif you want to knowand much good it did me." He moved away, along by the hotwater pipes.

It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came from his anxiety that she should not know of

that old wound to his pride. But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm wince as if struck, to hear

"I've tried to forget," he said suddenly; "I don't wish to be reminded." And then, as if venting some long and

secret irritation, he added: "In these days people don't understand. Grand passion, indeed! No one knows

He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They stood staring at each other in the steamy heat,

redolent of the mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming along fast.

Soames kicked at the hotwater pipe. The hapless movement touched her, who had no fear of her

"Must!" repeated Soames. "You don't know what you're talking of. Has that boy been told?"

He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the

"It's most distasteful to me," he said suddenly; "nothing could be more so. Son of that fellow!

She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say "son of that woman," and again her intuition began

"They would be." He resumed his contemplation of the pipejoint, and then said suddenly:

She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving him still looking at the pipejoint. She

wandered into the fruitgarden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without impetus to pick and eat.

Two months agoshe was lighthearted! Even two days ago lighthearted, before Prosper Profond told

her. Now she felt tangled in a webof passions, vested rights, oppressions and revolts, the ties of love and

hate. At this dark moment of discouragement there seemed, even to her holdfast nature, no way out. How

deal with it how sway and bend things to her will, and get her heart's desire? And, suddenly, round the

corner of the high box hedge, she came plump on her mother, walking swiftly, with an open letter in her

hand. Her bosom was heaving, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur thought: 'The yacht! Poor

Her motherso selfpossessed, and commonsensicalto look and speak like this! It was all frightening!

Her father, her mother, herself! And only two months back they had seemed to have everything they wanted

Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must ignore the sight.

'It's cruel,' thought Fleur, 'and I was glad! That man! What do men come prowling for, disturbing everything!

I suppose he's tired of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What business!' And at that

She ought, of course, to be delighted, but what was there to be delighted at? Her father didn't really care! Her

mother did, perhaps? She entered the orchard, and sat down under a cherrytree. A breeze sighed in the

higher boughs; the sky seen through their green was very blue and very white in cloudthose heavy white

clouds almost always present in river landscape. Bees, sheltering out of the wind, hummed softly, and over

the lush grass fell the thick shade from those fruittrees planted by her father fiveandtwenty, years ago.

Birds were almost silent, the cuckoos had ceased to sing, but woodpigeons were cooing. The breath and

drone and cooing of high summer were not for long a sedative to her excited nerves. Crouched over her knees

she began to scheme. Her father must be made to back her up. Why should he mind so long as she was

happy? She had not lived for nearly nineteen years without knowing that her future was all he really cared

about. She had, then, only to convince him that her future could not be happy without Jon. He thought it a

mad fancy. How foolish the old were, thinking they could tell what the young felt! Had not he confessed that

hewhen younghad loved with a grand passion? He ought to understand! 'He piles up his money for me,'

she thought; 'but what's the use, if I'm not going to be happy?' Money, and all it bought, did not bring

happiness. Love only brought that. The oxeyed daisies in this orchard, which gave it such a moony look

sometimes, grew wild and happy, and had their hour. 'They oughtn't to have called me Fleur,' she mused, 'if

they didn't mean me to have my hour, and be happy while it lasts.' Nothing real stood in the way, like

poverty, or diseasesentiment only, a ghost from the unhappy past! Jon was right. They wouldn't let you

live, these old people! They made mistakes, committed crimes, and wanted their children to go on paying!

The breeze died away; midges began to bite. She got up, plucked a piece of honeysuckle, and went in.

It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin, pale low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale.

Fleur was struck with the pale look of everything; her father's face, her mother's shoulders; the pale panelled

walls, the pale grey velvety carpet, the lamp shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of

colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one drank it. What was not pale was blackher

father's clothes, the butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the window, the curtains black

with a cream pattern. A moth came in, and that was pale. And silent was that halfmourning dinner in the

She sat down beside him at the table, and, unpinning the pale honeysuckle, put it to her nose.

"It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for it. I don't know if you understand how much you

are to me I've never spoken of it, I didn't think it necessary; butbut you're everything. Your mother" he

"I've only you to look to. I've never hadnever wanted anything else, since you were born."

"You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for you. You're mistaken. I'm helpless."

"Quite apart from my own feelings," went on Soames with more resolution, "those two are not amenable to

anything I can say. They they hate me, as people always hate those whom they have injured." "But

"He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to her what you mean to me. It's a deadlock."

Soames leaned back, the image of pale patience, as if resolved on the betrayal of no emotion.

"Listen!" he said. "You're putting the feelings of two monthstwo monthsagainst the feelings of

thirtyfive years! What chance do you think you have? Two monthsyour very first love affair, a matter of

half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks, a few kisses against, against what you can't imagine, what no

one could who hasn't been through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! It's midsummer madness!"

Soames raised his hand to his forehead, where suddenly she saw moisture shining.

"Whose child are you?" he said. "Whose child is he? The present is linked with the past, the future with both.

She had never heard philosophy pass those lips before. Impressed even in her agitation, she leaned her elbows

"But, Father, consider it practically. We want each other. There's ever so much money, and nothing whatever

"I don't suppose," said Soames, "that if left to myself I should try to prevent you; I must put up with things, I

know, to keep your affection. But it's not I who control this matter. That's what I want you to realise before

it's too late. If you go on thinking you can get your way and encourage this feeling, the blow will be much

Soames made a startled movement of negation. "I?" he said bitterly. "Help? I am the impedimentthe just

"Well, the fat's in the fire. If you persist in your wilfulness you'll have yourself to blame. Come! Don't be

All was in such turmoil within her. But no good to show it! No good at all! She broke away from him, and

went out into the twilight, distraught, but unconvinced. All was indeterminate and vague within her, like the

shapes and shadows in the garden, excepther will to have. A poplar pierced up into the darkblue sky and

touched a white star there. The dew wetted her shoes, and chilled her bare shoulders. She went down to the

river bank, and stood gazing at a moonstreak on the darkening water. Suddenly she smelled tobacco smoke,

and a white figure emerged as if created by the moon. It was young Mont in flannels, standing in his boat.

"Fleur," came his voice, "don't be hard on a poor devil! I've been waiting hours."

"Fleur," said Mont, and his voice sounded strange, "don't mock me! Even vivisected dogs are worth decent

"I don't want to talk rot," he said, "but please imagine all the rot that all the lovers that ever were have talked,

"Thank you, I have imagined it. Goodnight!" They stood for a moment facing each other in the shadow of

an acaciatree with very moonlit blossoms, and the smoke from their cigarettes mingled in the air between

"Also ran: 'Michael Mont'?" he said. Fleur turned abruptly toward the house. On the lawn she stopped to look

back. Michael Mont was whirling his arms above him; she could see them dashing at his head; then waving at

the moonlit blossoms of the acacia. His voice just reached her. "Jollyjolly!" Fleur shook herself. She

couldn't help him, she had too much trouble of her own! On the verandah she stopped very suddenly again.

Her mother was sitting in the drawing room at her writing bureau, quite alone. There was nothing

remarkable in the expression of her face except its utter immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went

upstairs. At the door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up and down, up and down

When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin woman with a dark face and the concerned

expression of one who has watched every little good that life once had slip from her, one by one. "No tea?"

Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him! And with a heavy sense of disproportion he

She brought in a little pot of tea with two little cups, and a silver box of cigarettes on a little tray.

"Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugarshe buy my sugar, my friend's sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree

"Very young brother," said the Austrian, with a little anxious smile, which reminded him of the wag of a

"Your father a very nice old manthe most nice old man I ever see. Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he

"I like to see him again," said the Austrian, putting a hand on her heart; "he have veree kind heart."

"He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my story; he so sympatisch. Your mothershe

Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and her reminding words, was like the first

He put a tenshilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp,

and hurried out. He had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria looked at every face that

passed, as lovers will, hoping against hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local train, and

set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat,

he could enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and again to sprawl on the grass, admire the

perfection of a wild rose or listen to a lark's song. But the war of motives within him was but postponedthe

longing for Fleur, and the hatred of deception. He came to the old chalkpit above Wansdon with his mind no

more made up than when he started. To see both sides of a question vigorously was at once Jon's strength and

weakness. He tramped in, just as the first dinnerbell rang. His things had already been brought up. He had a

hurried bath and came down to find Holly aloneVal had gone to Town and would not be back till the last

Since Val's advice to him to ask his sister what was the matter between the two families, so much had

happenedFleur's disclosure in the Green Park, her visit to Robin Hill, today's meetingthat there seemed

nothing to ask. He talked of Spain, his sunstroke, Val's horses, their father's health. Holly startled him by

saying that she thought their father not at all well. She had been twice to Robin Hill for the weekend. He

had seemed fearfully languid, sometimes even in pain, but had always refused to talk about himself.

"He's never interfered, and he's always seemed to understand. I shall never forget his letting me go to South

Holly put down the spoon she was using, and raised her eyes. Her stare was circumspect. What did the boy

know? Enough to make it better to tell him? She could not decide. He looked strained and worried, altogether

"There was something," she said. "Of course we were out there, and got no news of anything." She could not

It was not her secret. Besides, she was in the dark about his feelings now. Before Spain she had made sure he

was in love; but boys were boys; that was seven weeks ago, and all Spain between.

His face told her, then, more than the most elaborate explanations. So he had not forgotten!

She said very quietly: "Fleur is awfully attractive, Jon, but you knowVal and I don't really like her very

"'Having'? I don't know what you mean. Sheshe" he pushed his dessert plate away, got up, and went to

"Don't be angry, Jon dear. We can't all see people in the same light, can we? You know, I believe each of us

only has about one or two people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it out. For you I think it's your

mother. I once saw her looking at a letter of yours; it was wonderful to see her face. I think she's the most

Jon's face softened; then again became tense. Everybodyeverybody was against him and Fleur! It all

Here, where he had passed that wonderful week with herthe tug of her enchantment, the ache in his heart

increased with every minute that she was not there to make the room, the garden, the very air magical. Would

he ever be able to live down here, not seeing her? And he closed up utterly, going early to bed. It would not

make him healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it closeted him with memory of Fleur in her fancy frock. He heard

Val's arrivalthe Ford discharging cargo, then the stillness of the summer night stole backwith only the

bleating of very distant sheep, and a nightJar's harsh purring. He leaned far out. Cold moonwarm

airthe Downs like silver! Small wings, a stream bubbling, the rambler roses! Godhow empty all of it

without her! In the Bible it was written: Thou shalt leave father and mother and cleave toFleur!

Let him have pluck, and go and tell them! They couldn't stop him marrying herthey wouldn't want to stop

The nightjar ceased, the sheep were silent; the only sound in the darkness was the bubbling of the stream.

On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery began the second anniversary of the resurrection

of England's pride and glory or, more shortly, the top hat. " Lord's"that festival which the War had

driven from the fieldraised its light and dark blue flags for the second time, displaying almost every feature

of a glorious past. Here, in the luncheon interval, were all species of female and one species of male hat,

protecting the multiple types of face associated with "the classes." The observing Forsyte might discern in the

free or unconsidered seats a certain number of the squash hatted, but they hardly ventured on the grass; the

old schoolor schoolscould still rejoice that the proletariat was not yet paying the necessary halfcrown.

Here was still a close borough, the only one left on a large scalefor the papers were about to estimate the

attendance at ten thousand. And the ten thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking each other one

question: "Where are you lunching?" Something wonderfully uplifting and reassuring in that query and the

sight of so many people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power in the British realmenough

pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon mayonnaise, strawberries, and bottles of champagne to feed the lot! No

miracle in prospectno case of seven loaves and a few fishesfaith rested on surer foundations. Six

thousand top hats, four thousand parasols would be doffed and furled, ten thousand mouths all speaking the

same English would be filled. There was life in the old dog yet! Tradition! And again Tradition! How strong

and how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey, Trades Unions take toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but

the ten thousand would be fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon green turf, wear their top hats, and

meetthemselves. The heart was sound, the pulse still regular. Eton! Eton! Harrooow!

Among the many Forsytes, present on a huntingground theirs, by personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was

Soames with his wife and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no interest in cricket, but he

wanted Fleur to show her frock, and he wanted to wear his top hat parade it again in peace and plenty among

his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he

could see. They could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their good looks; the modern

woman had no build, no chest, no anything! He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had

walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage. And how they used to lunch on the drag which

his mother would make his father have, because it was so "chic"all drags and carriages in those days, not

these lumbering great Stands! And how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed that

people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for it there used to be. He remembered George

Forsyte whose brothers Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton towering up on the top of the

drag waving a lightblue flag with one hand and a darkblue flag with the other, and shouting "Etroow

Harrton!" Just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always been; and Eustace got up to the

nines below, too dandified to wear any colour or take any notice. H'm! Old days, and Irene in grey silk shot

with palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur's face. Rather colourlessno light, no eagerness! That love

affair was preying on hera bad business! He looked beyond, at his wife's face, rather more touched up than

usual, a little disdainfulnot that she had any business to disdain, so far as he could see. She was taking

Profond's defection with curious quietude; or was his "small" voyage just a blind? If so, he should refuse to

see it! Having promenaded round the pitch and in front of the pavilion, they sought Winifred's table in the

Bedouin Club tent. This Cluba new "cock and hen"had been founded in the interests of travel, and of a

gentleman with an old Scottish name, whose father had somewhat strangely been called Levi. Winifred had

joined, not because she had travelled, but because instinct told her that a Club with such a name and such a

founder was bound to go far; if one didn't join at once one might never have the chance. Its tent, with a text

from the Koran on an orange ground, and a small green camel embroidered over the entrance, was the most

striking on the ground. Outside it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark blue tie (he had once played for

Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show how that fellow ought to have hit that ball. He piloted them in.

Assembled in Winifred's corner were Imogen, Benedict with his young wife, Val Dartie without Holly, Maud

Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife's face! Whether that fellow were coming or not, she

evidently knew all about it. It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If Annette didn't

respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur's! The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack

Cardigan talking about "midoff." He cited all the "great midoffs" from the beginning of time, as if they had

been a definite racial entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had finished his lobster, and was

beginning on pigeonpie, when he heard the words, "I'm a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie," and saw that there was

no longer any empty place. That fellow was sitting between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on,

with an occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around him. He heard the voice of

"I think you're mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I'llI'll bet Miss Forsyde agrees with me."

"I was sayin', young gurls are much the same as they always were there's very small difference."

That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved uneasily on his thin green chair.

"Well, I don't know, I think they want their own small way, and I think they always did."

"Oh, butProsper,"Winifred interjected comfortably, "the girls in the streetsthe girls who've been in

munitions, the little flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in the eye."

At the word "hit" Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in the silence Monsieur Profond said:

"Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they've got more opportunity."

The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's

"What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don't you think human nature's always the same?"

Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He heard his wife reply:

"Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else." That was her confounded mockery!

"Well, I don't know much about this small country"'No, thank God!' thought Soames"but I should say

the pot was boilin' under the lid everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did."

When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames

knew perfectly that Annette and that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur was with Val; she had

chosen him, no doubt, because he knew that boy. He himself had Winifred for partner. They walked in the

bright, circling stream, a little flushed and sated, for some minutes, till Winifred sighed:

Before the eyes of her spirit an interminable procession of her own "Lord's" frocks was passing, paid for with

the money of her father, to save a recurrent crisis. "It's been very amusing, after all. Sometimes I even wish

"Precious little style. The thing began to go to pieces with bicycles and motorcars; the War has finished it."

"I wonder what's coming?" said Winifred in a voice dreamy from pigeonpie. "I'm not at all sure we shan't go

"There's money, but no faith in things. We don't lay by for the future. These youngstersit's all a short life

"There's a hat!" said Winifred. "I don't knowwhen you come to think of the people killed and all that in the

War, it's rather wonderful, I think. There's no other countryProsper says the rest are all bankrupt, except

"Don't turn your head," she said in a low voice, "but look to your right in the front row of the Stand."

Soames looked as best he could under that limitation. A man in a grey top hat, greybearded, with thin

brown, folded cheeks, and a certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a lawn coloured frock,

whose dark eyes were fixed on himself. Soames looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one after

"Jolyon looks very ill; but he always had style. She doesn't change except her hair."

"The little wretch," murmured Winifred. "She tried to take me in about that. What shall you do, Soames?"

"Really," said Winifred suddenly; "it almost seems like Fate. Only that's so oldfashioned. Look! there are

"Hallo, Soames!" he said. "Just met Profond and your wife. You'll catch 'em if you put on pace. Did you ever

"I never did," said Soames. "Where's your seat? I shall go to mine. Fleur may be back there."

Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious of small, white, distant figures running, the

click of the bat, the cheers and countercheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You could expect nothing of

women nowadays! They had the vote. They were "emancipated," and much good it was doing them! So

Winifred would go back, would she, and put up with Dartie all over again? To have the past once moreto

be sitting here as he had sat in '83 and '84, before he was certain that his marriage with Irene had gone all

wrong, before her antagonism had become so glaring that with the best will in the world he could not

overlook it. The sight of her with that fellow had brought all memory back. Even now he could not

understand why she had been so impracticable. She could love other men; she had it in her! To himself, the

one person she ought to have loved, she had chosen to refuse her heart. It seemed to him, fantastically, as he

looked back, that all this modern relaxation of marriagethough its forms and laws were the same as when

he married herthat all this modern looseness had come out of her revolt; it seemed to him, fantastically,

that she had started it, till all decent ownership of anything had gone, or was on the point of going. All came

from her! And nowa pretty state of things! Homes! How could you have them without mutual ownership?

Not that he had ever had a real home! But had that been his fault? He had done his best. And his rewards

And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer! They must find their own way back to the

"Drive me to the Bayswater Road." His old aunts had never failed him. To them he had meant an

"Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a great deal. Only this morning he was saying:

'My brother James, he's getting old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will talk of them. He

troubles about their investments. The other day he said: 'There's my brother Jolyon won't look at

Consols'he seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's such a pleasant change!"

"No," murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the singular freshness of the outside day, "we haven't

been very satisfied with him, not all this week. He's always been one to leave a titbit to the end; but ever since

Monday he's been eating it first. If you notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats the meat first. We've

always thought it such a good sign of Mr. Timothy at his age to leave it to the last, but now he seems to have

lost all his self control; and, of course, it makes him leave the rest. The doctor doesn't make anything of it,

but"Smither shook her head"he seems to think he's got to eat it first, in case he shouldn't get to it. That

"I shouldn't like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned against his Will. He gets quite pettishand after

having had it out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the other day: 'They want my money.'

It gave me such a turn, because, as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does seem a pity

he should be thinking about money at his time of life. I took my courage in my 'ands. 'You know, Mr.

Timothy,' I said, 'my dear mistress'that's Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss Ann that trained me'she never

thought about money,' I said, 'it was all character with her.' He looked at me, I can't tell you how funny, and

he said quite dry: 'Nobody wants my character.' Think of his saying a thing like that! But sometimes he'll say

Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hatrack, thinking, 'That's got value!' murmured: "I'll go

"Cook's with him," answered Smither above her corsets; "she will be pleased to see you."

On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened, and he saw the round homely face of a

Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling,

where a fly was standing upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing him.

Timothy's eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing

"Uncle Timothy," he said again, "is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you'd like to say?"

"You" said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived tone, "you tell them all from meyou tell

them all" and his finger tapped on Soames' arm, "to hold onhold onConsols are goin' up," and he

"Yes," said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling, he added: "That fly!"

Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish face, all little puckers from staring at fires.

A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to himself, and Soames went out with the cook.

"I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old days; you did so relish them. Goodbye, sir;

And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went downstairs. Smither was still taking the air in the doorway.

"Yes," said Smither, "I was afraid you'd think that coming fresh out of the world to see him like."

Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their sittingroom, and rang for tea. Neither of them were in.

And again that sense of loneliness came over him. These hotels. What monstrous great places they were now!

He could remember when there was nothing bigger than Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the Tavistock, and

the heads that were shaken over the Langham and the Grand. Hotels and ClubsClubs and Hotels; no end to

them now! And Soames, who had just been watching at Lord's a miracle of tradition and continuity, fell into

reverie over the changes in that London where he had been born fiveandsixty years before. Whether

Consols were going up or not, London had become a terrific property. No such property in the world, unless

it were New York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but any one who, like himself, could

remember London sixty years ago, and see it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth. They had

only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he remembered cobblestones, and stinking straw on the

floor of your cab. And old Timothywhat could be not have told them, if he had kept his memory! Things

were unsettled, people in a funk or in a hurry, but here were London and the Thames, and out there the

British Empire, and the ends of the earth. "Consols are goin' up!" He should n't be a bit surprised. It was the

breed that counted. And all that was bulldogged in Soames stared for a moment out of his grey eyes, till

diverted by the print of a Victorian picture on the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen of that little lot!

The old hunting or "Rake's Progress" prints in the old inns were worth looking atbut this sentimental

stuffwell, Victorianism had gone! "Tell them to hold on!" old Timothy had said. But to what were they to

hold on in this modern welter of the "democratic principle"? Why, even privacy was threatened! And at the

thought that privacy might perish, Soames pushed back his teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no

more of Nature than the crowd out there owned of the flowers and trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, no!

Private possession underlay everything worth having. The world had slipped its sanity a bit, as dogs now and

again at full moon slipped theirs and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the world, like the dog, knew where

its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and would come back sure enough to the only home worth

havingto private ownership. The world was in its second childhood for the moment, like old

Fleur did not answer; she stood for a moment looking at him and her mother, then passed into her bedroom.

Was she really going to her mother? Odd, how indifferent he felt! Odd, how clearly she had perceived the

indifference he would feel so long as there was no scandal. And suddenly between her and himself he saw

Annette put down the cake she was fingering, and, looking up through darkened lashes, said:

"What luck that you have never loved me, Soames!" Then rising, she too left the room. Soames was glad she

had spoken it in Frenchit seemed to require no dealing with. Again that other facepale, darkeyed,

beautiful still! And there stirred far down within him the ghost of warmth, as from sparks lingering beneath a

mound of flaky ash. And Fleur infatuated with her boy! Queer chance! Yet, was there such a thing as chance?

A man went down a street, a brick fell on his head. Ah! that was chance, no doubt. But this! "Inherited," his

Twofold impulse had made Jolyon say to his wife at breakfast "Let's go up to Lord's!"

"Wanted"something to abate the anxiety in which those two had lived during the sixty hours since Jon had

brought Fleur down. "Wanted" too, that which might assuage the pangs of memory in one who knew he

Fiftyeight years ago Jolyon had become an Eton boy, for old Jolyon's whim had been that he should be

canonised at the greatest possible expense. Year after year he had gone to Lord's from Stanhope Gate with a

father whose youth in the eighteentwenties had been passed without polish in the game of cricket. Old

Jolyon would speak quite openly of swipes, full tosses, half and threequarter balls; and young Jolyon with

the guileless snobbery of youth had trembled lest his sire should be overheard. Only in this supreme matter of

cricket he had been nervous, for his fatherin Crimean whiskers thenhad ever impressed him as the beau

ideal. Though never canonised himself, Old Jolyon's natural fastidiousness and balance had saved him from

the errors of the vulgar. How delicious, after howling in a top hat and a sweltering heat, to go home with his

father in a hansom cab, bathe, dress, and forth to the "Disunion" Club, to dine off white bait, cutlets, and a

tart, and gotwo "swells," old and young, in lavender kid glovesto the opera or play. And on Sunday,

when the match was over, and his top hat duly broken, down with his father in a special hansom to the

"Crown and Sceptre," and the terrace above the riverthe golden sixties when the world was simple, dandies

glamorous, Democracy not born, and the books of Whyte Melville coming thick and fast.

A generation later, with his own boy, Jolly, Harrowbuttonholed with cornflowersby old Jolyon's whim

his grandson had been canonised at a trifle less expenseagain Jolyon had experienced the heat and

counterpassions of the day, and come back to the cool and the strawberry beds of Robin Hill, and billiards

after dinner, his boy making the most heartbreaking flukes and trying to seem languid and grownup. Those

two days each year he and his son had been alone together in the world, one on each sideand Democracy

And so, he had unearthed a grey top hat, borrowed a tiny bit of lightblue ribbon from Irene, and gingerly,

keeping cool, by car and train and taxi, had reached Lord's Ground. There, beside her in a lawncoloured

frock with narrow black edges, he had watched the game, and felt the old thrill stir within him.

When Soames passed, the day was spoiled. Irene's face was distorted by compression of the lips. No good to

go on sitting here with Soames or perhaps his daughter recurring in front of them, like decimals. And he said:

That evening Jolyon felt exhausted. Not wanting her to see him thus, he waited till she had begun to play, and

stole off to the little study. He opened the long window for air, and the door, that he might still hear her music

drifting in; and, settled in his father's old armchair, closed his eyes, with his head against the worn brown

leather. Like that passage of the Cesar Franck Sonataso had been his life with her, a divine third

movement. And now this business of Jon'sthis bad business! Drifted to the edge of consciousness, he

hardly knew if it were in sleep that he smelled the scent of a cigar, and seemed to see his father in the

blackness before his closed eyes. That shape formed, went, and formed again; as if in the very chair where he

himself was sitting, he saw his father, blackcoated, with. knees crossed, glasses balanced between thumb

and finger; saw the big white moustaches, and the deep eyes looking up below a dome of forehead and

seeming to search his own, seeming to speak. "Are you facing it, Jo? It's for you to decide. She's only a

woman!" Ah! how well he knew his father in that phrase; how all the Victorian Age came up with it! And his

answer "No, I've funked itfunked hurting her and Jon and myself. I've got a heart; I've funked it." But the

old eyes, so much older, so much younger than his own, kept at it; "It's your wife, your son; your past. Tackle

it, my boy!" Was it a message from walking spirit; or but the instinct of his sire living on within him? And

again came that scent of cigar smokefrom the old saturated leather. Well! he would tackle it, write to Jon,

and put the whole thing down in black and white! And suddenly he breathed with difficulty, with a sense of

suffocation, as if his heart were swollen. He got up and went out into the air. The stars were very bright. He

passed along the terrace round the corner of the house, till, through the window of the musicroom, he could

see Irene at the piano, with lamplight falling on her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself she seemed, her

dark eyes staring straight before her, her hands idle. Jolyon saw her raise those hands and clasp them over her

breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out of herit's natural!'

Next day, after a bad night, he sat down to his task. He wrote with difficulty and many erasures.

"You are old enough to understand how very difficult it is for elders to give themselves away to their young.

Especially whenlike your mother and myself, though I shall never think of her as anything but

youngtheir hearts are altogether set on him to whom they must confess. I cannot say we are conscious of

having sinned exactly people in real life very seldom are, I believebut most persons would say we had,

and at all events our conduct, righteous or not, has found us out. The truth is, my dear, we both have pasts,

which it is now my task to make known to you, because they so grievously and deeply affect your future.

Many, very many years ago, as far back indeed as 1883, when she was only twenty, your mother had the

great and lasting misfortune to make an unhappy marriageno, not with me, Jon. Without money of her

own, and with only a stepmother closely related to Jezebelshe was very unhappy in her home life. It

was Fleur's father that she married, my cousin Soames Forsyte. He had pursued her very tenaciously and to

do him justice was deeply in love with her. Within a week she knew the fearful mistake she had made. It was

So far Jolyon had kept some semblance of irony, but now his subject carried him away.

"Jon, I want to explain to you if I canand it's very hardhow it is that an unhappy marriage such as this

can so easily come about. You will of course say: 'If she didn't really love him how could she ever have

married him?' You would be right if it were not for one or two rather terrible considerations. From this initial

mistake of hers all the subsequent trouble, sorrow, and tragedy have come, and so I must make it clear to you

if I can. You see, Jon, in those days and even to this dayindeed, I don't see, for all the talk of

enlightenment, how it can well be otherwisemost girls are married ignorant of the sexual side of life. Even

if they know what it means they have not experienced it. That's the crux. It is this actual lack of experience,

whatever verbal knowledge they have, which makes all the difference and all the trouble. In a vast number of

marriagesand your mother's was onegirls are not and cannot be certain whether they love the man they

marry or not; they do not know until after that act of union which makes the reality of marriage. Now, in

many, perhaps in most doubtful cases, this act cements and strengthens the attachment, but in other cases, and

your mother's was one, it is a revelation of mistake, a destruction of such attraction as there was. There is

nothing more tragic in a woman's life than such a revelation, growing daily, nightly clearer. Coarsegrained

and unthinking people are apt to laugh at such a mistake, and say, 'What a fuss about nothing!' Narrow and

self righteous people, only capable of judging the lives of others by their own, are apt to condemn those

who make this tragic error, to condemn them for life to the dungeons they have made for themselves. You

know the expression: 'She has made her bed, she must lie on it!' It is a hardmouthed saying, quite unworthy

of a gentleman or lady in the best sense of those words; and I can use no stronger condemnation. I have not

been what is called a moral man, but I wish to use no words to you, my dear, which will make you think

lightly of ties or contracts into which you enter. Heaven forbid! But with the experience of a life behind me I

do say that those who condemn the victims of these tragic mistakes, condemn them and hold out no hands to

help them, are inhuman, or rather they would be if they had the understanding to know what they are doing.

But they haven't! Let them go! They are as much anathema to me as I, no doubt, am to them. I have had to

say all this, because I am going to put you into a position to judge your mother, and you are very young,

without experience of what life is. To go on with the story. After three years of effort to subdue her

shrinkingI was going to say her loathing and it's not too strong a word, for shrinking soon becomes

loathing under such circumstancesthree years of what to a sensitive, beautyloving nature like your

mother's, Jon, was torment, she met a young man who fell in love with her. He was the architect of this very

house that we live in now, he was building it for her and Fleur's father to live in, a new prison to hold her, in

place of the one she inhabited with him in London. Perhaps that fact played some part in what came of it. But

in any case she, too, fell in love with him. I know it's not necessary to explain to you that one does not

precisely choose with whom one will fall in love. It comes. Very well! It came. I can imaginethough she

never said much to me about itthe struggle that then took place in her, because, Jon, she was brought up

strictly and was not light in her ideasnot at all. However, this was an overwhelming feeling, and it came to

pass that they loved in deed as well as in thought. Then came a fearful tragedy. I must tell you of it because if

I don't you will never understand the real situation that you have now to face. The man whom she had

marriedSoames Forsyte, the father of Fleur one night, at the height of her passion for this young man,

forcibly reasserted his rights over her. The next day she met her lover and told him of it. Whether he

committed suicide or whether he was accidentally run over in his distraction, we never knew; but so it was.

Think of your mother as she was that evening when she heard of his death. I happened to see her. Your

grandfather sent me to help her if I could. I only just saw her, before the door was shut against me by her

husband. But I have never forgotten her face, I can see it now. I was not in love with her then, not for twelve

years after, but I have never for gotten. My dear boyit is not easy to write like this. But you see, I must.

Your mother is wrapped up in you, utterly, devotedly. I don't wish to write harshly of Soames Forsyte. I don't

think harshly of him. I have long been sorry for him; perhaps I was sorry even then. As the world judges she

was in error, he within his rights. He loved herin his way. She was his property. That is the view he holds

of lifeof human feelings and heartsproperty. It's not his faultso was he born. To me it is a view that

has always been abhorrentso was I born! Knowing you as I do, I feel it cannot be otherwise than abhorrent

to you. Let me go on with the story. Your mother fled from his house that night; for twelve years she lived

quietly alone without companionship of any sort, until in 1899 her husbandyou see, he was still her

husband, for he did not attempt to divorce her, and she of course had no right to divorce himbecame

conscious, it seems, of the want of children, and commenced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him

and give him a child. I was her trustee then, under your Grandfather's Will, and I watched this going on.

While watching, I became attached to her, devotedly attached. His pressure increased, till one day she came

to me here and practically put herself under my protection. Her husband, who was kept informed of all her

movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a divorce suit, or possibly he really meant it, I don't

know; but anyway our names were publicly joined. That decided us, and we became united in fact. She was

divorced, married me, and you were born. We have lived in perfect happiness, at least I have, and I believe

your mother also. Soames, soon after the divorce, married Fleur's mother, and she was born. That is the story,

Jon. I have told it you, because by the affection which we see you have formed for this man's daughter you

are blindly moving toward what must utterly destroy your mother's happiness, if not your own. I don't wish to

speak of myself, because at my age there's no use supposing I shall cumber the ground much longer, besides,

what I should suffer would be mainly on her account, and on yours. But what I want you to realise is that

feelings of horror and aversion such as those can never be buried or forgotten. They are alive in her today.

Only yesterday at Lord's we happened to see Soames Forsyte. Her face, if you had seen it, would have

convinced you. The idea that you should marry his daughter is a nightmare to her, Jon. I have nothing to say

against Fleur save that she is his daughter. But your children, if you married her, would be the grandchildren

of Soames, as much as of your mother, of a man who once owned your mother as a man might own a slave.

Think what that would mean. By such a marriage you enter the camp which held your mother prisoner and

wherein she ate her heart out. You are just on the threshold of life, you have only known this girl two months,

and however deeply you think you love her, I appeal to you to break it off at once. Don't give your mother

this rankling pain and humiliation during the rest of her life. Young though she will always seem to me, she is

fiftyseven. Except for us two she has no one in the world. She will soon have only you. Pluck up your spirit,

Jon, and break away. Don't put this cloud and barrier between you. Don't break her heart! Bless you, my dear

boy, and again forgive me for all the pain this letter must bring youwe tried to spare it you, but Spainit

Having finished his confession, Jolyon sat with a thin cheek on his hand, rereading. There were things in it

which hurt him so much, when he thought of Jon reading them, that he nearly tore the letter up. To speak of

such things at all to a boyhis own boyto speak of them in relation to his own wife and the boy's own

mother, seemed dreadful to the reticence of his Forsyte soul. And yet without speaking of them how make

Jon understand the reality, the deep cleavage, the ineffaceable scar? Without them, how justify this stiffing of

He folded the confession, and put it in his pocket. It wasthank Heaven!Saturday; he had till Sunday

evening to think it over; for even if posted now it could not reach Jon till Monday. He felt a curious relief at

In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery, he could see Irene snipping and pruning,

with a little basket on her arm. She was never idle, it seemed to him, and he envied her now that he himself

was idle nearly all his time. He went down to her. She held up a stained glove and smiled. A piece of lace tied

under her chin concealed her hair, and her oval face with its still dark brows looked very young.

Jolyon took the confession from his pocket. "I've been writing this. I think you ought to see it?"

He gave it to her, and walked away among the roses. Presently, seeing that she had finished reading and was

standing quite still with the sheets of the letter against her skirt, he came back to her.

"It's wonderfully put. I don't see how it could be put better. Thank you, dear."

He had the feeling that he hated it more than sheto him sex was so much easier to mention between man

and woman than between man and man; and she had always been more natural and frank, not deeply

"I wonder if he will understand, even now, Jolyon? He's so young; and he shrinks from the physical."

"He gets that shrinking from my father, he was as fastidious as a girl in all such matters. Would it be better to

She raised her face to his, and in sight of the big house's many creepered windows, he kissed her.

Late that same afternoon, Jolyon had a nap in the old armchair. Face down on his knee was La Rotisserie de

la Refine Pedauque, and just before he fell asleep he had been thinking: 'As a people shall we ever really like

the French? Will they ever really like us!' He himself had always liked the French, feeling at home with their

wit, their taste, their cooking. Irene and he had paid many visits to France before the War, when Jon had been

at his private school. His romance with her had begun in Parishis last and most enduring romance. But the

Frenchno Englishman could like them who could not see them in some sort with the detached aesthetic

When he woke he saw Jon standing between him and the window. The boy had evidently come in from the

garden and was waiting for him to wake. Jolyon smiled, still half asleep. How nice the chap looked

sensitive, affectionate, straight! Then his heart gave a nasty jump; and a quaking sensation overcame him.

Jon! That confession! He controlled himself with an effort. "Why, Jon, where did you spring from?"

With all his might Jolyon tried to get the better of the jumping, gurgling sensations within his chest.

"No." The boy's flushed look gave place to pallor; he sat down on the arm of the old chair, as, in old days,

Jolyon himself used to sit beside his own father, installed in its recesses. Right up to the time of the rupture in

their relations he had been wont to perch therehad he now reached such a moment with his own son? All

his life he had hated scenes like poison, avoided rows, gone on his own way quietly and let others go on

theirs. But nowit seemedat the very end of things, he had a scene before him more painful than any he

had avoided. He drew a visor down over his emotion, and waited for his son to speak.

"I know that you and Mother don't like the idea. Fleur says that Mother was engaged to her father before you

married her. Of course I don't know what happened, but it must be ages ago. I'm devoted to her, Dad, and she

"You are nineteen, Jon, and I am seventytwo. How are we to understand each other in a matter like this,

"You love Mother, Dad; you must know what we feel. It isn't fair to us to let old things spoil our happiness, is

Brought face to face with his confession, Jolyon resolved to do without it if by any means he could. He laid

"Look, Jon! I might put you off with talk about your both being too young and not knowing your own minds,

and all that, but you wouldn't listen, besides, it doesn't meet the caseYouth, unfortunately, cures itself. You

talk lightly about 'old things like that,' knowing nothingas you say trulyof what happened. Now, have I

At a less anxious moment he might have been amused by the conflict his words arousedthe boy's eager

clasp, to reassure him on these points, the dread on his face of what that reassurance would bring forth; but he

"Very well, you can believe what I tell you. If you don't give up this love affair, you will make Mother

wretched to the end of her days. Believe me, my dear, the past, whatever it was, can't be buriedit can't

'The girl'thought Jolyon'there she goesstarting up before him life itselfeager, pretty, loving!'

"Jon, if you knew the story you would give this up without hesitation; you would have to! Can't you believe

"How can you tell what I should think? Father, I love her better than anything in the world."

>From the boy's face, and his clenched fists Jolyon realised the stress and struggle he was going through.

"I don't know," he burst out, "I don't know! But to give Fleur up for nothingfor something I don't

understand, for something that I don't believe can really matter half so much, will make memake me"

"Make you feel us unjust, put a barrieryes. But that's better than going on with this."

"I can't. Fleur loves me, and I love her. You want me to trust you; why don't you trust me, Father? We

wouldn't want to know anything we wouldn't let it make any difference. It'll only make us both love you

Jolyon put his hand into his breast pocket, but brought it out again empty, and sat, clucking his tongue against

"Think what your mother's been to you, Jon! She has nothing but you; I shan't last much longer."

"Well," said Jolyon, rather coldly, "because the doctors tell me I shan't; that's all."

This downbreak of his son, whom he had not seen cry since he was ten, moved Jolyon terribly. He recognised

to the full how fearfully soft the boy's heart was, how much he would suffer in this business, and in life

generally. And he reached out his hand helplesslynot wishing, indeed not daring to get up.

'By the way, don't speak of that to Mother," he said; "she has enough to frighten her with this affair of yours.

I know how you feel. But, Jon, you know her and me well enough to be sure we wouldn't wish to spoil your

happiness lightly. Why, my dear boy, we don't care for anything but your happinessat least, with me it's

just yours and Mother's and with her just yours. It's all the future for you both that's at stake."

Jon turned. His face was deadly pale; his eyes, deep in his head, seemed to burn.

Jolyon, who knew that he was beaten, thrust his hand again into his breast pocket, and sat for a full minute,

breathing with difficulty, his eyes closed. The thought passed through his mind: 'I've had a good long

inningssome pretty bitter momentsthis is the worst!' Then he brought his hand out with the letter, and

said with a sort of fatigue: "Well, Jon, if you hadn't come today, I was going to send you this. I wanted to

spare youI wanted to spare your mother and myself, but I see it's no good. Read it, and I think I'll go into

Jolyon sank back in his chair. A bluebottle chose that moment to come buzzing round him with a sort of

fury; the sound was homely, better than nothing.... Where had the boy gone to read his letter? The wretched

letterthe wretched story! A cruel businesscruel to herto Soamesto those two childrento

himself!... His heart thumped and pained him. Lifeits lovesits workits beautyits aching, andits

end! A good time; a fine time in spite of all; untilyou regretted that you had ever been born. Lifeit wore

you down, yet did not make you want to diethat was the cunning evil! Mistake to have a heart! Again the

bluebottle came buzzing bringing in all the heat and hum and scent of summeryes, even the scentas

of ripe fruits, dried grasses, sappy shrubs, and the vanilla breath of cows. And out there somewhere in the

fragrance Jon would be reading that letter, turning and twisting its pages in his trouble, his bewilderment and

troublebreaking his heart about it! The thought made Jolyon acutely miserable. Jon was such a tender

hearted chap, affectionate to his bones, and conscientious, tooit was so unfair, so damned unfair! He

remembered Irene saying to him once: "Never was any one born more loving and lovable than Jon." Poor

little Jon! His world gone up the spout, all of a summer afternoon! Youth took things so hard! And stirred,

tormented by that vision of Youth taking things hard, Jolyon got out of his chair, and went to the window.

The boy was nowhere visible. And he passed out. If one could take any help to him nowone must!

He traversed the shrubbery, glanced into the walled gardenno Jon! Nor where the peaches and the apricots

were beginning to swell and colour. He passed the Cupressus trees, dark and spiral, into the meadow. Where

had the boy got to? Had he rushed down to the coppicehis old huntingground? Jolyon crossed the rows of

hay. They would cock it on Monday and be carrying the day after, if rain held off. Often they had crossed this

field togetherhand in hand, when Jon was a little chap. Dash it! The golden age was over by the time one

was ten! He came to the pond, where flies and gnats were dancing over a bright reedy surface; and on into the

coppice. It was cool there, fragrant of larches. Still no Jon! He called. No answer! On the log seat he sat

down, nervous, anxious, forgetting his own physical sensations. He had been wrong to let the boy get away

with that letter; he ought to have kept him under his eye from the start! Greatly troubled, he got up to retrace

his steps. At the farmbuildings he called again, and looked into the dark cowhouse. There in the cool, and

the scent of vanilla and ammonia, away from flies, the three Alderneys were chewing the quiet cud; just

milked, waiting for evening, to be turned out again into the lower field. One turned a lazy head, a lustrous

eye; Jolyon could see the slobber on its grey lower lip. He saw everything with passionate clearness, in the

agitation of his nervesall that in his time he had adored and tried to paintwonder of light and shade and

colour. No wonder the legend put Christ into a mangerwhat more devotional than the eyes and

moonwhite horns of a chewing cow in the warm dusk! He called again. No answer! And he hurried away

out of the coppice, past the pond, up the hill. Oddly ironicalnow he came to think of itif Jon had taken

the gruel of his discovery down in the coppice where his mother and Bosinney in those old days had made the

plunge of acknowledging their love. Where he himself, on the log seat the Sunday morning he came back

from Paris, had realised to the full that Irene had become the world to him. That would have been the place

for Irony to tear the veil from before the eyes of Irene's boy! But he was not here! Where had he got to? One

A gleam of sun had come, sharpening to his hurrying senses all the beauty of the afternoon, of the tall trees

and lengthening shadows, of the blue, and the white clouds, the scent of the hay, and the cooing of the

pigeons; and the flower shapes standing tall. He came to the rosery, and the beauty of the roses in that sudden

sunlight seemed to him unearthly. "Rose, you Spaniard!" Wonderful three words! There she had stood by that

bush of dark red roses; had stood to read and decide that Jon must know it all! He knew all now! Had she

chosen wrong? He bent and sniffed a rose, its petals brushed his nose and trembling lips; nothing so soft as a

roseleaf's velvet, except her neckIrene! On across the lawn he went, up the slope, to the oaktree. Its top

alone was glistening, for the sudden sun was away over the house; the lower shade was thick, blessedly

coolhe was greatly overheated. He paused a minute with his hand on the rope of the swingJolly,

HollyJon! The old swing! And suddenly, he felt horriblydeadly ill. 'I've over done it!' he thought: 'by

Jove! I've overdone itafter all!' He staggered up toward the terrace, dragged himself up the steps, and fell

against the wall of the house. He leaned there gasping, his face buried in the honey suckle that he and she

had taken such trouble with that it might sweeten the air which drifted in. Its fragrance mingled with awful

pain. 'My love!' he thought; 'the boy!' And with a great effort he tottered in through the long window, and

sank into old Jolyon's chair. The book was there, a pencil in it; he caught it up, scribbled a word on the open

When Jon rushed away with the letter in his hand, he ran along the terrace and round the corner of the house,

in fear and confusion. Leaning against the creepered wall he tore open the letter. It was longvery long!

This added to his fear, and he began reading. When he came to the words: "It was Fleur's father that she

married," everything seemed to spin before him. He was close to a window, and entering by it, he passed,

through musicroom and hall, up to his bedroom. Dipping his face in cold water, he sat on his bed, and went

on reading, dropping each finished page on the bed beside him. His father's writing was easy to readhe

knew it so well, though he had never had a letter from him one quarter so long. He read with a dull

feelingimagination only half at work. He best grasped, on that first reading, the pain his father must have

had in writing such a letter. He let the last sheet fall, and in a sort of mental, moral helplessness began to read

the first again. It all seemed to him disgustingdead and disgusting. Then, suddenly, a hot wave of horrified

emotion tingled through him. He buried his face in his hands. His mother! Fleur's father! He took up the letter

again, and read on mechanically. And again came the feeling that it was all dead and disgusting; his own love

Property! Could there be men who looked on women as their property? Faces seen in street and countryside

came thronging up before him red, stockfish faces; hard, dull faces; prim, dry faces; violent faces;

hundreds, thousands of them! How could he know what men who had such faces thought and did? He held

his head in his hands and groaned. His mother! He caught up the letter and read on again: "horror and

aversionalive in her today.... your children.... grandchildren.... of a man who once owned your mother as a

man might own a slave...." He got up from his bed. This cruel shadowy past, lurking there to murder his love

and Fleur's, was true, or his father could never have written it. 'Why didn't they tell me the first thing,' he

thought, 'the day I first saw Fleur? They knew "I'd seen her. They were afraid, andnowI'vegot it!'

Overcome by misery too acute for thought or reason, he crept into a dusky corner of the room and sat down

on the floor. He sat there, like some unhappy little animal. There was comfort in dusk, and the flooras if he

were back in those days when he played his battles sprawling all over it. He sat there huddled, his hair

ruffled, his hands clasped round his knees, for how long he did not know. He was wrenched from his blank

wretchedness by the sound of the door opening from his mother's room. The blinds were down over the

windows of his room, shut up in his absence, and from where he sat he could only hear a rustle, her footsteps

crossing, till beyond the bed he saw her standing before his dressingtable. She had something in her hand.

He hardly breathed, hoping she would not see him, and go away. He saw her touch things on the table as if

they had some virtue in them, then face the windowgrey from head to foot like a ghost. The least turn of her

head, and she must see him! Her lips moved: "Oh! Jon!" She was speaking to herself; the tone of her voice

troubled Jon's heart. He saw in her hand a little photograph. She held it toward the light, looking at itvery

small. He knew itone of himself as a tiny boy, which she always kept in her bag. His heart beat fast. And,

suddenly as if she had heard it, she turned her eyes and saw him. At the gasp she gave, and the movement of

She moved over to the bed, and sat down on it, quite close to him, her hands still clasping her breast, her feet

among the sheets of the letter which had slipped to the floor. She saw them, and her hands grasped the edge

of the bed. She sat very upright, her dark eyes fixed on him. At last she spoke.

"It's all right." The emotions in him were so, violent and so mixed that he dared not moveresentment,

despair, and yet a strange yearning for the comfort of her hand on his forehead.

There was another long silence, then she got up. She stood a moment, very still, made a little movement with

her hand, and said: "My darling boy, my most darling boy, don't think of methink of yourself," and,

Jon turnedcurled into a sort of ball, as might a hedgehoginto the corner made by the two walls.

He must have been twenty minutes there before a cry roused him. It came from the terrace below. He got up,

scared. Again came the cry: "Jon!" His mother was calling! He ran out and down the stairs, through the

empty diningroom into the study. She was kneeling before the old armchair, and his father was lying back

quite white, his head on his breast, one of his hands resting on an open book, with a pencil clutched in

itmore strangely still than anything he had ever seen. She looked round wildly, and said:

Jon flung himself down, and reaching over the arm of the chair, where he had lately been sitting, put his lips

to the forehead. Icy cold! How couldhow could Dad be dead, when only an hour ago! His mother's arms

were round the knees; pressing her breast against them. "Whywhy wasn't I with him?" he heard her

whisper. Then he saw the tottering word "Irene" pencilled on the open page, and broke down himself. It was

his first sight of human death, and its unutterable stillness blotted from him all other emotion; all else, then,

was but preliminary to this! All love and life, and joy, anxiety, and sorrow, all movement, light and beauty,

but a beginning to this terrible white stillness. It made a dreadful mark on him; all seemed suddenly little,

Some hours later, when all was done that had to be, and his mother was lying down, he saw his father alone,

on the bed, covered with a white sheet. He stood for a long time gazing at that face which had never looked

angryalways whimsical, and kind. "To be kind and keep your end upthere's nothing else in it," he had

once heard his father say. How wonderfully Dad had acted up to that philosophy! He understood now that his

father had known for a long time past that this would come suddenlyknown, and not said a word. He gazed

with an awed and passionate reverence. The loneliness of itjust to spare his mother and himself! His own

trouble seemed small while he was looking at that face. The word scribbled on the page! The farewell word!

Now his mother had no one but himself! He went up close to the dead facenot changed at all, and yet

completely changed. He had heard his father say once that he did not believe in consciousness surviving

death, or that if it did it might be just survival till the natural age limit of the body had been reachedthe

natural term of its inherent vitality; so that if the body were broken by accident, excess, violent disease,

consciousness might still persist till, in the course of Nature uninterfered with, it would naturally have faded

out. It had struck him because he had never heard any one else suggest it. When the heart failed like

thissurely it was not quite natural! Perhaps his father's consciousness was in the room with him. Above the

bed hung a picture of his father's father. Perhaps his consciousness, too, was still alive; and his brother'shis

halfbrother, who had died in the Transvaal. Were they all gathered round this bed? Jon kissed the forehead,

and stole back to his own room. The door between it and his mother's was ajar; she had evidently been

ineverything was ready for him, even some biscuits and hot milk, and the letter no longer on the floor. He

ate and drank, watching the last light fade. He did not try to see into the futurejust stared at the dark

branches of the oaktree, level with his window, and felt as if life had stopped. Once in the night, turning in

his heavy sleep, he was conscious of something white and still, beside his bed, and started up.

"It's only I, Jon dear!" Her hand pressed his forehead gently back; her white figure disappeared.

Alone! He fell heavily asleep again, and dreamed he saw his mother's name crawling on his bed.

The announcement in The Times of his cousin Jolyon's death affected Soames quite simply. So that chap was

gone! There had never been a time in their two lives when love had not been lost between them. That

quickblooded sentiment hatred had run its course long since in Soames' heart, and he had refused to allow

any recrudescence, but he considered this early decease a piece of poetic justice. For twenty years the fellow

had enjoyed the reversion of his wife and house, andhe was dead! The obituary notice, which appeared a

little later, paid Jolyonhe thoughttoo much attention. It spoke of that "diligent and agreeable painter

whose work we have come to look on as typical of the best lateVictorian watercolour art." Soames, who

had almost mechanically preferred Mole, Morpin, and Caswell Baye, and had always sniffed quite audibly

when he came to one of his cousin's on the line, turned The Times with a crackle.

He had to go up to Town that morning on Forsyte affairs, and was fully conscious of Gradman's glance

sidelong over his spectacles. The old clerk had about him an aura of regretful congratulation. He smelled, as

it were, of old days. One could almost hear him thinking: "Mr. Jolyon, yeesjust my age, and gonedear,

dear! I dare say she feels it. She was a micelookin' woman. Flesh is flesh! They've given 'im a notice in the

papers. Fancy!" His atmosphere in fact caused Soames to handle certain leases and conversions with

How this death would affect Fleur had begun to trouble Soames. He was not certain that she knew of itshe

He pressed matters on, and made his way to Green Street for lunch. Winifred was almost doleful. Jack

Cardigan had broken a splashboard, so far as one could make out, and would not be "fit" for some time. She

Yes, there it wasimpossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted to know. Letters from Annette were

"Yes," said Winifred. "I'm sorry forfor his children. He was very amiable." Soames uttered a rather queer

sound. A suspicion of the old deep truththat men were judged in this world rather by what they were than

"I should like to have done him justice before," said Soames; "but I never had the chance. Have you got a

"MontSir Lawrence, 9th Bt., cr. 1620, e. s. of Geoffrey, 8th Bt., and Lavinia, daur. of Sir Charles Muskham,

Bt., of Muskham Hall, Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of Conway Charwell, Esq., of Condaford Grange, co.

Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Conway, b. 1895, 2 daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks. Clubs:

"Monty knew one at his Club. He brought him here to dinner once. Monty was always thinking of writing a

book, you know, about how to make money on the turf. He tried to interest that man."

"He put him on to a horsefor the Two Thousand. We didn't see him again. He was rather smart, if I

"Was he?" said Soames. "Can you see any connection between a sucking baronet and publishing?"

"People do all sorts of things nowadays," replied Winifred. "The great stunt seems not to be idleso

different from our time. To do nothing was the thing then. But I suppose it'll come again."

"This young Mont that I'm speaking of is very sweet on Fleur. If it would put an end to that other affair I

"He's no beauty; pleasant enough, with some scattered brains. There's a good deal of land, I believe. He

"No," murmured Winifred; "it'svery difficult. I always found it best to do nothing. It is such a bore about

Jack; now we shan't get away till after Bank Holiday. Well, the people are always amusing, I shall go into the

"If I were you," said Soames, "I should have a country cottage, and be out of the way of holidays and strikes

"The country bores me," answered Winifred, "and I found the railway strike quite exciting."

Soames took his leave. All the way down to Reading he debated whether he should tell Fleur of that boy's

father's death. It did not alter the situation except that he would be independent now, and only have his

mother's opposition to encounter. He would come into a lot of money, no doubt, and perhaps the housethe

house built for Irene and himselfthe house whose architect had wrought his domestic ruin. His

daughtermistress of that house! That would be poetic justice! Soames uttered a little mirthless laugh. He

had designed that house to reestablish his failing union, meant it for the seat of his descendants, if he could

have induced Irene to give him one! Her son and Fleur! Their children would be, in some sort, offspring of

The theatricality in that thought was repulsive to his sober sense. And yetit would be the easiest and

wealthiest way out of the impasse, now that Jolyon was gone. The juncture of two Forsyte fortunes had a kind

of conservative charm. And sheIrenewould be linked to him once more. Nonsense! Absurd! He put the

On arriving home he heard the click of billiardballs, and through the window saw young Mont sprawling

over the table. Fleur, with her cue akimbo, was watching with a smile. How pretty she looked! No wonder

that young fellow was out of his mind about her. A title land! There was little enough in land, these days;

perhaps less in a title. The old Forsytes had always had a kind of contempt for titles, rather remote and

artificial thingsnot worth the money they cost, and having to do with the Court. They had all had that

feeling in differing measureSoames remembered. Swithin, indeed, in his most expansive days had once

attended a Levee. He had come away saying he shouldn't go again"all that small fry." It was suspected that

he had looked too big in kneebreeches. Soames remembered how his own mother had wished to be

presented because of the fashionable nature of the performance, and how his father had put his foot down

with unwonted decision. What did she want with that peacocking wasting time and money; there was

The instinct which had made and kept the English Commons the chief power in the State, a feeling that their

own world was good enough and a little better than any other because it was their world, had kept the old

Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout. Soames'

generation, more selfconscious and ironical, had been saved by a sense of Swithin in kneebreeches. While

the third and the fourth generation, as it seemed to him, laughed at everything.

However, there was no harm in the young fellow's being heir to a title and estatea thing one couldn't help.

He entered quietly, as Mont missed his shot. He noted the young man's eyes, fixed on Fleur bending over in

She paused with the cue poised on the bridge of her slim hand, and shook her crop of short dark chestnut hair.

He sat down on the raised seat beneath the marker, trim and tired, furtively studying those two young faces.

"I've started in, sir. Rum game, business, isn't it? I suppose you saw a lot of human nature as a solicitor."

"Shall I tell you what I've noticed: People are quite on the wrong tack in offering less than they can afford to

"That doesn't matter a little bit," said Mont; "it's much more paying to abate a price than to increase it. For

instance, say we offer an author good termshe naturally takes them. Then we go into it, find we can't

publish at a decent profit and tell him so. He's got confidence in us because we've been generous to him, and

he comes down like a lamb, and bears us no malice. But if we offer him poor terms at the start, he doesn't

take them, so we have to advance them to get him, and he thinks us damned screws into the bargain.

"Try buying pictures on that system," said Soames; "an offer accepted is a contracthaven't you learned

"No," he said, "I wish I had. Then there's another thing. Always let a man off a bargain if he wants to be let

"No, really, sir. I'm making any number of observations, and they all confirm my theory. Human nature is

consistently underrated in business, people do themselves out of an awful lot of pleasure and profit by that.

Of course, you must be perfectly genuine and open, but that's easy if you feel it. The more human and

"You'll see," he said. "There's going to be a big change. The possessive principle has got its shutters up."

Soames watched his daughter give her hand, saw her wince at the squeeze it received, and distinctly heard the

young man's sigh as he passed out. Then she came from the window, trailing her finger along the mahogany

edge of the billiardtable. Watching her, Soames knew that she was going to ask him something. Her finger

In her startled, frowning face he saw the instant struggle to apprehend what this would mean.

Fleur clasped her hands. "Oh! darlingwhen one wants a thing fearfully, one doesn't think of other people.

"I'm cogitating," he said. What on earth had made him use a word like that! "Has young Mont been bothering

Fleur smiled. "Oh! Michael! He's always bothering; but he's such a good sortI don't mind him."

He went up to his picturegallery, lay down on the couch there, and closed his eyes. A terrible responsibility

this girl of hiswhose mother wasah! what was she? A terrible responsibility! Help her how could he

help her? He could not alter the fact that he was her father. Or that Irene! What was it young Mont had

The sultry air, charged with a scent of meadowsweet, of river and roses, closed on his senses, drowsing

The fixed idea," which has outrun more constables than any other form of human disorder, has never more

speed and stamina than when it takes the avid guise of love. To hedges and ditches, and doors, to humans

without ideas fixed or otherwise, to perambulators and the contents sucking their fixed ideas, even to the

other sufferers from this fast maladythe fixed idea of love pays no attention. It runs with eyes turned

inward to its own light, oblivious of all other stars. Those with the fixed ideas that human happiness depends

on their art, on vivisecting dogs, on hating foreigners, on paying supertax, on remaining Ministers, on making

wheels go round, on preventing their neighbours from being divorced, on conscientious objection, Greek

roots, Church dogma, paradox and superiority to everybody else, with other forms of egomaniaall are

unstable compared with him or her whose fixed idea is the possession of some her or him. And though Fleur,

those chilly summer days, pursued the scattered life of a little Forsyte whose frocks are paid for, and whose

business is pleasure, she wasas Winifred would have said in the latest fashion of speech"honest to God"

indifferent to it all. She wished and wished for the moon, which sailed in cold skies above the river or the

Green Park when she went to Town. She even kept Jon's letters, covered with pink silk, on her heart, than

which in days when corsets were so low, sentiment so despised, and chests so out of fashion, there could,

After hearing of his father's death, she wrote to Jon, and received his answer three days later on her return

from a river picnic. It was his first letter since their meeting at June's. She opened it with misgiving, and read

"Since I saw you I've heard everything about the past. I won't tell it youI think you knew when we met at

June's. She says you did. If you did, Fleur, you ought to have told me. I expect you only heard your father's

side of it. I have heard my mother's. It's dreadful. Now that she's so sad I can't do anything to hurt her more.

Of course, I long for you all day, but I don't believe now that we shall ever come togetherthere's something

So! Her deception had found her out. But Jonshe felthad forgiven that. It was what he said of his mother

Her first impulse was to replyher second, not to reply. These impulses were constantly renewed in the days

which followed, while desperation grew within her. She was not her father's child for nothing. The tenacity

which had at once made and undone Soames was her backbone, too, frilled and embroidered by French grace

and quickness. Instinctively she conjugated the verb "to have" always with the pronoun "I." She concealed,

however, all signs of her growing desperation, and pursued such river pleasures as the winds and rain of a

disagreeable July permitted, as if she had no care in the world; nor did any "sucking baronet" ever neglect the

business of a publisher more consistently than her attendant spirit, Michael Mont.

To Soames she was a puzzle. He was almost deceived by this careless gaiety. Almostbecause he did not

fail to mark her eyes often fixed on nothing, and the film of light shining from her bedroom window late at

night. What was she thinking and brooding over into small hours when she ought to have been asleep? But he

dared not ask what was in her mind; and, since that one little talk in the billiard room, she said nothing to

In this taciturn condition of affairs it chanced that Winifred invited them to lunch and to go afterward to "a

most amusing little play, 'The Beggar's Opera"' and would they bring a man to make four? Soames, whose

attitude toward theatres was to go to nothing, accepted, because Fleur's attitude was to go to everything. They

motored up, taking Michael Mont, who, being in his seventh heaven, was found by Winifred "very amusing."

"The Beggar's Opera" puzzled Soames. The people were very unpleasant, the whole thing very cynical.

Winifred was "intrigued "by the dresses. The music, too, did not displease her. At the Opera, the night

before, she had arrived too early for the Russian Ballet, and found the stage occupied by singers, for a whole

hour pale or apoplectic from terror lest by some dreadful inadvertence they might drop into a tune. Michael

Mont was enraptured with the whole thing. And all three wondered what Fleur was thinking of it. But Fleur

was not thinking of it. Her fixed idea stood on the stage and sang with Polly Peachum, mimed with Filch,

danced with Jenny Diver, postured with Lucy Lockit, kissed, trolled, and cuddled with Macheath. Her lips

might smile, her hands applaud, but the comic old masterpiece made no more impression on her than if it had

been pathetic, like a modern "Revue." When they embarked in the car to return, she ached because Jon was

not sitting next her instead of Michael Mont. When, at some jolt, the young man's arm touched hers as if by

accident, she only thought: 'If that were Jon's arm!' When his cheerful voice, tempered by her proximity,

murmured above the sound of the car's progress, she smiled and answered, thinking: 'If that were Jon's voice!'

and when once he said, "Fleur, you look a perfect angel in that dress!" she answered, "Oh, do you like it?

During this drive she took a resolution. She would go to Robin Hill and see himalone; she would take the

car, without word beforehand to him or to her father. It was nine days since his letter, and she could wait no

longer. On Monday she would go! The decision made her well disposed toward young Mont. With something

to look forward to she could afford to tolerate and respond. He might stay to dinner; propose to her as usual;

dance with her, press her hand, sighdo what he liked. He was only a nuisance when he interfered with her

fixed idea. She was even sorry for him so far as it was possible to be sorry for anybody but herself just now.

At dinner he seemed to talk more wildly than usual about what he called "the death of the close

borough"she paid little attention, but her father seemed paying a good deal, with the smile on his face

Fleur shrugged her shouldersthe younger generation was just Jon, and she did not know what he was

"Young people will think as I do when they're my age, Mr. Mont. Human nature doesn't change."

"I admit that, sir; but the forms of thought change with the times. The pursuit of selfinterest is a form of

"Indeed! To mind one's own business is not a form of thought, Mr. Mont, it's an instinct."

"But what is one's business, sir? That's the point. Everybody's business is going to be one's business. Isn't it,

"Well, look at me! I'm heir to an entailed estate. I don't want the thing; I'd cut the entail tomorrow."

"Society is built on marriage," came from between her father's close lips; "marriage and its consequences. Do

Young Mont made a distracted gesture. Silence brooded over the dinner table, covered with spoons bearing

the Forsyte cresta pheasant properunder the electric light in an alabaster globe. And outside, the river

The weeks which followed the death of his father were sad and empty to the only Jolyon Forsyte left. The

necessary forms and ceremonies the reading of the Will, valuation of the estate, distribution of the

legacieswere enacted over the head, as it were, of one not yet of age. Jolyon was cremated. By his special

wish no one attended that ceremony, or wore black for him. The succession of his property, controlled to

some extent by old Jolyon's Will, left his widow in possession of Robin Hill, with two thousand five hundred

pounds a year for life. Apart from this the two Wills worked together in some complicated way to insure that

each of Jolyon's three children should have an equal share in their grandfather's and father's property in the

future as in the present, save only that Jon, by virtue of his sex, would have control of his capital when he was

twentyone, while June and Holly would only have the spirit of theirs, in order that their children might have

the body after them. If they had no children, it would all come to Jon if he outlived them; and since June was

fifty, and Holly nearly forty, it was considered in Lincoln's Inn Fields that but for the cruelty of income tax,

young Jon would be as warm a man as his grandfather when he died. All this was nothing to Jon, and little

enough to his mother. It was June who did everything needful for one who had left his affairs in perfect order.

When she had gone, and those two were alone again in the great house, alone with death drawing them

together, and love driving them apart, Jon passed very painful days secretly disgusted and disappointed with

himself. His mother would look at him with such a patient sadness which yet had in it an instinctive pride, as

if she were reserving her defence. If she smiled he was angry that his answering smile should be so grudging

and unnatural. He did not judge or condemn her; that was all too remoteindeed, the idea of doing so had

never come to him. No! he was grudging and unnatural because he couldn't have what he wanted be cause of

her. There was one alleviationmuch to do in connection with his father's career, which could not be safely

entrusted to June, though she had offered to undertake it. Both Jon and his mother had felt that if she took his

portfolios, unexhibited drawings and unfinished matter, away with her, the work would encounter such icy

blasts from Paul Post and other frequenters of her studio, that it would soon be frozen out even of her warm

heart. On its old fashioned plane and of its kind the work was good, and they could not bear the thought of

its subjection to ridicule. A oneman exhibition of his work was the least testimony they could pay to one

they had loved; and on preparation for this they spent many hours together. Jon came to have a curiously

increased respect for his father. The quiet tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent into

something really individual was disclosed by these researches. There was a great mass of work with a rare

continuity of growth in depth and reach of vision. Nothing certainly went very deep, or reached very

highbut such as the work was, it was thorough, conscientious, and complete. And, remembering his

father's utter absence of "side" or selfassertion, the chaffing humility with which he had always spoken of

his own efforts, ever calling himself "an amateur," Jon could not help feeling that he had never really known

his father. To take himself seriously, yet never bore others by letting them know that he did so, seemed to

have been his ruling principle. There was something in this which appealed to the boy, and made him heartily

endorse his mother's comment: "He had true refinement; he couldn't help thinking of others, whatever he did.

And when he took a resolution which went counter, he did it with the minimum of defiancenot like the

Age, is it? Twice in his life he had to go against everything; and yet it never made him bitter." Jon saw tears

running down her face, which she at once turned away from him. She was so quiet about her loss that

sometimes he had thought she didn't feel it much. Now, as he looked at her, he felt how far he fell short of the

reserve power and dignity in both his father and his mother. And, stealing up to her, he put his arm round her

waist. She kissed him swiftly, but with a sort of passion, and went out of the room.

The studio, where they had been sorting and labelling, had once been Holly's schoolroom, devoted to her

silkworms, dried lavender, music, and other forms of instruction. Now, at the end of July, despite its northern

and eastern aspects, a warm and slumberous air came in between the longfaded lilac linen curtains. To

redeem a little the departed glory, as of a field that is golden and gone, clinging to a room which its master

has left, Irene had placed on the paintstained table a bowl of red roses. This, and Jolyon's favourite cat, who

still clung to the deserted habitat, were the pleasant spots in that dishevelled, sad workroom. Jon, at the north

window, sniffing air mysteriously scented with warm strawberries, heard a car drive up. The lawyers again

about some nonsense! Why did that scent so make one ache? And where did it come fromthere were no

strawberry beds on this side of the house. Instinctively he took a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket,

and wrote down some broken words. A warmth began spreading in his chest; he rubbed the palms of his

"If I could make a little song A little song to soothe my heart! I'd make it all of little things The plash of

water, rub of wings, The puffingoff of dandies crown, The hiss of raindrop spilling down, The purr of cat,

the trill of bird, And ev'ry whispering I've heard >From willy wind in leaves and grass, And all the distant

drones that pass. A song as tender and as light As flower, or butterfly in flight; And when I saw it opening, I'd

He was still muttering it over to himself at the window, when he heard his name called, and, turning round,

saw Fleur. At that amazing apparition, he made at first no movement and no sound, while her clear vivid

glance ravished his heart. Then he went forward to the table, saying, "How nice of you to come!" and saw her

"I asked for you," she said, "and they showed me up here. But I can go away again."

Jon clutched the paintstained table. Her face and figure in its frilly frock photographed itself with such

startling vividness upon his eyes, that if she had sunk through the floor he must still have seen her.

"I didn't answer your letter. What was the usethere wasn't anything to answer. I wanted to see you instead."

She held out both her hands, and Jon grasped them across the table. He tried to say something, but all his

attention was given to trying not to hurt her hands. His own felt so hard and hers so soft. She said almost

She dragged her hands away. "I didn't think in these days boys were tied to their mothers' apronstrings."

"Oh! I didn't mean it, Jon. What a horrible thing to say!" Swiftly she came close to him. "Jon, dear; I didn't

She had put her two hands on his shoulder, and her forehead down on them; the brim of her hat touched his

neck, and he felt it quivering. But, in a sort of paralysis, he made no response. She let go of his shoulder and

"Well, I'll go, if you don't want me. But I never thought you'd have given me up."

Her eyes gleamed, she swayed toward him. "JonI love you! Don't give me up! If you do, I don't know

She clung to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. But while he kissed her he saw, the sheets of that

letter fallen down on the floor of his bedroomhis father's white dead facehis mother kneeling before it.

Fleur's whispered, "Make her! Promise! Oh! Jon, try!" seemed childish in his ear. He felt curiously old.

Again that challenge in his voice, and she did not answer. Her arms tightened round him, and he returned her

kisses; but even while he yielded, the poison worked in him, the poison of the letter. Fleur did not know, she

did not understandshe misjudged his mother; she came from the enemy's camp! So lovely, and he loved

her soyet, even in her embrace, he could not help the memory of Holly's words: "I think she has a 'having'

When she was gone like a passionate dream, leaving her image on his eyes, her kisses on his lips, such an

ache in his heart, Jon leaned in the window, listening to the car bearing her away. Still the scent as of warm

strawberries, still the little summer sounds that should make his song; still all the promise of youth and

happiness in sighing, floating, fluttering Julyand his heart torn; yearning strong in him; hope high in him

yet with its eyes cast down, as if ashamed. The miserable task before him! If Fleur was desperate, so was

hewatching the poplars swaying, the white clouds passing, the sunlight on the grass.

He waited till evening, till after their almost silent dinner, till his mother had played to him and still he

waited, feeling that she knew what he was waiting to say. She kissed him and went upstairs, and still he

lingered, watching the moonlight and the moths, and that unreality of colouring which steals along and stains

a summer night. And he would have given anything to be back again in the pastbarely three months back;

or away forward, years, in the future. The present with this dark cruelty of a decision, one way or the other,

seemed impossible. He realised now so much more keenly what his mother felt than he had at first; as if the

story in that letter had been a poisonous germ producing a kind of fever of partisanship, so that he really felt

there were two camps, his mother's and his Fleur's and her father's. It might be a dead thing, that old tragic

ownership and enmity, but dead things were poisonous till time had cleaned them away. Even his love felt

tainted, less illusioned, more of the earth, and with a treacherous lurking doubt lest Fleur, like her father,

might want to own; not articulate, just a stealing haunt, horribly unworthy, which crept in and about the

ardour of his memories, touched with its tarnishing breath the vividness and grace of that charmed face and

figurea doubt, not real enough to convince him of its presence, just real enough to deflower a perfect faith.

And perfect faith, to Jon, not yet twenty, was essential. He still had Youth's eagerness to give with both

hands, to take with neither to give lovingly to one who had his own impulsive generosity. Surely she had!

He got up from the windowseat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room, whose walls were hung with

silvered canvas. This house his father said in that deathbed letterhad been built for his mother to live

inwith Fleur's father! He put out his hand in the halfdark, as if to grasp the shadowy hand of the dead. He

clenched, trying to feel the thin vanished fingers of his father; to squeeze them, and reassure him that hehe

was on his father's side. Tears, prisoned within him, made his eyes feel dry and hot. He went back to the

window. It was warmer, not so eerie, more comforting outside, where the moon hung golden, three days off

full; the freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur and he had met on some desert island without a

pastand Nature for their house! Jon had still his high regard for desert islands, where breadfruit grew, and

the water was blue above the coral. The night was deep, was freethere was enticement in it; a lure, a

promise, a refuge from entanglement, and love! Milksop tied to his mother's...! His cheeks burned. He shut

the window, drew curtains over it, switched off the lighted sconce, and went upstairs.

The door of his room was open, the light turned up; his mother, still in her evening gown, was standing at the

"Sit down, Jon; let's talk." She sat down on the windowseat, Jon on his bed. She had her profile turned to

him, and the beauty and grace of her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the neck, the strange and

as it were remote refinement of her, moved him. His mother never belonged to her surroundings. She came

into them from somewhereas it were! What was she going to say to him, who had in his heart such things

"I know Fleur came today. I'm not surprised." It was as though she had added: "She is her father's

"I have Father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. Would you like it back, dear?"

"I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't quite do justice to my criminality."

"He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's father without love I did a dreadful thing. An

unhappy marriage, Jon, can play such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You are fearfully young, my

darling, and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be happy with this girl?"

"Admiration of beauty and longing for possession are not love. If yours were another case like mine,

Jonwhere the deepest things are stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!"

"Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father, but she's not. I've seen him."

Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something wavered; there was such irony and experience in

"She isn'tshe isn't. It's only because I can't bear to make you unhappy, Mother, now that Father" He

"I told you that night, dear, not to mind me. I meant it. Think of yourself and your own happiness! I can stand

Jon shook it. What he felt was in his chesta sort of tearing asunder of the tissue there, by the two loves.

"I shall always love you the same, Jon, whatever you do. You won't lose anything." She smoothed his hair

He heard the door shut; and, rolling over on the bed, lay, stifling his breath, with an awful heldup feeling

Enquiring for her at tea time Soames learned that Fleur had been out in the car since two. Three hours! Where

had she gone? Up to London without a word to him? He had never become quite reconciled with cars. He had

embraced them in principlelike the born empiricist, or Forsyte, that he wasadopting each symptom of

progress as it came along with: "Well, we couldn't do without them now." But in fact he found them tearing,

great, smelly things. Obliged by Annette to have onea Rollhard with pearlgrey cushions, electric light,

little mirrors, trays for the ashes of cigarettes, flower vasesall smelling of petrol and stephanotishe

regarded it much as he used to regard his brotherinlaw, Montague Dartie. The thing typified all that was

fast, insecure, and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern life became faster, looser, younger, Soames

was becoming older, slower, tighter, more and more in thought and language like his father James before

him. He was almost aware of it himself. Pace and progress pleased him less and less; there was an

ostentation, too, about a car which he considered provocative in the prevailing mood of Labour. On one

occasion that fellow Sims had driven over the only vested interest of a working man. Soames had not

forgotten the behaviour of its master, when not many people would have stopped to put up with it. He had

been sorry for the dog, and quite prepared to take its part against the car, if that ruffian hadn't been so

outrageous. With four hours fast becoming five, and still no Fleur, all the old carwise feelings he had

experienced in person and by proxy balled within him, and sinking sensations troubled the pit of his stomach.

At seven he telephoned to Winifred by trunk call. No! Fleur had not been to Green Street. Then where was

she? Visions of his beloved daughter rolled up in her pretty frills, all blood and duststained, in some hideous

catastrophe, began to haunt him. He went to her room and spied among her things. She had taken

nothingno dressingcase, no Jewellery. And this, a relief in one sense, increased his fears of an accident.

Terrible to be helpless when his loved one was missing, especially when he couldn't bear fuss or publicity of

At a quarter to eight he heard the car. A great weight lifted from off his heart; he hurried down. She was

"To Robin Hill. I'm sorry, dear. I had to go; I'll tell you afterward." And, with a flying kiss, she ran upstairs.

It was not a subject they could discuss at dinnerconsecrated to the susceptibilities of the butler. The agony

of nerves Soames had been through, the relief he felt at her safety, softened his power to condemn what she

had done, or resist what she was going to do; he waited in a relaxed stupor for her revelation. Life was a

queer business. There he was at sixtyfive and no more in command of things than if he had not spent forty

years in building up security always something one couldn't get on terms with! In the pocket of his

dinnerjacket was a letter from Annette. She was coming back in a fortnight. He knew nothing of what she

had been doing out there. And he was glad that he did not. Her absence had been a relief. Out of sight was out

of mind! And now she was coming back. Another worry! And the Bolderby Old Crome was

goneDumetrius had got it all because that anonymous letter had put it out of his thoughts. He furtively

remarked the strained look on his daughter's face, as if she too were gazing at a picture that she couldn't buy.

He almost wished the War back. Worries didn't seem, then, quite so worrying. >From the caress in her voice,

the look on her face, he became certain that she wanted something from him, uncertain whether it would be

wise of him to give it her. He pushed his savoury away uneaten, and even joined her in a cigarette.

After dinner she set the electric pianoplayer going. And he augured the worst when she sat down on a

"Darling, be nice to me. I had to see Jonhe wrote to me. He's going to try what he can do with his mother.

But I've been thinking. It's really in your hands, Father. If you'd persuade her that it doesn't mean renewing

the past in any way! That I shall stay yours, and Jon will stay hers; that you need never see him or her, and

she need never see you or me! Only you could persuade her, dear, because only you could promise. One can't

promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't be too awkward for you to see her just this once now that Jon's

"You know," said Fleur, without looking up, "you wouldn't mind seeing her, really."

Soames was silent. Her words had expressed a truth too deep for him to admit. She slipped her fingers

between his ownhot, slim, eager, they clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her way into a brick

"I'll do anything for your happiness," said Soanies; "but this isn't for your happiness."

"But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them. To make her feel that this is just our lives, and has

How she wheedled to get her ends! And trying with all his might to think she really cared for himhe was

not surenot sure. All she cared for was this boy! Why should he help her to get this boy, who was killing

her affection for himself? Why should he? By the laws of the Forsytes it was foolish! There was nothing to be

had out of itnothing! To give her to that boy! To pass her into the enemy's camp, under the influence of the

woman who had injured him so deeply! Slowlyinevitablyhe would lose this flower of his life! And

suddenly he was conscious that his hand was wet. His heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't bear her to

cry. He put his other hand quickly over hers, and a tear dropped on that, too. He couldn't go on like this!

"Well, well," he said, "I'll think it over, and do what I can. Come, come!" If she must have it for her

happinessshe must; he couldn't refuse to help her. And lest she should begin to thank him he got out of his

chair and went up to the pianoplayer making that noise! It ran down, as he reached it, with a faint buzz.

That musical box of his nursery days: "The Harmonious Blacksmith," "Glorious Port"the thing had always

made him miserable when his mother set it going on Sunday afternoons. Here it was againthe same thing,

only larger, more expensive, and now it played "The Wild, Wild Women," and "The Policeman's Holiday,"

and he was no longer in black velvet with a sky blue collar. 'Profond's right,' he thought, 'there's nothing in it!

We're all progressing to the grave!' And with that surprising mental comment he walked out.

He did not see Fleur again that night. But, at breakfast, her eyes followed him about with an appeal he could

not escapenot that he intended to try. No! He had made up his mind to the nerveracking business. He

would go to Robin Hillto that house of memories. Pleasant memorythe last! Of going down to keep that

boy's father and Irene apart by threatening divorce. He had often thought, since, that it had clinched their

union. And, now, he was going to clinch the union of that boy with his girl. 'I don't know what I've done,' he

thought, 'to have such things thrust on me!' He went up by train and down by train, and from the station

walked by the long rising lane, still very much as he remembered it over thirty years ago. Funnyso near

London! Some one evidently was holding on to the land there. This speculation soothed him, moving

between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was

said and done there was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures! The values might

fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going upworth holding on to, in a world where there was

such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here today and gone tomorrow" spirit.

The French were right, perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of the French.

One's bit of land! Something solid in it! He had heard peasant proprietors described as a pigheaded lot; had

heard young Mont call his father a pigheaded Morning Posterdisrespectful young devil. Well, there were

worse things than being pigheaded or reading the Morning Post. There was Profond and his tribe, and all

these Labour chaps, and loudmouthed politicians and 'wild, wild women'! A lot of worse things! And

suddenly Soames became conscious of feeling weak, and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves at the meeting before

him! As Aunt Juley might have saidquoting "Superior Dosset"his nerves were "in a proper fautigue."

He could see the house now among its trees, the house he had watched being built, intending it for himself

and this woman, who, by such strange fate, had lived in it with another after all! He began to think of

Dumetrius, Local Loans, and other forms of investment. He could not afford to meet her with his nerves all

shaking; he who represented the Day of Judgment for her on earth as it was in heaven; he, legal ownership,

personified, meeting lawless beauty, incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity during this embassy

designed to link their offspring, who, if she had behaved herself, would have been brother and sister. That

wretched tune, "The Wild, Wild Women," kept running in his head, perversely, for tunes did not run there as

a rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house, he thought: 'How they've grown; I had them planted!' A maid

If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. 'By George!' he thought, hardening as the

And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of greywhite marble designed by her first lover. Ah!

she had been a bad lothad loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that when he came face to

face with her once more. And suddenly he saw her in the opening chink between the long heavy purple

curtains, swaying, as if in hesitation; the old perfect poise and line, the old startled dark eyed gravity, the old

He passed through that opening. As in the picturegallery and the confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still

beautiful. And this was the first timethe very firstsince he married her sevenandthirty years ago, that

he was speaking to her without the legal right to call her his. She was not wearing blackone of that fellow's

"I apologise for coming," he said glumly; "but this business must be settled one way or the other."

Anger at his false position, impatience of ceremony between them, mastered him, and words came tumbling

"It's an infernal mischance; I've done my best to discourage it. I consider my daughter crazy, but I've got into

the habit of indulging her; that's why I'm here. I suppose you're fond of your son."

He had a sense of being met and baffled. Alwaysalways she had baffled him, even in those old first

"If you had only! Wellthey might have been" he did not finish that sentence "brother and sister and

all this saved," but he saw her shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight he crossed over to the window. Out

"So far as I'm concerned," he said, "you may make your mind easy. I desire to see neither you nor your son if

this marriage comes about. Young people in these days areare unaccountable. But I can't bear to see my

"I remember an evening" he said suddenly; and was silent. What was therewhat was there in this

woman that would not fit into the four corners of his hate or condemnation? "Where is heyour son?"

"If it rests with him," said Soames hurriedly, when the maid was gone, "I suppose I may take it for granted

that this unnatural marriage will take place; in that case there'll be formalities. Whom do I deal

"This house," said Soames suddenly: "I had hopes when I began it. If they live in ittheir children! They say

He had come back from the window, and was standing close to her, who, in the curve of her grand piano,

"I'm not likely to see you again," he said slowly. "Will you shake hands"his lip quivered, the words came

out jerkily"and let the past die." He held out his hand. Her pale face grew paler, her eyes so dark, rested

immovably on his, her hands remained clasped in front of her. He heard a sound and turned. That boy was

standing in the opening of the curtains. Very queer he looked, hardly recognisable as the young fellow he had

seen in the Gallery off Cork Streetvery queer; much older, no youth in the face at allhaggard, rigid, his

hair ruffled, his eyes deep in his head. Soames made an effort, and said with a lift of his lip, not quite a smile

"Well, young man! I'm here for my daughter; it rests with you, it seemsthis matter. Your mother leaves it

"For my daughter's sake I've brought myself to come," said Soames. "What am I to say to her when I go

"Tell Fleur that it's no good, please; I must do as my father wished before he died."

In a kind of stupefaction Soames looked from one to the other; then, taking up hat and umbrella which he had

put down on a chair, he walked toward the curtains. The boy stood aside for him to go by. He passed through

and heard the grate of the rings as the curtains were drawn behind him. The sound liberated something in his

As Soames walked away from the house at Robin Hill the sun broke through the grey of that chill afternoon,

in smoky radiance. So absorbed in landscape painting that he seldom looked seriously for effects of Nature

out of doorshe was struck by that moody effulgenceit mourned with a triumph suited to his own feeling.

Victory in defeat. His embassy had come to naught. But he was rid of those people, had regained his daughter

at the expense ofher happiness. What would Fleur say to him? Would she believe he had done his best?

And under that sunlight faring on the elms, hazels, hollies of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames

felt dread. She would be terribly upset! He must appeal to her pride. That boy had given her up, declared part

and lot with the woman who so long ago had given her father up! Soames clenched his hands. Given him up,

and why? What had been wrong with him? And once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates

himself as seen by anotherlike a dog who chances on his refection in a mirror and is intrigued and anxious

Not in a hurry to get home, he dined in town at the Connoisseurs. While eating a pear it suddenly occurred to

him that, if he had not gone down to Robin Hill, the boy might not have so decided. He remembered the

expression on his face while his mother was refusing the hand he had held out. A strange, an awkward

He reached home at halfpast nine. While the car was passing in at one drive gate he heard the grinding

sputter of a motorcycle passing out by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not been lonely. But

he went in with a sinking heart. In the creampanelled drawingroom she was sitting with her elbows on her

knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in front of a white camellia plant which filled the fireplace. That

glance at her before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she seeing among those white camellias?

Soames shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous work! He saw her eyes dilate, her lips

"No," muttered Soames; "he. I was to tell you that it was no use; he must do what his father wished before he

died." He caught her by the waist. "Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not worth your little finger."

Bitterly wounded, Soames gazed at her passionate figure writhing there in front of him.

"You didn't tryyou didn'tI was a fool! Iwon't believe he could he ever could! Only yesterday he!

"Yes," said Soames, quietly, "why did you? I swallowed my feelings; I did my best for you, against my

The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power of speech in Soames' throat. What had he

And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his breast, and looked at her.

Soames went out. He mounted, slow and icy, to his picture gallery, and paced among his treasures.

Outrageous! Oh! Outrageous! She was spoiled! Ah! and who had spoiled her? He stood still before the Goya

copy. Accustomed to her own way in everything. Flower of his life! And now that she couldn't have it! He

turned to the window for some air. Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the poplars! What

sound was that? Why! That piano thing! A dark tune, with a thrum and a throb! She had set it goingwhat

comfort could she get from that? His eyes caught movement down there beyond the lawn, under the trellis of

rambler roses and young acaciatrees, where the moonlight fell. There she was, roaming up and down. His

heart gave a little sickening jump. What would she do under this blow? How could he tell? What did he know

of herhe had only loved her all his lifelooked on her as the apple of his eye! He knew nothinghad no

He hastened down to the drawingroom, lighted just as he had left it, with the piano thrumming out that

waltz, or foxtrot, or whatever they called it in these days, and passed through on to the verandah.

Where could he watch, without her seeing him? And he stole down through the fruit garden to the

boathouse. He was between her and the river now, and his heart felt lighter. She was his daughter, and

Annette'sshe wouldn't do anything foolish; but there it washe didn't know! From the boat house window

he could see the last acacia and the spin of her skirt when she turned in her restless march. That tune had run

down at lastthank goodness! He crossed the floor and looked through the farther window at the water

slowflowing past the lilies. It made little bubbles against them, bright where a moonstreak fell. He

remembered suddenly that early morning when he had slept on the houseboat after his father died, and she

had just been bornnearly nineteen years ago! Even now he recalled the unaccustomed world when he woke

up, the strange feeling it had given him. That day the second passion of his life beganfor this girl of his,

roaming under the acacias. What a comfort she had been to him! And all the soreness and sense of outrage

left him. If he could make her happy again, he didn't care! An owl flew, queeking, queeking; a bat flitted by;

the moonlight brightened and broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam about like this! He

went back to the window, and suddenly saw her coming down to the bank. She stood quite close, on the

landingstage. And Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he speak to her? His excitement was

intense. The stillness of her figure, its youth, its absorption in despair, in longing, initself. He would

always remember it, moonlit like that; and the faint sweet reek of the river and the shivering of the willow

leaves. She had everything in the world that he could give her, except the one thing that she could not have

because of him! The perversity of things hurt him at that moment, as might a fishbone in his throat.

Then, with an infinite relief, he saw her turn back toward the house. What could he give her to make amends?

Pearls, travel, horses, other young menanything she wantedthat he might lose the memory of her young

figure lonely by the water! There! She had set that tune going again! Whyit was a mania! Dark,

thrumming, faint, travelling from the house. It was as though she had said: "If I can't have something to keep

me going, I shall die of this!" Soames dimly understood. Well, if it helped her, let her keep it thrumming on

all night! And, mousing back through the fruit garden, he regained the verandah. Though he meant to go in

and speak to her now, he still hesitated, not knowing what to say, trying hard to recall how it felt to be

thwarted in love. He ought to know, ought to rememberand he could not! Goneall real recollection;

except that it had hurt him horribly. In this blankness he stood passing his handkerchief over hands and lips,

which were very dry. By craning his head he could just see Fleur, standing with her back to that piano still

grinding out its tune, her arms tight crossed on her breast, a lighted cigarette between her lips, whose smoke

half veiled her face. The expression on it was strange to Soames, the eyes shone and stared, and every feature

was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger. Once or twice he had seen Annette look like thatthe

face was too vivid, too naked, not his daughter's at that moment. And he dared not go in, realising the futility

Monstrous trick, that Fate had played him! Nemesis! That old unhappy marriage! And in God's namewhy?

How was he to know, when he wanted Irene so violently, and she consented to be his, that she would never

love him? The tune died and was renewed, and died again, and still Soames sat in the shadow, waiting for he

knew not what. The fag of Fleur's cigarette, flung through the window, fell on the grass; he watched it

glowing, burning itself out. The moon had freed herself above the poplars, and poured her unreality on the

garden. Comfortless light, mysterious, withdrawnlike the beauty of that woman who had never loved

himdappling the nemesias and the stocks with a vesture not of earth. Flowers! And his flower so unhappy!

Ah! Why could one not put happiness into Local Loans, gild its edges, insure it against going down?

Light had ceased to flow out now from the drawingroom window. All was silent and dark in there. Had she

gone up? He rose, and, tiptoeing, peered in. It seemed so! He entered. The verandah kept the moonlight out;

and at first he could see nothing but the outlines of furniture blacker than the darkness. He groped toward the

farther window to shut it. His foot struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled and crushed into

the corner of the sofa! His hand hovered. Did she want his consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of

crushed frills and hair and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How leave her there? At

"Come, darling, better go to bed. I'll make it up to you, somehow." How fatuous! But what could he have

When their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother stood without speaking, till he said suddenly:

But Soames was already walking down the drive, and Jon went upstairs to his father's studio, not trusting

The expression on his mother's face confronting the man she had once been married to, had sealed a

resolution growing within him ever since she left him the night before. It had put the finishing touch of

reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his mother in the face; to betray his dead father! It was no good! Jon

had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no grudge in this hour of his distress. For one so young

there was a rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of proportion. It was worse for Fleur,

worse for his mother even, than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up, or to be the cause

of some one you loved giving up for you. He must not, would not behave grudgingly! While he stood

watching the tardy sunlight, he had again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him the night

before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on millions of people, all with their own lives, energies, joys,

griefs, and sufferingall with things they had to give up, and separate struggles for existence. Even though

he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing he couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his

feelings mattered much in so vast a world, and to behave like a crybaby or a cad. He pictured the people

who had nothingthe millions who had given up life in the War, the millions whom the War had left with

life and little else; the hungry children he had read of, the shattered men; people in prison, every kind of

unfortunate. Andthey did not help him much. If one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge

that many others had to miss it too? There was more distraction in the thought of getting away out into this

vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He could not go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with

everything so slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what might have been. He could

not go back to Wansdon, and the memories of Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust himself; and if he

stayed here or went back there, he would surely see her. While they were within reach of each other that must

happen. To go far away and quickly was the only thing to do. But, however much he loved his mother, he did

not want to go away with her. Then feeling that was brutal, he made up his mind desperately to propose that

they should go to Italy. For two hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself, then dressed

His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length, and talked of his father's catalogue. The show

was arranged for October, and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.

After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a little, talked a little, till they were standing silent

at last beneath the oaktree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything, I show all,' Jon put his arm through

"It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see and do more than you would if I were with

"I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should like to be here for the opening of Father's

"Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the show opens. You ought to have a year at

"Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to leave you all alone."

"My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll be for mine. Why not start tomorrow? You've got

"Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. OnlyMotherifif I wanted to stay out

"Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you really want me."

They stood a few minutes longer under the oaktreelooking out to where the grand stand at Epsom was

veiled in evening. The branches kept the moonlight from them, so that it only fell everywhere else over the

fields and far away, and on the windows of the creepered house behind, which soon would be to let.

The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to Michael Mont hardly conveyed the

symbolic significance of this event. In the union of the greatgranddaughter of "Superior Dosset" with the

heir of a ninth baronet was the outward and visible sign of that merger of class in class which buttresses the

political stability of a realm. The time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural resentment

against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive

instincts. Besides, they had to mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. In that quiet but

tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and afterward among the furniture in Green Street, it had been

impossible for those not in the know to distinguish the Forsyte troop from the Mont contingentso far away

was "Superior Dosset" now. Was there, in the crease of his trousers, the expression of his moustache, his

accent, or the shine on his tophat, a pin to choose between Soames and the ninth baronet himself? Was not

Fleur as self possessed, quick, glancing, pretty, and hard as the likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly

present? If anything, the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and manners. They had become "upper class" and

now their name would be formally recorded in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether this was a

little late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive instinct, lands and money, destined for the

meltingpotwas still a question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said Consols were

goin' up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater Roadso Francie had

reported. It was whispered, too, that this young Mont was a sort of socialiststrangely wise of him, and in

the nature of insurance, considering the days they lived in. There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed

classes produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times, turned to safe uses and confined to theory. As

George remarked to his sister Francie: "They'll soon be having puppiesthat'll give him pause."

The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of the East window looked extremely

chaste, as though endeavouring to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service calculated to keep

the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes, Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells;

Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling of Fleur's fellowsufferers at school, and of Mont's

fellowsufferers in, the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three maiden ladies, who had

dropped in on their way from Skyward's brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's old

nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be expected.

Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed his hand more than once during the

performance. To her, who knew the plot of this tragicomedy, its most dramatic moment was wellnigh

painful. 'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she thoughtJon, out in British Columbia. She had received a

"Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California. He thinks it's too nice there."

"Poor little Fleur!" sighed Holly. Ah! it was strangethis marriage. The young man, Mont, had caught her

on the rebound, of course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could

not but beas Val put itan outside chance. There was little to be told from the back view of her young

cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a

lovematch which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This might not be one in the end

but it was clearly a tossup; and to consecrate a tossup in this fashion with manufactured unction before a

crowd of fashionable free thinkersfor who thought otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were

"dolled" upseemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished them. Her eyes

wandered from the prelate in his robes (a Charwellthe Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate) to Val,

beside her, thinkingshe was certainof the Mayfly filly at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire. They

passed on and caught the profile of the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. She could

just see the neat ruck above his knees where he had pulled his trousers up, and thought: 'Val's forgotten to

pull up his!' Her eyes passed to the pew in front of her, where Winifred's substantial form was gowned with

passion, and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A little smile came on her lipsProsper

Profond, back from the South Seas of the Channel, would be kneeling too, about six rows behind. Yes! This

was a funny "small" business, however it turned out; still it was in a proper church and would be in the proper

They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across the aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her

little finger touched Val's thumbthey were holding the same hymnbookand a tiny thrill passed through

"I say, d'you remember the rat?" The rat at their wedding in Cape Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers

behind the table at the Registrar's! And between her little and third forgers she squeezed his thumb hard.

The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. He told them of the dangerous times they

lived in, and the awful conduct of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They were all soldiershe

saidin the trenches under the poisonous gas of the Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The purpose of

An imp danced in Holly's eyesVal's eyelashes were meeting. Whatever happened; he must not snore. Her

The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the vestry; and general relaxation had set in.

Holly demurely scrutinized one of whom she had often heard. Fresh from South Africa, and ignorant of her

kith and kin, she never saw one without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big, and very dapper; his

They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young Mont's face. His lips and ears were

twitching, his eyes, shifting from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before them as if to face

a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was

different. The girl was perfectly composed, prettier than ever, in her white robes and veil over her banged

dark chestnut hair; her eyelids hovered demure over her dark hazel eyes. Outwardly, she seemed all there.

But inwardly, where was she? As those two passed, Fleur raised her eyelidsthe restless glint of those clear

In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less composed than usual. Soames' request for the use

of her house had come on her at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence of a remark of Prosper

Profond, she had begun to exchange her Empire for Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing

arrangements, with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles, to be had at Mealard's. Another month and

the change would have been complete. Just now, the very "intriguing" recruits she had enlisted, did not march

too well with the old guard. It was as if her regiment were half in khaki, half in scarlet and bearskins. But her

strong and comfortable character made the best of it in a drawingroom which typified, perhaps, more

perfectly than she imagined, the semi bolshevized imperialism of her country. After all, this was a day of

merger, and you couldn't have too much of it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had

gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that "awfully amusing" screen, which no one as yet

had been able to explain to her. The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round scarlet table, inlaid under

glass with blue Australian butteries' wings, and was clinging to her Louis Quinze cabinet; Francie Forsyte

had seized the new mantelboard, finely carved with little purple grotesques on an ebony ground; George,

over by the old spinet, was holding a little skyblue book as if about to enter bets; Prosper Profond was

twiddling the knob of the open door, black with peacockblue panels; and Annette's hands, close by, were

grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the balcony among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont,

thin and brave looking, had taken up her longhandled glasses and was gazing at the central light shade, of

ivory and orange dashed with deep magenta, as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in fact, seemed

holding on to something. Only Fleur, still in her bridal dress, was detached from all support, flinging her

The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation. Nobody could hear anything that anybody

said; which seemed of little consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as an answer. Modern

conversation seemed to Winifred so different from the days of her prime, when a drawl was all the vogue.

Still it was "amusing," which, of course, was all that mattered. Even the Forsytes were talking with extreme

rapidityFleur and Christopher, and Imogen, and young Nicholas's youngest, Patrick. Soames, of course,

was silent; but George, by the spinet, kept up a running commentary, and Francie, by her mantelshelf.

Winifred drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to promise a certain repose; his nose was fine and

drooped a little, his grey moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile:

He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark lively little eyes, too, all crinkled round like a Catholic priest's.

"They're always so amusingweddings," she murmured, and moved on to Soames. He was curiously still,

and Winifred saw at once what was dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to his left

Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without either seeing those two together, or the reflection of

them in George Forsyte's japing eyes. He was quite right not to be taking notice.

"Highgate." He counted on his fingers. "It'll make twelve of them there, including wives. How do you think

Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could not rid himself of the impression that this

business was unnatural remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into the corner of the sofa. From

that night to this day he had received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that she had made

one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blankan empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had

received a letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide herself and cry. He had remarked

that she looked at him sometimes when she thought he wasn't noticing, as if she were wondering still what he

had doneforsooth to make those people hate him so. Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and

things had worn on through the summervery miserable, till suddenly Fleur had said she was going to marry

young Mont. She had shown him a little more affection when she told him that. And he had yieldedwhat

was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to thwart her in anything! And the young

man seemed quite delirious about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was young, absurdly

young. But if he opposed her, he didn't know what she would do; for all he could tell she might want to take

up a profession, become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had no aptitude for painting, writing,

music, in his view the legitimate occupations of unmarried women, if they must do something in these days.

On the whole, she was safer married, for he could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home.

Annette, too, had been in favour of itAnnette, from behind the veil of his refusal to know what she was

about, if she was about anything. Annette had said: "Let her marry this young man. He is a nice boynot so

highty flighty as he seems." Where she got her expressions, he didn't know but her opinion soothed his

doubts. His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost depressing amount of common sense.

He had settled fifty thousand on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case it didn't turn out

well. Could it turn out well? She had not got over that other boyhe knew. They were to go to Spain for the

honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But later, perhaps, she would forget, and turn to

There, in a djibbahwhat things she wore!with her hair straying from under a fillet, Soames saw his

cousin, and Fleur going forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out on to the stairway.

"Really," said Winifred, "she does the most impossible things! Fancy her coming!"

Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of character; or, in other words, omitted to

On receiving her invitation, June had first thought, 'I wouldn't go near them for the world!' and then, one

morning, had awakened from a dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild unhappy gesture. And

When Fleur came forward and said to her, "Do come up while I'm changing my dress," she had followed up

the stairs. The girl led the way into Imogen's old bedroom, set ready for her toilet.

June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit in the sear and yellow. Fleur locked the door.

The girl stood before her divested of her wedding dress. What a pretty thing she was

"I suppose you think me a fool," she said, with quivering lips, "when it was to have been Jon. But what does

it matter? Michael wants me, and I don't care. It'll get me away from home." Diving her hand into the frills on

June read: "Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back to England. Bless you always. Jon."

"That's not fair to Irene," she said, "she always told Jon he could do as he wished."

Fleur smiled bitterly. "Tell me, didn't she spoil your life too?" June looked up. "Nobody can spoil a life, my

With a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury her face in the djibbah. A strangled sob

But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her

Well, well! It had to come. She would feel better afterward! June stroked the short hair of that shapely head;

and all the scattered mothersense in her focussed itself and passed through the tips of her fingers into the

"Don't sit down under it, my dear," she said at last. "We can't control life, but we can fight it. Make the best

of things. I've had to. I held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now. And look at me!"

Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild

"All right!" she said. "I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose, if I fly fast and far enough."

June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion. Save for a little becoming pinkness there

was nothing left when she stood before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a pincushion in her hand.

"Give me a kiss," she said when Fleur was ready, and dug her chin into the girl's warm cheek.

June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her lips and her eyes half closed, and went

downstairs. In the doorway of the drawingroom stood Soames as if unquiet at his daughter's tardiness.

June tossed her head and passed down on to the half landing. Her cousin Francie was standing there.

"Goodbye!" said Francie, and her eyes, of a Celtic grey, goggled. That old feud! Really, it was quite

Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go, and drew a breath of satisfaction. Why didn't Fleur

come? They would miss their train. That train would bear her away from him, yet he could not help fidgeting

at the thought that they would lose it. And then she did come, running down in her tancoloured frock and

black velvet cap, and passed him into the drawingroom. He saw her kiss her mother, her aunt, Val's wife,

Imogen, and then come forth, quick and pretty as ever. How would she treat him at this last moment of her

"Daddy!" she said, and was past and gone! Daddy! She hadn't called him that for years. He drew a long

breath and followed slowly down. There was all the folly with that confetti stuff and the rest of it to go

through with yet. But he would like just to catch her smile, if she leaned out, though they would hit her in the

eye with the shoe, if they didn't take care. Young Mont's voice said fervently in his ear:

He stood on the bottom step but three, whence he could see above the headsthe silly hats and heads. They

were in the car now; and there was that stuff, showering, and there went the shoe. A flood of something

When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy Forsytethe one pure individualist left, the only

man who hadn't heard of the Great Warthey found him wonderfulnot even death had undermined his

To Smither and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of what they had never believed

possiblethe end of the old Forsyte family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing in the

company of Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr. Jolyon, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and

Mr. Nicholas of the party. Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful, seeing that she had been

cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr. Timothy would be upsethe had always been so set against barrel

organs. How many times had she not said: "Drat the thing! There it is again! Smither, you'd better run up and

see what you can do." And in her heart she would so have enjoyed the tunes, if she hadn't known that Mr.

Timothy would ring the bell in a minute and say: "Here, take him a halfpenny and tell him to move on."

Often they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the man would goTimothy had ever

underrated the value of emotion. Luckily he had taken the organs for bluebottles in his last years, which had

been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy the tunes. But a harp! Cook wondered. It was a change! And

Mr. Timothy had never liked change. But she did not speak of this to Smither, who did so take a line of her

She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had sherry afterward out of the yearly Christmas

bottle, which would not be needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there fiveandforty years and Smither

threeandforty! And now they would be going to a tiny house in Tooting, to live on their savings and what

Miss Hester had so kindly left themfor to take fresh service after the glorious past No! But they would

like just to see Mr. Soames again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And even if they

had to take their own cab, they felt they must go to the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had been their

baby, getting younger and younger every day, till at last he had been too young to live.

They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and dusting, in catching the one mouse left, and

asphyxiating the last beetle so as to leave it nice, discussing with each other what they would buy at the sale.

Miss Ann's workbox; Miss Juley's (that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed album; the firescreen Miss Hester had

crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's hairlittle golden curls, glued into a black frame. Oh! they must have

It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had them drawn up by Gradman in his officeonly

blood relations, and no flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read afterward at the house.

He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a quarter past old Gradman came in black gloves and

crape on his hat. He and Soames stood in the drawingroom waiting. At halfpast eleven the carriages drew

"I don't know," said Soames; "he'd lost touch with the family." Soames had often noticed in old days how

much more neighbourly his family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way they had flocked to

Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's funeral, seemed to show some vital change. There might, of

course, be another reason; for Soames felt that if he had not known the contents of Timothy's Will, he might

have stayed away himself through delicacy. Timothy had left a lot of money, with nobody in particular to

At twelve o'clock the procession left the door; Timothy alone in the first carriage under glass. Then Soames

alone; then Gradman alone; then Cook and Smither together. They started at a walk, but were soon trotting

under a bright sky. At the entrance to Highgate Cemetery they were delayed by service in the Chapel. Soames

would have liked to stay outside in the sunshine. He didn't believe a word of it; on the other hand, it was a

form of insurance which could not safely be neglected, in case there might be something in it after all.

They walked up two and twohe and Gradman, Cook and Smitherto the family vault. It was not very

He took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the Bayswater Road with a certain glow in his heart.

He had a surprise in pickle for the old chap who had served the Forsytes fourandfifty yearsa treat that

was entirely his doing. How well he remembered saying to Timothy the dayafter Aunt Hester's funeral:

"Well; Uncle Timothy, there's Gradman. He's taken a lot of trouble for the family. What do you say to

leaving him five thousand?" and his surprise, seeing the diflicuIty there had been in getting Timothy to leave

anything, when Timothy had nodded. And now the old chap would be as pleased as Punch, for Mrs.

Gradman, he knew, had a weak heart, and their son had lost a leg in the War. It was extraordinarily gratifying

to Soames to have left him five thousand pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down together in the little

drawingroom, whose wallslike a vision of heavenwere skyblue and gold with every pictureframe

unnaturally bright, and every speck of dust removed from every piece of furniture, to read that little

masterpiecethe Will of Timothy. With his back to the light in Aunt Hester's chair, Soames faced Gradman

"This is the last Will and Testament of me Timothy Forsyte of The Bower Bayswater Road, London I appoint

my nephew Soames Forsyte of The Shelter Mapleduram and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road Highgate

(hereinafter called my Trustees) to be the trustees and executors of this my Will To the said Soames Forsyte I

leave the sum of one thousand pounds free of legacy duty and to the said Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of

Soames paused. Old Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively gripping a stout black knee with each of his

thick hands; his mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth gleamed; his eyes were blinking,

"All the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeath to my Trustees upon Trust to convert and

hold the same upon the following trusts namely To pay thereout all my debts funeral expenses and outgoings

of any kind in connection with my Will and to hold the residue thereof in trust for that male lineal descendant

of my father Jolyon Forsyte by his marriage with Ann Pierce who after the decease of all lineal descendants

whether male or female of my said father by his said marriage in being at the time of my death shall last

attain the age of twentyone years absolutely it being my desire that my property shall be nursed to the

extreme limit permitted by the laws of England for the benefit of such male lineal descendant as aforesaid."

Soames read the investment and attestation clauses, and, ceasing, looked at Gradman. The old fellow was

wiping his brow with a large handkerchief, whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden festive tinge to the

"My word, Mr. Soames!" he said, and it was clear that the lawyer in him had utterly wiped out the man: "My

word! Why, there are two babies now, and some quite young childrenif one of them lives to be

eightyit's not a great ageand add twentyonethat's a hundred years; and Mr. Timothy worth a

hundred and fifty thousand pound net if he's worth a penny. Compound interest at five per cent. doubles you

in fourteen years. In fourteen years three hundred thousandsix hundred thousand in twentyeighttwelve

hundred thousand in forty twotwentyfour hundred thousand in fiftysixfour million eight hundred

thousand in seventynine million six hundred thousand in eightyfourWhy, in a hundred years it'll be

Soames said dryly: "Anything may happen. The State might take the lot; they're capable of anything in these

"And carry five," said Gradman to himself. "I forgotMr. Timothy's in Consols; we shan't get more than

two per cent. with this income tax. To be on the safe side, say eight millions. Still, that's a pretty penny."

Soames rose and handed him the Will. "You're going into the City. Take care of that, and do what's

"Tuesday week," said Gradman. "Life or lives in bein' and twentyone years afterwardit's a long way off.

The salenot at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the effectswas far more freely attended than

the funeral, though not by Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give them their heart's

desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and Francie, and Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures,

Barbizons, and J. R. drawings had been bought in by Soames; and relics of no marketable value were set

aside in an offroom for members of the family who cared to have mementoes. These were the only

restrictions upon bidding characterised by an almost tragic languor. Not one piece of furniture, no picture or

porcelain figure appealed to modern taste. The humming birds had fallen like autumn leaves when taken from

where they had not hummed for sixty years. It was painful to Soames to see the chairs his aunts had sat on,

the little grand piano they had practically never played, the books whose outsides they had gazed at, the china

they had dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth rug which had warmed their feet; above all, the

beds they had lain and died insold to little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham. And yetwhat could

one do? Buy them and stick them in a lumber room? No; they had to go the way of all flesh and furniture,

and be worn out. But when they put up Aunt Ann's sofa and were going to knock it down for thirty shillings,

he cried out, suddenly: "Five pounds!" The sensation was considerable, and the sofa his.

When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the

misty October sunshine feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and the board "To Let" was up,

indeed. Revolutions on the horizon; Fleur in Spain; no comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the Bayswater

Road. In the irritable desolation of his soul he went into the Goupenor Gallery. That chap Jolyon's

watercoIours were on view there. He went in to look down his nose at themit might give him some faint

satisfaction. The news had trickled through from June to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to his mother,

from her to Soames, that the housethe fatal house at Robin Hillwas for sale, and Irene going to join her

boy out in British Columbia, or some such place. For one wild moment the thought had come to Soames:

'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it for my!' No sooner come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with

too many humiliating memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live there after what had happened.

No, the place must go its way to some peer or profiteer. It had been a bone of contention from the first, the

shell of the feud; and with the woman gone, it was an empty shell. "For Sale or To Let." With his mind's eye

He passed through the first of the two rooms in the Gallery. There was certainly a body of work! And now

that the fellow was dead it did not seem so trivial. The drawings were pleasing enough, with quite a sense of

atmosphere, and something individual in the brush work. 'His father and my father; he and I; his child and

mine!' thought Soames. So it had gone on! And all about that woman! Softened by the events of the past

week, affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came nearer than he had ever been to

realisation of that truthpassing the understanding of a Forsyte purethat the body of Beauty has a

spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks not of self. After all, he was near that truth in

his devotion to his daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he had missed the prize. And

there, among the drawings of his kinsman, who had attained to that which he had found beyond his reach, he

thought of him and her with a tolerance which surprised him. But he did not buy a drawing.

Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer air he met with a contingency which had not

been entirely absent from his mind when he went into the GalleryIrene, herself, coming in. So she had not

gone yet, and was still paying farewell visits to that fellow's remains! He subdued the little involuntary leap

of his subconsciousness, the mechanical reaction of his senses to the charm of this onceowned woman, and

passed her with averted eyes. But when he had gone by he could not for the life of him help looking back.

This, then, was finalitythe heat and stress of his life, the madness and the longing thereof, the only defeat

he had known, would be over when she faded from his view this time; even such memories had their own

She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she lifted her gloved hand, her lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed

to speak. It was the turn of Soames to make no answer to that smile and that little farewell wave; he went out

into the fashionable street quivering from head to foot. He knew what she had meant to say: "Now that I am

going for ever out of the reach of you and yoursforgive me; I wish you well." That was the meaning; last

sign of that terrible realitypassing morality, duty, common senseher aversion from him who had owned

her body, but had never touched her spirit or her heart. It hurt; yes more than if she had kept her mask

Three days later, in that fastyellowing October, Soames took a taxi cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted

through its white forest to the Forsyte vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs and columbaria, tall, ugly,

and individual, it looked like an apex of the competitive system. He could remember a discussion wherein

Swithin had advocated the addition to its face of the pheasant proper. The proposal had been rejected in

favour of a wreath in stone, above the stark words: "The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: 1850." It was in good

order. All trace of the recent interment had been removed, and its sober grey gloomed reposefully in the

sunshine. The whole family lay there now, except old Jolyon's wife, who had gone back under a contract to

her own family vault in Suffolk; old Jolyon himself lying at Robin Hill; and Susan Hayman, cremated so that

none knew where she might be. Soames gazed at it with satisfactionmassive, needing little attention; and

this was important, for he was well aware that no one would attend to it when he himself was gone, and he

would have to be looking out for lodgings soon. He might have twenty years before him, but one never knew.

Twenty years without an aunt or uncle, with a wife of whom one had better not know anything, with a

This cemetery was full, they saidof people with extraordinary names, buried in extraordinary taste. Still,

they had a fine view up here, right over London. Annette had once given him a story to read by that

Frenchman, Maupassant, most lugubrious concern, where all the skeletons emerged from their graves one

night, and all the pious inscriptions on the stones were altered to descriptions of their sins. Not a true story at

all. He didn't know about the French, but there was not much real harm in English people except their teeth

and their taste, which was certainly deplorable. "The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: 1850." A lot of people

had been buried here since thena lot of English life crumbled to mould and dust! The boom of an airplane

passing under the goldtinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes. The deuce of a lot of expansion had gone on.

But it all came back to a cemeteryto a name and a date on a tomb. And he thought with a curious pride that

he and his family had done little or nothing to help this feverish expansion. Good solid middlemen, they had

gone to work with dignity to manage and possess. "Superior Dosset," indeed, had built in a dreadful, and

Jolyon painted in a doubtful, period, but so far as he remembered not another of them all had soiled his hands

by creating anythingunless you counted Val Dartie and his horsebreeding. Collectors, solicitors,

barristers, merchants, publishers, accountants, directors, land agents, even soldiersthere they had been! The

country had expanded, as it were, in spite of them. They had checked, controlled, defended, and taken

advantage of the process and when you considered how "Superior Dosset" had begun life with next to

nothing, and his lineal descendants already owned what old Gradman estimated at between a million and a

million and a half, it was not so bad! And yet he sometimes felt as if the family bolt was shot, their possessive

instinct dying out. They seemed unable to make moneythis fourth generation; they were going into art,

literature, farming, or the army; or just living on what was left themthey had no push and no tenacity. They

Soames turned from the vault and faced toward the breeze. The air up here would be delicious if only he

could rid his nerves of the feeling that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the crosses and the urns, the

angels, the "immortelles," the flowers, gaudy or withering; and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed so

different from anything else up there that he was obliged to walk the few necessary yards and look at it. A

sober corner, with a massive queershaped cross of grey roughhewn granite, guarded by four dark

yewtrees. The spot was free from the pressure of the other graves, having a little boxhedged garden on the

far side, and in front a goldening birchtree. This oasis in the desert of conventional graves appealed to the

aesthetic sense of Soames, and he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those trembling gold birch leaves

he gazed out at London, and yielded to the waves of memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier Square,

when her hair was rustygolden and her white shoulders hisIrene, the prize of his lovepassion, resistant

to his ownership. He saw Bosinney's body lying in that white mortuary, and Irene sitting on the sofa looking

at space with the eyes of a dying bird. Again he thought of her by the little green Niobe in the Bois de

Boulogne, once more rejecting him. His fancy took him on beside his drifting river on the November day

when Fleur was to be born, took him to the dead leaves floating on the greentinged water and the

snakeheaded weed for ever swaying and nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. And on again to the window

opened to the cold starry night above Hyde Park, with his father lying dead. His fancy darted to that picture

of "the future town," to that boy's and Fleur's first meeting; to the bluish trail of Prosper Profond's cigar, and

Fleur in the window pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To the sight of Irene and that dead fellow

sitting side by side in the stand at Lord's. To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the sofa, where Fleur lay

crushed up in the corner; to her lips pressed into his cheek, and her farewell "Daddy." And suddenly he saw

He sat there a long time dreaming his career, faithful to the scut of his possessive instinct, warming himself

"To Let"the Forsyte age and way of life, when a man owned his soul, his investments, and his woman,

without check or question. And now the State had, or would have, his investments, his woman had herself,

The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new forms only when their destructive flood

should have passed its full. He sat there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts resolutely set on the

pastas a man might ride into a wild night with his face to the tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the

Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners, and morals, on melody and the old forms of

artwaters bringing to his mouth a salt taste as of blood, lapping to the foot of this Highgate Hill where

Victorianism lay buried. And sitting there, high up on its most individual spot, Soameslike a figure of

Investmentrefused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would not fight themthere was in him too much

primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had fulfilled their tidal

fever of dispossessing and destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently

broken and defectedthey would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms would rise based on an instinct older than

"Je m'en fiche," said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say "Je m'en fiche"it was French, and the fellow

was a thorn in his sidebut deep down he knew that change was only the interval of death between two

forms of life, destruction necessary to make room for fresher property. What though the board was up, and

And only one thing really troubled him, sitting therethe melancholy craving in his heartbecause the sun

was like enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle was

so gentle, and the yewtree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky.