 Preface to The Man of Property. The Foresight Saga. The Man of Property. Dedication and Preface. Dedication. To my wife. I dedicate the Foresight Saga in its entirety, believing it to be of all my works the least unworthy of one without whose encouragement, sympathy and criticism I could never have become even such a writer as I am. Preface. The Foresight Saga was the title originally destined for that part of it which is called The Man of Property, and to adopt it for the collected chronicles of the Foresight family has indulged the Foresightian tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic, and that there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used with a suitable irony, and after all, this long tale, though it may deal with folk in frock coats, furbillows and a guilt-edge period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict. Discounting for the gigantic stature and bloodthirstiness of old days as they have come down to us in fairytale and legend, the folk of the old sagas were Foresights, assuredly, in their possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as were Swithin, and if heroic figures in days that never were seem to startle out of their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a foresight of the Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and that family and the sense of home and property counted as they do to this day for all the recent efforts to talk them out. So many people have written and claimed that their families were the originals of the Foresights, that one has been almost encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagined species. Manor's change and mode's evolve, and Timothy's on the Bayswater Road, becomes a nest of the unbelievable, in all except essentials. We shall not look upon its like again, nor perhaps on such a one as James or old Jollyon, and yet the figures of insurance societies and the utterances of judges reassure us daily that our earthly paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, beauty and passion come stealing in, fulching security from under our noses, assuredly as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the essential soams in human nature ever rise up uneasily against the dissolution which hovers around the folds of ownership. Let the dead past bury its dead, would be a better saying if the past ever died. The persistence of the past is one of those tragicomic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure onto the stage to mow its claim to a perfect novelty. But no age is so new as that. Human nature, under its changing pretensions and clothes, is and ever will be very much of a foresight, and might, after all, be a much worse animal. Looking back on the Victorian era, whose rightness, decline and fall-off is in some sort pictured in the foresight saga, we see now that we have but jumped out of a frying pan into a fire. It would be difficult to substantiate a claim that the case of England was better in 1913 than it was in 1886, when the foresight's assemble the old Jollyons to celebrate the engagement of June to Philip Bossini, and in 1920, when again the clan gathered to bless the marriage of Fleur with Michael Montt, the state of England is surely too molten and bankrupt, as in the eighties it was too congealed and low-percented. If these chronicles have been a really scientific study of transition, one would have dwelt probably on such factors as the invention of bicycle, motor-car and flying machine, the arrival of a cheap press, the decline of country life and increase of the towns, the birth of the cinema. Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions, they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create. But this long tale is no scientific study of a period. It is rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that beauty affects in the lives of men. The figure of Irene, never as the reader may possibly have observed present, except through the senses of other characters, is a concretion of disturbing beauty impinging on a possessive world. One has noticed that readers, as they wade on through the salt waters of the saga, are inclined more and more to pity Somes, and to think that in doing so they are in revolt against the mood of his creator, far from it. He, too, pit his Somes in the tragedy of whose life is the very simple uncontrollable tragedy of being unlovable, without quite thick enough a skin to be thoroughly unconscious of the fact. Not even Fleur loves Somes as he feels he ought to be loved. But in pitting Somes readers incline perhaps to animus against Irene. After all, they think, he wasn't a bad fellow, it wasn't his fault, she ought to have forgiven him, and so on. And, taking sides, they lose perception of the simple truth which underlies the whole story, that where sex attraction is utterly and definitely lacking in one partner to a union, no amount of pity, or reason, or duty, or what not, can overcome a repulsion implicit in nature. Whether he ought to or no is beside the point, because in fact it never does. And where Irene seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de Boulogne, or in the Goubenin Gallery, she is but wisely realistic, knowing that the least concession is the inch which precedes the impossible, the repulsive L. A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the saga is the complaint that Irene and Jolien, those rebels against property, claims spiritual property in their son John. But it would be hypercriticism, as the tale is told, no father and mother could have let the boy marry Fleur without knowledge of the facts, and the facts determine John, not the persuasion of the parents. Moreover, Jolien's persuasion is not on his own account, but on Irene's. And Irene's persuasion becomes a reiterated, don't think of me, think of yourself. That John, knowing the facts can realise his mother's feelings, will hardly with justice be held proof that she is, after all, a foresight. But though the impingement of beauty and the claims of freedom on a possessive world are the main prepositions of the foresight saga, it cannot be absolved from the charge of embalming the upper middle class. As the old Egyptians placed around their mummies the necessaries of a future existence, so I have endeavoured to lay beside the figures of Aunt Anne and Julie and Hester, of Timothy and Swithin, of old Jolien and James, and of their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little life hereafter, a little balm in the hurried Gilead of a dissolving progress. If the upper middle class, with other classes, is destined to move on into amorphism, here, pickled in these pages, it lies under glass for strollers in the wide and ill-arranged museum of letters. Here it rests, preserved in its own juice, the sense of property. End of Preface, Chapter 1 of The Man of Property The Man of Property Chapter 1 At Home, At Old Jolien's Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the foresight's have seen that charming and instructive sight, an upper middle class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis, a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the foresight's, has witnessed a spectacle not only delightful in itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem. In plainer words he has gleaned from a gathering of this family, no branch of which had a liking for the other, between no three members of whom existed anything worthy of the name of sympathy, evidence of that mysterious concrete tenacity which renders a family so formidable a unit of society, so clear a reproduction of society in miniature. He has been admitted to a vision of the dim roads of social progress, as understood something of the patriarchal life, of the swarming's of savage hordes, of the rise and fall of nations. He is like one who, having watched a tree grow from its planting, a paragon of tenacity, insulation and success, amidst the deaths of a hundred other plants, less fibrous, sappy and persistent. One day we'll see it flourishing with bland, full foliage in an almost repugnant prosperity at the summit of its efflorescence. On June the 15th, 1886, about four of the afternoon, the observer who chanced to be present at the house of old Ajolyan foresight in Stanhope Gate, might have seen the highest efflorescence of the foresight's. This was the occasion of an at-home, to celebrate the engagement of Miss June foresight, old Ajolyan's granddaughter, to Mr. Philip Bassini. In the bravery of light-gloves, buff waist-coats, feathers and frocks, the family were present, even Aunt Anne, who now but seldom left the corner of her brother Timothy's green drawing-room, where, under the aegis of a plume of dyed Pampas grass in a light blue vase, she sat all day, reading and knitting, surrounded by the effigies of three generations of foresight's. Even Aunt Anne was there, her inflexible back and the dignity of her calm old face, personifying the rigid possessiveness of the family idea. When a foresight was engaged, married or born, the foresight's were present. When a foresight died, but no foresight had as yet died, they did not die, death being contrary to their principles. They took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalised persons who resent encroachments on their property. About the foresight mingling that day, with the crowd of other guests, there was a more than ordinarily groomed look, an alert, inquisitive assurance, a brilliant respectability, as though they were attired in defiance of something. The habitual sniff on the face of Soame's foresight had spread through their ranks. They were on their guard. The subconscious offensiveness of their attitude has constituted old Jolien's home the psychological moment of the family history, made it the prelude of their drama. The foresight's were resentful of something, not individually, but as a family. This resentment expressed itself in an added perfection of Raymond, an exuberance of family cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance, and the sniff, danger, so indispensable, in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group or individual, was what the foresight scented. The premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the first time as a family they appeared to have an instinct of being in contact with some strange and unsafe thing. Over against the piano a man of bulk and stature was wearing two waistcoats on his wide chest, two waistcoats and a ruby pin, instead of a single satin waistcoat and the diamond pin of more usual occasions, and his shaven square old face, the colour of pale leather with pale eyes, had its most dignified look above his satin stock. This was Swithin foresight. Close to the window, where he could get more than his fair share of fresh air, the other twin, James. The fat and the lean of it, old Jolien called these brothers, like the bulky Swithin, over six feet in height, but very lean, as though destined from his birth to strike a balance and maintain an average, brooded over the scene with his permanent stoop. His grey eyes had an air of fixed absorption in some secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid shifting scrutiny of surrounding facts. His cheeks, thinned by two parallel folds and a long, clean shaven upper lip, were framed within dandreary whiskers. In his hands he turned and turned the piece of china. Not far off, listening to a lady in brown, his only son, Somes, pale and well-shaved, dark-haired, rather bald, had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that afforsade appearance of sniff, as though despairing an egg which he knew he could not digest. Behind him, his cousin, the tall George, son of the fifth foresight, Roger, had a quill-pish look on his fleshy face, pondering one of his sardonic jests. Something inherent to the occasion had affected them all. Seated in a row, close to one another, were three ladies, Aunt Anne, Hester, the two foresight maids, and Julie, short for Julia, who, not in her first youth, had so far forgotten herself as to marry Septimus Small, a man of poor constitution. She had survived him for many years. With her elder and younger sister, she lived now in the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother, on the Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held fans in their hands, and each with some touch of colour, some emphatic feather or brooch, testified to the solemnity of the opportunity. In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolly and himself. Eighty years of age, with his fine white hair, his dome-like forehead, his little dark grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal look. In spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held himself extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority to the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way for innumerable years, he had earned the prescriptive right to it. It would never have occurred to old Jolly and that it was necessary to wear a look of doubt or of defiance. Between him and the four other brothers who were present, James, Swithin, Nicholas and Roger, there was much difference, much similarity. In turn each of these four brothers was very different from the other, yet they too were alike. Through the varying features and expression of those five faces could be marked a certain steadfastness of chin, underlying surface distinctions marking a racial stamp, too prehistoric to trace, too remote and permanent to discuss, the very hallmark and guarantee of the family fortunes. Among the younger generation, in the tall bull-like George, in pallid strenuous archibald, in young Nicholas, with his sweet and tentative obstinacy, in the grave and poppishly determined Eustace, there was this same stamp, less meaningful perhaps, but unmistakable, a sign of something ineradicable in the family soul. At one time or another, during the afternoon, all these faces, so dissimilar and so alike, had worn an expression of distrust, the object of which was undoubtedly the man whose acquaintance they were thus assembled to make. Philip Bossini was known to be a young man without fortune, but foresight girls had become engaged to such before and had actually married them. He was not altogether for this reason, therefore, that the minds of the foresight misgave them. They could not have explained the origin of a misgiving obscured by the midst of family gossip. A story was undoubtedly told that he had paid his duty-call to Aunt Anne, Julie and Hester, in a soft grey hat. A soft grey hat, not even a new one, a dusty thing with a shapeless crown. So extraordinary, my dear, so odd! Aunt Hester, passing through the little dark hall, she was rather short-sighted, had tried to shoo it off a chair, taking it for a strange, disreputable cat. Tommy had such disgraceful friends. She was disturbed when it did not move. Like an artist for ever seeking to discover this significant trifle which embodies the whole character of a scene or place or person, so those unconscious artists, the foresight, had fussened by intuition on this hat. It was their significant trifle, the detail in which was embedded the meaning of the whole matter, for each had asked himself, Come now, should I have paid that visit in that hat? And each had answered, No. And some, with more imagination than others, had added, it would never have come into my head. George, on hearing the story, grinned, the hat had obviously been worn as a practical joke. He himself was a connoisseur of such. Very haughty, he said, the wild buccaneer. And this mow, the buccaneer, was banded from mouth to mouth, till it became the favourite mode of alluding to Bossini. Her aunts reproached June afterwards about the hat. We don't think you ought to let him, dear, they had said. June had answered in her imperious brisk way, like the little embodiment of will she was. Oh, what does it matter? Phil never knows what he's got on. No one had credited an answer so outrageous. A man not to know what he had on? No, no. What indeed was this young man, who, in becoming engaged to June, old Jolian's acknowledged heiress, had done so well for himself? He was an architect. Not in itself a sufficient reason for wearing such a hat. None of the foresight's happened to be architects, but one of them knew two architects who would never have worn such a hat upon the call of ceremony in the London season. Dangerous. Ah, dangerous. June, of course, had not seen this. But though not yet nineteen she was notorious, had she not said to Mrs. Soames, who was always so beautifully dressed, that feathers were vulgar. Mrs. Soames had actually given up wearing feathers so dreadfully downright was dear June. These misgivings, this disapproval and perfectly genuine distrust, did not prevent the foresight from gathering to old Jolian's invitation. And at home at Stanhub Gate was a great rarity. None had been held for twelve years. Not, indeed, since old Mrs. Jolian had died. Never had there been so full an assembly. For, mysteriously united, in spite of all their differences, they had taken arms against a common peril. Like cattle, when a dog comes into the field, they stood, head to head, and shoulder to shoulder, prepared to run upon and trample the invader to death. They had come, too, no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of presents they would ultimately be expected to give. For though the question of wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way, what are you giving? Nicholas is giving spoons. So very much depended on the bridegroom. If he was sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking, it was more necessary to give him nice things. He would expect them. In the end, each gave exactly what was right and proper. By a species of family adjustment, arrived at, as prices are arrived at, on the stock exchange, the exact niceties being regulated at Timothy's, Commodius, Redbrick residence in Bayswater, overlooking the park, Weddwellt, Aunt Anne, Jolian Hester. The uneasiness of the foresight family has been justified by the simple mention of the hat. How impossible and wrong will it have been for any family, with the regard for appearances which should ever characterise the great upper-middle-glass, to feel otherwise than uneasy. The author of the uneasiness stood talking to June by the further door. His curly hair had a rumpled appearance, as though he found what was going on around him unusual. He had an ear, too, of having a joke all to himself. George, speaking aside to his brother Euster, said, "'Looks as if he might make a bolt of it, a dashing, buck-and-ear!' This very singular-looking man, as Mrs. Small afterwards called him, was of medium height and strong build, with a pale brown face, a dust-coloured moustache, very prominent cheekbones, and hollow cheeks. His forehead sloped back, towards the crown of his head, and bulged out in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads seen in the lion-house at the zoo. He had sherry-coloured eyes, disconcertingly inattentive at times. Old Jolian's coachman, after driving June and Bersini to the theatre, had remarked to the butler, "'I don't know what to make of him. Looks familiar all the world, like an half-timed leopard!' And every now and then a foresight would come up, side-alround, and take a look at him. June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity. A little bit of a thing, of somebody once said, All hair and spirit, with fearless blue eyes, a firm jaw, and a bright colour, whose face and body seemed too slender for her crown of red-gold hair. A tall woman, with a beautiful figure, which some member of her family had once compared to a heathen goddess, stood looking at these two with a shadowy smile. Her hands, gloved in French grey, were crossed one over the other. Her grave-charming face held to one side, and the eyes of all men near were fastened on it. Her figure swayed, so balanced that the very air seemed to set it moving. It was warmth, but little colour, in her cheeks. Her large dark eyes were soft. But it was at her lips, asking a question, giving an answer, with that shadowy smile, that men looked. They were sensitive lips, sensuous and sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and perfume, like the warmth and perfume of a flower. The engaged couple, thus scrutinised, were unconscious of this passive goddess. It was Bossini who first noticed her, and asked her name. June took her lover up to the woman, with the beautiful figure. Irene is my greatest chum, she said. Please be good friends, you two. At the little lady's command they all three smiled, and while they were smiling, Soames foresight silently appearing from behind the woman, with the beautiful figure, who was his wife, said, Ah, introduce me, too. He was seldom indeed far from Irene's side at public functions, and even when separated by the exegences of social intercourse, could be seen following her about with his eyes, in which were strange expressions of watchfulness and longing. At the window his father, James, was still scrutinising the marks on the piece of China. I wonder if Jolian's allowing this engagement? He said to Aunt Anne, They tell me there's no chance of their getting married for years. This young Bossini? He made the word of dactyl. In opposition to general usage of a short O. Has gone nothing. When Winifred married Darty, I made him bring every penny into the settlement. Lucky thing, too, they'd had nothing by this time. Aunt Anne looked up from her velvet chair. Grey curls banded her forehead. Curls that, unchanged for decades, had extinguished in the family all sense of time. She made no reply, for she rarely spoke, husbanding her aged voice. But to James, uneasy of conscience, her look was as good as an answer. Well, he said, I couldn't help Irene is having no money. Somes was in such a hurry. He got quite thin dancing attendance on her. Putting the bowl pettishly down on the piano, he let his eyes wander to the group by the door. It's my opinion, he said unexpectedly, that it's just as well as it is. Aunt Anne did not ask him to explain this strange utterance. She knew what he was thinking. If Irene had no money, she would not be so foolish as to do anything wrong. For they said, they said, she had been asking for a separate room. But, of course, Somes had not. James interrupted her reverie. But where, he asked, was Timothy, hasn't he come with them? Through Aunt Anne's compressed lips, a tender smile forced its way. No, he didn't think it wise, with so much of this diphtheria about, and he's so liable to take things. James answered, Well, he takes good care of himself. I can't afford to take the care of myself that he does. Nor was it easy to say which, of admiration, envy or contempt, was dominant in that remark. Timothy, indeed, was seldom seen. The baby of the family, a publisher by profession, he had some years before, when business was at full tide, sent it out the stagnation, which, indeed, had not yet come, but which, ultimately, as all agreed, was bound to set in, and, selling his share in a firm engaged mainly in the production of religious books, had invested the quite conspicuous proceeds in three percent consoles. By this act he had at once assumed an isolated position, no other foresight being content with less than four percent for his money, and this isolation had slowly and surely undermined the spirit, perhaps better than commonly endowed with caution. He had become almost a myth, a kind of incarnation of security, haunting the background of the foresight universe. He had never committed the imprudence of marrying, or encumbering himself in any way with children. James resumed, tapping the piece of china. This isn't real old Worcester. I suppose Jolien's told you something about the young man. From all I can learn he's got no business, no income, and no connection worth speaking of. But then I know nothing, nobody tells me anything. On hand shook her head. Over her square chin, aquiline old face, a trembling past. The spidery fingers of her hands pressed against each other, and interlaced as though she was subtly recharging her will. The eldest by some years of all the foresight's, she held a peculiar position amongst them, opportunists and negatists one and all, though not indeed more so than their neighbours. They quailed before her incorruptible figure, and when opportunities were too strong, what could they do but avoid her? Twisting his long thin legs, James went on, Jolien, he will have his own way, he's got no children, and stopped, recollecting the continued existence of old Jolien's son, young Jolien, Jolien's father, who had made such a mess of it, and done for himself by deserting his wife and child, and running away with that foreign governess. Well, he resumed hastily, if he likes to do these things, I suppose he can afford to. Now, what's he going to give her? I suppose he'll give her a thousand a year? He's got nobody else to leave his money to? He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper, clean shaven man, with hardly a hair on his head, a long broken nose, full lips, and cold gray eyes under rectangular brows. Well, Nick, he muttered, are you? Nicholas foresighted, with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a preternaturally sage schoolboy, he had made a large fortune, quite legitimately, out of the company's which-user director, placed within that cold palm the tips of his still colder fingers, and hastily withdrew them. I'm bad," he said, pouting, being bad all week, don't sleep at night. The doctor can't tell why. He's a clever fellow, or I shouldn't have him, but I'd get nothing out of him but bills. Doctors, said James, coming down sharp on his words, I've had all the doctors in London for one or another of us. There's no satisfaction to be got out of them. Don't tell you anything. They're sweet in now. What good have they done him? There he is. He's bigger than ever. He's enormous. They can't get his weight down. Look at him." Swithin' foresight, tall, square, and broad, with a chest like a pout of pigeons in its plumage of bright waistcoats came strutting towards them. Ah, ha, oh, you! he said, in his dandified way, aspirating the H strongly. This difficult letter was almost absolutely safe in his keeping. How are you? Each brother wore an air of aggravation, as he looked at the other two, knowing by experience that they would try to eclipse his ailments. We were just saying, said James, that you don't get any thinner. Swithin' protruded his pale round eyes with the effort of hearing. Thinner? I'm in good case, he said, leaning a little forward. Not one of your thread-papers like you! But afraid of losing the expansion of his chest, he lent back again into a state of immobility, for he prized nothing so highly as a distinguished appearance. Ah, then turned her old eyes from one to the other. Indulgent and severe was her look. In turn the three brothers looked at Anne. She was getting shaky. Wonderful woman! Eighty-six if a day. Might live another ten years. And had never been strong. Swithin' and James, the twins, were only seventy-five. Nicholas, a mere baby of seventy or so. All were strong, and the inference was comforting. Of all forms of property, their respective healths naturally concerned them most. I'm very well in myself, proceeded James, but my nerves are out of order. The least thing worries me to death. I shall have to go to Bath. Bath? said Nicholas. I've tried herigate. That's no good. What I want is seer. There's nothing like Yarmouth. Now when I go there, I sleep. My liver's very bad. Interrupted Swithin' slowly. Dreadful pain, here. And he placed his hand on his right side. Want of exercise? muttered James, his eyes on the china. He quickly added, I get a pain there, too. Swithin' reddened a resemblance to a turkey-cock coming upon his old face. Exercise? he said. I take plenty. I never use the lift at the club. I didn't know. James hurried out. I know nothing about anybody. Nobody tells me anything. Swithin' fixed him with a stare. What do you do for a pain there? James brightened. I take a compound. How are you, uncle? June stood before him. Her resolute small face raised from her little height to his great height, and her hand outheld. The brightness faded from James' visage. How are you? he said, brooding over her. So you're going to Wales tomorrow to visit your young man's aunts. You'll have a lot of rain there. This isn't real, old Worcester. Don't tap the bowl. Now that set I gave your mother when she married was the genuine thing. June shook hands one by one with her three great uncles and turned to Aunt Anne. A very sweet look had come into the old lady's face as she kissed the girl's cheek with trembling fervour. Well, my dear, she said, and so you're going for a whole month. The girl passed on, and Aunt Anne looked after her slim little figure. The old lady's round, steel-gray eyes, over which a film like a bird's was beginning to come, followed her wistfully among the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to say goodbye, and her fingertips, pressing and pressing against each other, were busy again with the recharging of her will against that inevitable ultimate departure of her own. Yes, she thought. Everybody's been most kind. Quite a lot of people came to congratulate her. She ought to be very happy. Among the throng of people by the door, the well-dressed throng drawn from the families of lawyers and doctors from the stock exchange and all the innumerable avocations with the upper-middle class, there were only some twenty percent of foresight. But to Aunt Anne they seemed all foresight, and certainly there was not much difference. She saw only her own flesh and blood. It was her world, this family, and she knew no other. Had never perhaps known any other. All their little secrets, illnesses, engagements and marriages, how they were getting on and whether they were making money, all this was her property, her delight, her life. Beyond this only a vague shadowy mist of facts and persons of no real significance. This it was that she would have to lay down when it came to her turn to die. This which gave to her that importance, that secret self-importance without which none of us can bear to live. And to this she clung wistfully with a greed that grew each day. If life were slipping away from her, this she would retain to the end. She thought of June's father, young Jollyon, who had run away with that foreign girl, and what a sad blow to his father, and to them all, such a promising young fellow. A sad blow, though there had been no public scandal, most fortunately, Joe's wife seeking for no divorce. A long time ago, and when June's mother died six years ago, Joe had married that woman, and they had two children now, so she heard. Still he had forfeited his right to be there, had cheated her of the complete fulfilment of her family pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and kissing him, of whom she had been so proud, such a promising young fellow. The thought rankled with the bitterness of a long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart. A little water stood in her eyes. With a hanker-chief of the finest lawn, she wiped them stealthily. "'Well on, then,' said the voice behind, Somes foresight, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked, flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about his whole appearance, looked downwards and the slant at Aunt Anne, as though trying to see through the side of his own nose. "'And what do you think of the engagement?' he asked. Aunt Anne's eyes rested on him proudly. Of all the nephews since young Jolian's departure from the family nest, he was now her favourite, for she recognised in him a sure trustee of the family soul that must so soon slip beyond her keeping. "'Very nice for the young man,' she said, and he's a good-looking young fellow, but I doubt if he's quite the right lover for dear June.' Somes touched the edge of a gold-lacquered luster. "'She'll tame him,' he said, stealthily wetting his finger and rubbing it on the knobbly bulbs. "'That's genuine old lacquer. You can't get it nowadays. It'll do well in the sale at Jobson's.' He spoke with relish, as though he felt that he was cheering up his old aunt. It was seldom he was so confidential. "'I wouldn't mind having it myself,' he added. "'You could always get your price for old lacquer.' "'You're so clever with all those things,' said Aunt Anne. "'Then how is dear Irene?' Somes' smile died. "'Pretty well,' he said, complained she can't sleep. She sleeps a great deal better than I do. And he looked at his wife, who was talking to Bessini by the door. Aunt Anne sighed. "'Perhaps,' she said, "'it will be just as well for her not to see so much of June. She's such a decided character, dear June.' Somes flushed. His flushes passed rapidly over his flat cheeks and centred between his eyes, where there remained the stamp of disturbing thoughts. I don't know what she sees in that little flibbertage of it.' He burst out. But noticing that they were no longer alone, he turned, and again began examining the luster. "'They tell me Jolien's bought another house,' said his father's voice, close by. "'He must have a lot of money. He must have more money than he knows what to do with. Montpellier Square,' they say, "'close to Somes. They never told me. Irene never tells me anything.' "'Capital position. Not two minutes from me,' said the voice of Swithin. "'And from my rooms I can drive to the club in eight.' The position of their houses was of vital importance to the foresights. Nor was this remarkable, since the whole spirit of their success was embodied therein. Their father, a farming stock, had come from Dorseture near the beginning of the century. Superior Dorset foresight, as he was called by his intimates, had been a stone mason by trade and risen to the position of a master builder. Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where, building on until he died, he was buried at Highgate. He left over thirty thousand pounds between his ten children. Old Jolien alluded to him, if at all, as a hard, thick sort of man, not much refinement about him. The second generation of foresights felt indeed that he was not greatly to their credit. The only aristocratic trait they could find in his character was a habit of drinking Madeira. Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described him thus. I don't recollect that he ever did anything, at least not in my time. He was an owner of houses, my dear. His hair about your Uncle Swiddens' colour, rather square-billed. Tall? No, not very tall. He had been five feet five with a mottled face. A fresh-coloured man, I remember, he used to drink Madeira. But ask your Aunt Anne, what was his father? He had to do with land down in Dorseture by the sea. James once went down to see for himself what sort of place this was they had come from. He found two old farms, and the cart-track rutted into the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the beach, a little grey church with buttress outer wall, and a smaller and greyer chapel. The stream which worked the mill came bubbling down in a dozen revolts, and pigs were hunting round that estuary. A haze hovered over the prospect. Down this hollow with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards the sea, it appears that the primeval foresight had been content to walk Sunday after Sunday for hundreds of years. Whether or no, James had cherished hopes of an inheritance or of something rather distinguished to be found down there, he came back to town in a poor way, and went about with a pathetic attempt at making the best of a bad job. There was very little to be had out of that, he said, regular country little place, old as the hills. Its age was felt to be a comfort. Old Jollyon, in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as yeoman, I suppose, very small beer. Yet he would repeat the word yeoman as if it afforded him consolation. They had all done so well for themselves these foresights that they were all what is called of a certain position. They had shares in all sorts of things, not, as yet, with the exception of Timothy and Consoles, for they had no dread in life like that of three percent for their money. They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics. From their father, the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar. Originally, perhaps members of some primitive sect, they were now in the natural course of things members of the Church of England, and caused their wives and children to attend with some regularity the more fashionable churches of the metropolis. To have doubted their Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some of them paid for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form their sympathy with the teachings of Christ. Their residences, placed at stated intervals round the park, watched like sentinels nest the fair heart of this London where their desires were fixed should slip from their clutches and leave them lower in their own estimations. There was old Jolly and in Stanhope Place. The James is in part lane. Swithin' in the lonely glory of orange and blue chambers in Hyde Park Mansions, he had never married, not he, the Somesists in their nest of Knightsbridge, the Rogers in Prince's Gardens. Roger was that remarkable foresight who had conceived and carried out the notion of bringing up his four sons to a new profession. Collect house property, nothing like it, he would say, I never did anything else. The Heymans again, Mrs. Heymans was the one married foresight sister in a house high up on Camden Hill, shaped like a giraffe, and so tall that it gave the observer a crick in the neck. The Nicholas's in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and a great bargain, and last but not least, Timothy's on the Bayswater Road, where Anne and Jolly and Hester lived under his protection. But all this time James was musing, and now he inquired of his host and brother what he had given for that house in Montpellier Square. He himself had had his eye on a house there for the last two years, but they wanted such a price. Old Jolly and recounted the details of his purchase. Twenty-two years to run, repeated James, the very house I was after. You've given too much for it. Old Jolly and frowned. It's not that I wanted, said James hastily, it wouldn't suit my purpose at that price. Sones knows the house well. He'll tell you it's too dear. His opinion's worth having. I don't, said Old Jolly and care a fig for his opinion. Well, murmur James, you will have your own way. It's a good opinion. Goodbye. We're going to drive down to Hurlingham. They tell me June's going to Wales. You'll be lonely to borrow. What'll you do with yourself? You'd better come and dine with us. Old Jolly and refused. He went down to the front door, and saw them into their barouche, and twinkled at them, having already forgotten his spleen. Mrs. James facing the horses, tall and majestic with urban hair, and on her left, Irene, the two husbands, father and son, sitting forward, as though they expected something opposite their wives. Bobbing and bounding upon the spring cushions, silent, swaying to each motion of their chariot, Old Jolly and watched them drive away under the sunlight. During the drive, the silence was broken by Mrs. James. Did you ever see such a collection of rumpty two people? Soames glancing at her beneath his eyelids, nodded, and he saw Irene steal at him one of her unfathomable looks. It is likely enough that each branch of the foresight family made that remark as they drove away from Old Jolly and at home. Among the last of the departing guests, the fourth and fifth brothers, Nicholas and Roger, walked away together, directing their steps alongside Hyde Park towards the Prade Street station of the Underground. Like all other foresights of a certain age, they kept carriages of their own, and never took cabs if by any means they could avoid it. The day was bright, the trees of the park in the full beauty of mid-June foliage. The brothers did not seem to notice phenomena which contributed nevertheless to the jauntiness of promenade and conversation. Yes, said Roger, she's a good-looking woman, that wife of Soames is. I'm told they don't get on. This brother had a high forehead and the freshest colour of any of the four sites. His light grey eyes measured the street frontage of the houses, by the way, and now and then he would level his umbrella and take a lunar, as he expressed it, of the varying heights. She'd no money, replied Nicholas. He himself had married a good deal of money, of which, it being then the Golden Age before the Married Woman's Property Act, he had mercifully been enabled to make a successful use. What was her father? Heron was his name, a professor, so they told me. Roger shook his head. There's no money in that, he said. They say her mother's father was cement. Roger's face brightened, but bet he went bankrupt, went on Nicholas. Ah! exclaimed Roger. Soames will have trouble with her. You mark my words. He'll have trouble. She's got a foreign look. Nicholas licked his lips. She's a pretty woman, and he waved aside a crossing sweeper. How did he get hold of her? asked Roger presently. She must cost him a pretty penny in dress. Anne tells me, replied Nicholas, that he was half-cracked about her. She refused him five times. James, he's nervous about it, I can see. Ah! said Roger again. I'm sorry for James. He had trouble with Darty. His pleasant colour was heightened by exercise. He swung his umbrella to the level of his eye more frequently than ever. Nicholas's face also wore a pleasant look. Too pale for me, he said, but her figure's capital. Roger made no reply. I call her distinguished looking, he said at last. It was the highest praise in the foresight vocabulary. That young Bersinny will never do any good for himself. They say at Birkitz he's one of these artistic chaps. Got an idea of improving English architecture. There's no money in that. I should like to hear what Timothy would say to it. They entered the station. What class are you going? No second. No second for me, said Nicholas. You never know what you may catch. He took a first class ticket to Notting Hill Gate. Roger, a second, to South Gensington. The train coming in a minute later. The two brothers parted and entered their respective compartments. Each felt aggrieved that the other had not modified his habits to secure his society a little longer. But as Roger voiced it in his thoughts, always a stubborn beggar, Nick. And as Nicholas expressed it to himself, cantankerous chat, Roger, always was. There was little sentimentality about the foresight. In that great London which they had conquered and become merged in, what time had they to be sentimental? End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Man of Property. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Recording by Andy Minter. The foresight saga. The Man of Property. By John Gaulsworthy. Chapter two. Old Jolian goes to the opera. At five o'clock the following day, Old Jolian sat alone, with a cigar between his lips, and on a table by his side, a cup of tea. He was tired, and before he had finished his cigar, he fell asleep. A fly settled on his hair. His breathing sounded heavy in the drowsy silence. His upper lip, under the white moustache, puffed in and out, from between the fingers of his veined and wrinkled hand. The cigar, dropping on the empty hearth, burnt itself out. The gloomy little study, with windows of stained glass to exclude the view, was full of dark green velvet and heavily carved mahogany, a sweet of which Old Jolian was want to say, shouldn't wonder if it made a big price some day. It was pleasant to think that in the afterlife there were things that he had given. In the rich brown atmosphere, peculiar to back rooms in the mansion of a foresight, the Rembrandtesque effect of his great head, with its white hair, against the cushion of his high-backed seat, was spoiled by the moustache, which imparted a somewhat military look to his face. An old clock that had been with him since before his marriage forty years ago, was kept with its ticking a jealous record of the seconds slipping away forever from its old master. He had never cared for this room, hardly going into it from one year's end to another, except to take cigars from the Japanese cabinet in the corner, and the room now had its revenge. His temples, curving like thatches over the hollows beneath, his cheekbones and chin, were covered in his sleep, and there had come upon his face the confession that he was an old man. He woke, June had gone. James had said he would be lonely. James had always been a poor thing. He recollected with satisfaction that he had bought that house over James's head. Serve him right for sticking at the price. The only thing the fellow thought of was money. Had he given too much, though, he wanted a lot of doing too. He dared say he would want all his money before he had done with this affair of Junes. He ought never to have allowed the engagement. She had met this vicinity at the house of Baines Baines and Builder Boy, the architects. He believed that Baines, whom he knew, bit of an old woman, was the young man's uncle by marriage. After that she had been always running after him. And when she took a thing into her head there was no stopping her. She was continually taking up with the lame ducks of one sort or another. This fellow had no money. But she must need to become engaged to him, the harem's scare of unpractical chap who would get himself into no end of difficulties. She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and told him. And as if it were any consolation she had added, he's so splendid he's often lived on Coco for a week. And he wants you to live on Coco, too. Oh, no! He's getting into the swim now. Old Joeyen had taken his cigar from under his white moustaches, stained by coffee at the edge, and looked at her, that little slip of a thing who had got such a grip of his heart. He knew more about swims than his granddaughter, but she, having clashed her hands on his knees, rubbed her chin against him, making a sound like a purring cat. And, knocking the ash off his cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation. You're all alike. You won't be satisfied till you've got what you want. If you must come to grief, you must. I wash my hands of it. So he had washed his hands of it, making the condition that they should not marry until Basini had at least four hundred a year. I shall not be able to give you very much," he had said, a formula to which June was not unaccustomed. Perhaps this, what's his name, will provide the cocoa. He had hardly seen anything of her since it began. Ah, bad business! He had no notion of giving her a lot of money to enable a fellow he knew nothing about to live on in idleness. He had seen that sort of thing before. No good ever came of it. Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking her resolution. She was as obstinate as a mule, always had been from a child. He didn't see where it was to end. They must cut their coat according to their cloth. He would not give way till he saw young Basini with an income of his own. That June would have trouble with the fellow was as plain as a pike staff. He had no more idea of money than a cow. As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young man's arms, he fully expected they were old cats. And motionless old Jolly and stared at the wall. But for his open eyes he might have been asleep. The idea of supposing that young Cub Soames could give him advice. He had always been a Cub with his nose in the air. He would be setting up as a man of property next with a place in the country, a man of property. Like his father he was always using out bargains, a cold bloody young beggar. He rose, and going to the cabinet began methodically stocking his cigar case from a bundle fresh in. They were not bad at the price. But you couldn't get a good cigar nowadays. Nothing to hold a candle to those old super-phenos of Hanson's and Bridger's. That was a cigar. The thought, like some stealing perfume, carried him back to those wonderful nights at Richmond when, after dinner, he sat smoking on the terrace of the crown and scepter with Nicholas Trefrey and Trackire and Jack Herring and Anthony Thornworthy. How good his cigars were then! Poor old Nick, dead, and Jack Herring dead, and Trocere dead of that wife of his, and Thornworthy, awfully shaky, no wonder with his appetite. Of all the company of those days, he himself alone seemed left, except Swithin, of course, and he so outrageously big there was no doing anything with him. Difficult to believe it was so long ago. He felt young still. Of all his thoughts, as he stood there counting his cigars, this was the most poignant, the most bitter. With his white head and his loneliness, he was young and green at heart. And those Sunday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, when young Jollyon and he went for a stretch along the Spaniards Road to Highgate, to Childs Hill, and back over the Heath again, to dine at Jack Straw's castle. How delicious his cigars were then! And such weather! There was no weather now. When June was a toddler of five, and every other Sunday he took her to the zoo, with those two good women, her mother and her grandmother, and at the top of the Bear Den baited his umbrella with buns for her favourite bears. How sweet his cigars were then! Cigars! He had not even succeeded in outliving his pallet, the famous pallet that in the fifties men swore by, and speaking of him said, foresight's the best pallet in London, the pallet that in a sense was a fortune, the fortune of the celebrated tea-men, foresight and trefri, whose tea, like no other man's tea, had a romantic aroma, the charm of a quite singular genuineness. About the house of foresight and trefri in the city had clung an air of enterprise and mystery, of special dealings in special ships, at special ports, with special orientals. He had worked at that business. Men did work in those days. These young pups hardly knew the meaning of the word. He had gone into every detail, known everything that went on, sometimes sat up all night over it. And he had always chosen his agents himself, prided himself on it. His eye for men, he used to say, had been the secret of his success, and the exercise of the masterful power of selection had been the only part of it all that he'd really liked. Not a career for a man of his ability. Even now, when the business had been turned into a limited liability company and was declining, he had got out of his shares long ago, he felt a sharp chagra in thinking of that time how much better he might have done. He would have succeeded splendidly at the bar. He had even thought of standing for parliament. How often had not Nicholas Trefri said to him, anything, Joe, if you weren't so damn careful of yourself? Ah, dear old Nick, such a good fellow, but a rackety chap, the notorious Trefri. He had never taken any care of himself, so he was dead. Old Jollyon counted his cigars with a steady hand, and it came into his mind to wonder if perhaps he had been too careful of himself. He put the cigar case in the breast coat, buttoned it, and walked up the long flights to his bedroom, leaning on one foot and the other, and helping himself by the banister. The house was too big. After June was married, if she ever did marry this fellow, as he supposed she would, he would let it and go into rooms. What was the use of keeping half a dozen servants eating their heads off? The butler came to the ring of his bell, a large man with a beard, a soft tread, and a peculiar capacity for silence. Old Jollyon told him to put his dress-clothes out. He was going to dine at the club. How long had the carriage been back from taking Miss June to the station? Since two. Then let him come round at half-past six. The club, which Old Jollyon entered on the stroke of seven, was one of those political institutions of the upper middle class in spite of being talked about. Perhaps in consequence of being talked about, it betrayed a disappointing vitality. People had grown tired of saying that the disunion was on its last legs. Old Jollyon would say it too, yet disregarded the fact in a manner truly irritating to well-constituted clubmen. Why do you keep your name on? Swithin often asked him with profound vexation, to join the polyglot. You can't get a wine like our hide-sec under twenty shill in a bottle anywhere in London. Dropping his voice, he added, there's only five hundred dozen left. I drink it every night of my life. Ah, think of it! Old Jollyon would answer, but when he did think of it there was always the question of fifty in his entrance fee, and it would take him four or five years to get in. Old, to be a liberal, that long ceased to believe in the political doctrines of his club, had even been known to allude to the most wretched stuff, and it afforded him pleasure to continue a member in the teeth of principles so opposed to his own. He had always had a contempt for the place, having joined it many years ago when they refused to have him at the hot-botch, owing to his being in trade, and clearly despised the club that did take him. The members were a poor lot, many of them in the city, stockbrokers, solicitors, auctioneers, what not. Like most men of strong character but not too much in originality, Old Jollyon set small store by the class to which he belonged. Faithfully he followed their customs, social and otherwise, and secretly he thought them a common lot. Years and philosophy of which he had had his share, had dimmed the recollection of his defeat at the hot-botch, and now in his thoughts it was enshrined as the Queen of Clubs. He would have been a member all these years himself, but owing to the slipshod way his proposer Jack Herring had gone to work they had not known what they were doing in keeping him out. Why, they had taken his son Joe at once, and he believed the boy was still a member. The letter dated from there eight years ago. He had not been near the disunion for months, and the house had undergone the pie-balled decoration which people bestow on old houses and old ships when anxious to sell them. Beastly colour, the smoking-room, he thought. The dining-room's good. Its gloomy chocolate picked out with light green took his fancy. He ordered dinner and sat down in the very corner at the very table, perhaps. Things did not progress much at the disunion, a club of almost radical principles, at which he and young Jollyon used to sit twenty-five years ago when he was taking the letter to Drury Lane during his holidays. The boy had loved the theatre. An old Jollyon recalled how he used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful but transparent notchalence. He ordered himself, too, the very dinner the boy had always chosen. Soup, whitebait, cutlets, and a tart. Ah, if he were only opposite now. The two had not met for fourteen years. And not for the first time during those fourteen years. Old Jollyon wondered whether he had been a little to blame in the matter of his son. An unfortunate love affair with that precious flirt Danai Thornworthy. Danai Piliu, Anthony Thornworthy's daughter, had thrown him on the rebound into the arms of June's mother. He ought perhaps to have put a spoke in the wheel of their marriage. They were too young. But after that experience of Joe's susceptibility he had been only too anxious to see him married. And in four years the crash had come. To have approved his son's conduct in that crash was, of course, impossible. Reason and training, that combination of potent factors which stood for his principles told him of this impossibility and his heart cried out. The grim remorselessness of that business had no pity for hearts. There was June the atom with the flaming hair who had climbed all over him, twined and twisted herself about him about his heart that was made to be the plating and beloved resort of tiny helpless things. With characteristic insight he saw he must now part with one or with the other. No half-measures could serve in such a situation. In that lay its tragedy and the tiny helpless thing prevailed. He would not run with the hair and hunted the hounds. And so, to his son, he said good-bye. That good-bye had lasted until now. He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to young Jolien, but this had been refused. And perhaps that refusal had hurt him more than anything, for with it had gone the last outlet of his pending affection, and there had come such tangible and solid proof of rupture as only a transaction in property a bestowal or refusal of such could supply. His dinner tasted flat. His pint of champagne was dry and bitter stuff, not like the verve Klikos of old days. Over his cup of coffee he bethought him that he would go to the opera. In the times, therefore, he had a distrust of other papers. He read the announcement for the evening. It was Fidelio, mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that fellow Wagner. Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its brim flattened by use and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days, and pulling out an old pair of very thin lavender kiddoves, smelling strongly of Russia leather from habitual proximity to the cigar case in the pocket of his overcoat, he stepped into a handsome. The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolian was struck by their unwanted animation. The hotels must be doing a tremendous business, he thought. A few years ago there had been none of these big hotels. He made a satisfactory reflection on some property he had in the neighbourhood. He must be going up in value by leaps and bounds. What traffic! But from that he began indulging in one of those strange impersonal speculations, so uncharacteristic of a foresight, wherein lay, in part, the secret of his supremacy among them, what atoms men were, and what a lot of them, and what would become of them all. He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man his exact fare, walked up the ticket-office to take his stall, and stood there with his purse in his hand. He always carried his money in the purse, never having approved of that habit of carrying it loosely in the pockets as so many young men did nowadays. The official leaned out, like an old dog from a kennel. Why, he said in a surprised voice, it's Mr. Jolian Falsight, so it is. Haven't seen you, sir, for years. Dear me, times aren't what they were. Why, you and your brother and that auctioneer, Mr. Trocayer and Mr. Nicholas Trefri, you used to have six or seven stalls here regular every season. And how are you, sir? We don't get any younger. The colour in old Jolian's eyes deepened. He paid his guinea. They had not forgotten him. He marched in to the sounds of the overture, like an old war-horse to battle. Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender gloves in the old way, and took up his glasses for a long look round the house. Dropping them at last on his folded hat, he fixed his eyes on the curtain. More poignantly than ever he felt that it was all over and done with him. Where were all the women, the pretty women, the house used to be so full of? Where was that old feeling in the heart for one of those great singers? Where that sensation of the intoxication of life and of his own power to enjoy it all? The greatest opera-goer of his day. There was no opera, and now that fellow Wagner had ruined everything. No melody left, nor any voices to sing it. Ah, the wonderful singers, gone. He sat watching the old scenes acted, a numb feeling at his heart. The curl of silver over his ear to the pose of his foot in its elastic-sided, patent boot there was nothing clumsy or weak about old Jolien. He was as upright very nearly, as in those old times when he came every night. His sight was as good, almost as good, but what a feeling of weariness and disillusion. He had been in the habit all his life of enjoying things, even imperfect things, and there had been many imperfect things. He had enjoyed them all with moderation, so as to keep himself young, but now he was deserted by his power of enjoyment, by his philosophy, and was left with this dreadful feeling that it was all done with. Not even the prisoner's chorus, nor Florian's song had the power to dispel the gloom of his loneliness. If Joe were only with him, the boy must be 40 by now. He had wasted 14 years out of the life of his only son, and Joe was no longer a social pariah. He was married. Old Jolien had been unable to refrain from marking his appreciation of the action by enclosing his son a check for five hundred pounds. The check had been returned in a letter from the hodgepodge couched in these words. My dearest father, your generous gift was welcome as a sign of my right thing worse of me. I return it, but should you think fit to invest it for the benefit of the little chap, we call him Jolly, who bears our Christian, and by courtesy our surname, I shall be very glad. I hope with all my heart that your health is as good as ever. Your loving son, Joe. The letter was like the boy. He had always been an amiable chap. Old Jolien had sent this reply. My dear Joe. The sum, five hundred pounds, stands in my books for the benefit of your boy, under the name of Jolien Forsight, and will be duly credited with interest at five percent. I hope that you are doing well. My health remains good at present. With love I am your affectionate father, Jolien Forsight. And every year, on the first of January, he had added one hundred and the interest. The sum was mounting up. Next New Year's Day would be fifteen hundred and odd pounds. And it is difficult to say how much satisfaction he had got out of that yearly transaction, but the correspondence had ended. In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly constitutional, partly the result as in thousands of his class, of the continual handling and watching of affairs, prompting judge conduct by results rather than by principle, there was, at the bottom of his heart, a sort of uneasiness. His son ought, under the circumstances, to have gone to the dogs. That law was laid down in all the novels, sermons and plays he had ever read or witnessed. After receiving the check back, there seemed to him to be something wrong somewhere. Why had his son not gone to the dogs? But then he would tell. He had heard, of course, in fact he had made it his business to find out that Joe lived in St. John's Wood, that he had a little house in Wisteria Avenue, with a garden, and took his wife about with him into society. A queer sort of society, no doubt, and that they had two children, the little chap they called Jolly. Considering the circumstances the name struck him as cynical. An old Jolly and both feared and disliked cynicism. And a girl called Holly, born since the marriage. Who could tell what his son's circumstances really were? He had capitalised the income he had inherited from his mother's father and joined Lloyd's as an underwriter. He painted pictures, too. Watercolours. Old Jolly knew this for he had surreptitiously bought them from time to time. After chanceing to see, his son's name was at the bottom of a representation of the River Thames in the dealer's window. He thought them bad and did not hang them because of the signature. He kept them locked up in a drawer. In the great opera house a terrible yearning came on him to see his son. He remembered the days when he had been wont to slide him in a brown Holland suit to unfro under the arch of his legs. The times when he ran behind the boy's pony teaching him to ride. The day when he first took him to school. He had been a loving, lovable little chap. After he went to Eaton he had acquired perhaps a little too much of the desirable manner which Old Jolly knew was only to be obtained at such places and at great expense. But he had always been companionable. Always a companion, even after Cambridge, a little far off perhaps going to the advantages he had received. Old Jolly's feelings towards our public schools and varsities had never wavered and he retained touchingly his attitude of admiration and mistrust towards a system appropriate to the highest in the land of which he had not himself been privileged to partake. Now that June had gone and left or as good as left him it would have been a comfort to see his son again. Guilty of this treason to his family, his principles, his class Old Jolly and fixed his eyes on the singer. Ah, poor thing, a wretched poor thing and the flurry and a perfect stick. It was over. Ah, they were easily pleased nowadays. In the crowded street he snapped up a cab under the very nose of a stout and much younger gentleman who had already assumed it to be his own. His route lay through Palmao and at the corner instead of going through the Green Park the cabman turned to drive up St. James's Street. Old Jolly and put his hand through the trap. He could not bear being taken out of his way. In turning however he found himself opposite the hot-botch and the yearning that had been secretly with him the whole evening prevailed. He called the driver to stop. He would go in and ask if Joe still belonged there. He went in. The hall looked exactly as it did when he used to dine there with Jack Herring and they had the best cook in London. And he looked round with the shrewd straight glance that had caused him all his life to be better served than most men. Mr. Jolly and Fawcite still a member here? Yes, sir, in the club now, sir. What name? Old Jolly and was taken aback. His father, he said. And having spoken he took his stand back to the fireplace. Young Jolly and on the point of leaving the club had put on his hat and was in the act of crossing the hall as the porter met him. He was no longer young with hair going grey and a face a narrower replica of his father's with the same large drooping moustache decidedly worn. He turned pale. This meeting was terrible after all those years for nothing in the world was so terrible as a scene. They met and crossed hands without a word. Then with a quaver in his voice the father said, How are you, my boy? The son answered, How are you, Dad? Old Jolly and's hand trembled in its thin lavender glove. If you're going my way he said I can give you a lift. And as though in the habit of taking each other home every night they went out and stepped into the cab. To Old Jolly and it seemed that his son had grown more of a man altogether, was his comment. Over the natural amiability of that son's face had come a rather sardonic mask as though he found in the circumstances of his life the necessity for armour. The features were certainly those of a foresight but the expression was more like the introspective look of a student or philosopher. He had no doubt been obliged to look into himself a good deal in the course of those fifteen years. To Young Jolly and the first sight of his father was undoubtedly a shock. He looked so worn and old but in the cab he seemed hardly to have changed still having the calm look so well remembered still being upright and keen-eyed. You look well, Dad. Middling. Old Jolly and answered. He was the prey to an anxiety that he found he must put into words. Having got his son back like this he felt that he must know what was his financial position. Joe, he said, I should like to hear what sort of water you're in. I suppose you're in debt. He put it this way that his son might find it easier to confess. Young Jolly and answered in his ironical voice. No, I'm not in debt. Old Jolly and saw that he was angry and touched his hand. He had run a risk. It was worth it, however, and Joe had never been sulky with him. They drove on without speaking again to stand up-gate. Old Jolly and invited him in but Young Jolly and shook his head. June's not here, said his father hastily, went off to-day in a visit. I suppose you know that she's engaged to be married? Already, murmured Young Jolly and Old Jolly and stepped out and in paying the cab fare for the first time in his life gave the driver a sovereign in mistake for a shilling. Placing the coin in his mouth the cabman whipped his horse secretly on the underneath and hurried away. Old Jolly and turned the key softly in the lock, pushed open the door and beckoned. His son saw him gravely hanging up his coat with an expression on his face like that of a boy who intends to steal cherries. The door of the dining-room was open. The gas turned low, a spirit urn hissed on the tea-tray, and close to it a cynical-looking cat had fallen asleep on the dining-table. Old Jolly and shooed her off at once. The incident was a relief to his feelings. He rattled his opera-hat behind the animal. She's got fleas, he said, following her out of the room. Through the door and the hall leading to the basement he called, HIST! several times as though assisting the cat's departure, till by some strange coincidence the butler appeared below. You can go to bed, Parfit, said Old Jolly, I will lock up and put out. When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately preceded him with her tail in the air, proclaiming that she had seen through this manoeuvre for suppressing the butler from the first. The reality had dogged Old Jolly and's domestic stratagems all his life. Young Jolly and could not help smiling. He was very well versed in irony, and everything that evening seemed to him ironical. The episode of the cat, the announcement of his own daughter's engagement. So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had in the puss, and the poetical justice of this appealed to him. What's June like now? he asked. She's a little thing, returned Old Jolly in. They say she's like me, but that's their folly. She's more like your mother, same eyes and hair. Ah, and she's pretty. Old Jolly in was too much of a foresight to praise anything freely, especially anything for which he had a genuine admiration. Not bad-looking, a regular foresight chin. It'll be lonely here when she's gone, Joe. The look on his face again gave Young Jolly and the shock he had felt on first seeing his father. What will you do with yourself, Dad? I suppose she's wrapped up in him. Do with myself, repeated Old Jolly and with an angry break in his voice. It'll be miserable work living here alone. I don't know how it's to end. I wished a goodness. He checked himself and added, The question is, what had I better do with this house? Young Jolly in looked round the room. It was peculiarly vast and dreary, decorated with the enormous pictures of still life that he remembered as a boy, sleeping dogs with their noses resting on bunches of carrots, together with onions and grapes, flying side by side in mild surprise. The house was a white elephant, but he could not conceive of his father living in a smaller place, and all the more did it all seem ironical. In his great chair, with the book rest, sat Old Jolly and the figurehead of his family in class and creed, with his white head and dome-like forehead, the representative of moderation and order and love of property, as lonely an old man as there was in London. There he sat in the gloomy comfort of the room, a puppet in the power of great forces that cared nothing for family or class or creed, but moved machine-like with dread processes to inscrutable ends. This was how it struck Young Jolly in, who had the impersonal eye. The poor old dad, so this was the end, the purpose to which he had lived with such magnificent moderation to be lonely and grow older and older, yearning for a soul to speak to. In his turn Old Jolly and look back at his son. He wanted to talk about many things that he had been unable to talk about all these years. It had been impossible to seriously confide in June his conviction that property in the Soho Quarter would go up in value, his uneasiness about that tremendous silence of Pippin, the superintendent of the new colliery company, of which he had so long been chairman, his disgust at the steady fall in American Golgothas, and even to discuss how, by some sort of settlement, he could best avoid the payment for those death duties which would follow his decease. Under the influence, however, of a cup of tea, which he seemed to stir indefinitely, he began to speak at last. A new vista of life was thus opened up, a promised land of talk, where he could find a harbour against the waves of anticipation and regret, where he could soothe his soul with the opium of devising how to round off his property and make eternal the only part of him that was to remain alive. Young Jolien was a good listener. It was his great quality. He kept his eyes fixed on his father's face, putting a question now and then. The clock struck one before old Jolien had finished, and at the sound of it striking, his principles came back. He took out his watch with a look of surprise. I must go to bed, Joe," he said. Young Jolien rose and held out his hand to help his father up. The old face looked worn and hollow again. The eyes were steadily averted. Good-bye, my boy. Take care of yourself. A moment passed, and young Jolien, turning on his heel, marched out at the door. He could hardly see. Jolien smiled quavered, never in all the fifteen years, since she had first found out that life was no simple business, had he found it so singularly complicated. The Foresight Saga The Man of Property by John Golesworthy Part 1 Chapter 3 Dinner at Swithins In Swithins' orange and light blue dining-room, facing the park, the round table was laid for twelve. A cut glass chandelier filled with lighted candles hung like a giant stalactite above its centre, radiating over large guilt-framed mirrors slabs of marble on the tops of side-tables and heavy gold chairs with cruel-worked seats. Everything betokened that love of beauty so deeply implanted in each family which has had its own way to make into society, out of the more vulgar heart of nature. Swithin had indeed an impatience of simplicity, a love of ormaloo which had always stamped him amongst his associates as a man of great, if somewhat luxurious tastes, and out of the knowledge that no one could possibly enter his rooms without perceiving him to be a man of wealth. He had derived a solid and prolonged happiness, such as perhaps no other circumstance in life had afforded him. Since his retirement from land agency, a profession deplorable in his estimation, especially as to its auctioneering department, he had abandoned himself to naturally aristocratic tastes. The perfect luxury of his latter days had embedded him like a fly in sugar, and his mind, where very little took place from morning till night, was a junction of two curiously opposite emotions, a lingering and sturdy satisfaction that he had made his own way and his own fortune, and a sense that a man of his distinction should never have been allowed to soil his mind with work. He stood at the side-board in a white waistcoat with large gold and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three champagne bottles deeper into ice-pales. Between the points of his stand-up collar, which, though it hurt him to move, he would on no account have altered, the pale flesh of his under-chin remained immovable. His eyes roved from bottle to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like this. Jolian drinks a glass, perhaps two, he's so careful of himself. James, he can't take his wine nowadays. Nicholas, fanny, and he would swill water, he shouldn't wonder. Somes didn't count. These young nephews—Somes was thirty-one—couldn't drink. But Bosony? Encountering in the name of this stranger something outside the range of his philosophy, Swithin paused. A misgiving arose in him. It was impossible to tell. June was only a girl, and in love, too. Only Mrs. James liked a good glass of champagne. It was too dry for Julie, poor old soul, she had no palette. As to Hattie Chessman, the thought of this old friend caused a cloud of thought to obscure the perfect glassiness of his eyes. He shouldn't wonder if she drank half a bottle. But in thinking of his remaining guest, an expression like that of a cat who is just going to purr stole over his old face—Mrs. Somes. She might not take much, but she would appreciate what she drank. It was a pleasure to give her good wine—a pretty woman—and sympathetic to him. The thought of her was like champagne itself—a pleasure to give a good wine to a young woman who looked so well, who knew how to dress with charming manners quite distinguished—a pleasure to entertain her. Between the points of his collar he gave his head the first small, painful oscillation of the evening. Adolf, he said, put in another bottle. He himself might drink a good deal, for thanks to that prescription of blights he found himself extremely well, and he had been careful to take no lunch. He had not felt so well for weeks. Puffing out his lower lip he gave his last instructions. Adolf, the least touch of the West India when you come to the ham. Passing into the ante-room he sat down on the edge of a chair with his knees apart, and his tall, bulky form was wrapped at once in an expectant, strange, permeable immobility. He was ready to rise at a moment's notice. He had not given a dinner-party for months. This dinner, in honour of June's engagement, had seemed a bore at first. Among foresights the custom of solemnising engagements by feasts was religiously observed, but the labours of sending invitations and ordering the repast over he felt pleasantly stimulated. And thus sitting, a watch in his hand, fat and smooth and golden like a flattened globe of butter, he thought of nothing. A long man with side-whiskers who had once been in Swithin's service but was now a greengrocer, entered and proclaimed, Mrs. Chessman, Mrs. Septimus Small. Two ladies advanced. The one in front, habited entirely in red, had large settled patches of the same colour in her cheeks and a hard, dashing eye. She walked at Swithin, holding out a hand cased in a long primrose-coloured glove. Well, Swithin, she said, I haven't seen you for ages. How are you? Why, my dear boy, how stout you're getting?" The fixity of Swithin's eye alone betrayed emotion. A dumb and grumbling anger swelled his bosom. It was vulgar to be stout, to talk of being stout. He had a chest, nothing more. Turning to his sister, he grasped her hand and said, in a tone of command, Well, Julie? Mrs. Septimus Small was the tallest of the four sisters. Her good round old face had gone a little sour, an innumerable pout clung all over it, as if it had been encased in an iron wire mask up to that evening, which being suddenly removed, left little rolls of mutinous flesh all over her countenance. Even her eyes were pouting. It was thus that she recorded her permanent resentment at the loss of Septimus Small. She had quite a reputation for saying the wrong thing, and tenacious, like all her breeds, she would hold to it when she had said it, and add to it another wrong thing, and so on. With the decease of her husband, the family tenacity, the family matter of factness had gone sterile within her. A great talker went aloud. She would converse without the faintest animation for hours together, relating with epic monotony the innumerable occasions on which Fortune had misused her, nor did she ever perceive that her hearers sympathized with Fortune, for her heart was kind. Having sat poor soul long by the bedside of Small, a man of poor constitution, she had acquired the habit, and there were countless subsequent occasions when she had sat immense periods of time to amuse sick people, children, and other helpless persons, and she could never divest herself of the feeling that the world was the most ungrateful place anybody could live in. Sunday after Sunday she sat at the feet of that extremely witty preacher, the Reverend Thomas Scholes, who exercised a great influence over her, but she succeeded in convincing everybody that even this was a misfortune. She had passed into a proverb in the family, and when anybody was observed to be peculiarly distressing, he was known as a regular Julie. The habit of her mind would have killed anybody but a foresight at forty, but she was seventy-two, and had never looked better, and one felt that there were capacities for enjoyment about her which might yet come out. She owned three canaries, the cat Tommy, and half a parrot, in common with her sister Hester, and these poor creatures kept carefully out of Timothy's way, he was nervous about animals, unlike human beings, recognizing that she could not help being blighted, attached themselves to her passionately. She was somberly magnificent this evening in black bombazine, with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat. It was a mauve for evening where it was esteemed very chased by nearly every foresight. Pouting at Swithin, she said, Anne has been asking for you. You haven't been near us for an age. Swithin put his thumbs within the armholes of his waistcoat and replied, Anne's getting very shaky. She ought to have a doctor. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Foresight Nicholas Foresight, cocking his rectangular eyebrows, wore a smile. He had succeeded during the day in bringing to fruition a scheme for the employment of a tribe from Upper India in the gold mines of Ceylon. A peck-plan carried at last in the teeth of great difficulties. He was justly pleased. It would double the output of his mines, and as he had often forcibly argued, all experience tended to show that a man must die, and whether he died a miserable old age in his own country or prematurely of damp in the bottom of a foreign mine was surely of little consequence, provided that by a change in his mode of life he benefited the British Empire. His ability was undoubted. Raising his broken nose toward his listener, he would add, for want of a few hundred of these fellows we haven't paid a dividend for years, and look at the price of the shares. I can't get ten shillings for them. He had been at Yarmouth too, and had come back feeling that he had added at least ten years to his own life. He grasped Swithin's hand, exclaiming in a jocular voice, so here we are again. Mrs. Nicholas, an effete woman, smiled a smile of frightened jollity behind his back. Mr. and Mrs. James foresight. Mr. and Mrs. Somes foresight. Swithin drew his heels together, his deportment ever admirable. Well, James, well, Emily, how are you, Somes? How do you do? His hand enclosed Irene's, and his eyes swelled. She was a pretty woman, a little too pale, but her figure, her eyes, her teeth—too good for that chap, Somes. The gods had given Irene dark brown eyes and golden hair that strange combination provocative of men's glances which is said to be the mark of a weak character. And the full soft pallor of her neck and shoulders above a gold-colored frock gave to her personality an alluring strangeness. Somes stood behind, his eyes fastened on his wife's neck. The hands of Swithin's watch, which he still held open in his hand, had left eight behind. It was half an hour beyond his dinner-time. He had had no lunch, and a strange, primeval impatience surged up within him. It's not like Julian to be late, he said to Irene with uncontrollable vexation. I suppose it'll be June keeping him. People in love are always late, she answered. Swithin stared at her. A dusky orange dyed his cheeks. They have no business to be, some fashionable nonsense. And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence of primitive generations seemed to mutter and grumble. Tell me what you think of my new star, Uncle Swithin," said Irene softly. Among the lace in the bosom of her dress was shining a five-pointed star made of eleven diamonds. Swithin looked at the star. He had a pretty taste in stones. No question could have been more sympathetically devised to distract his attention. Who gave you that, he asked? Soames. There was no change in her face, but Swithin's pale eyes bulged as though he might suddenly have been afflicted with insight. I dare say you're dull at home, he said. Any day you like to come and dine with me I'll give you as good a bottle of wine as you'll get in London. Miss June foresight, Mr. Julian foresight, Mr. Boswainy. Swithin moved his arm and said in a rumbling voice, Dinner, now! Dinner! He took in Irene on the ground that he had not entertained her since she was a bride. June was the portion of Boswainy, who was placed between Irene and his fiancée. On the other side of June was James with Mrs. Nicholas, then Old Julian with Mrs. James, Nicholas with Hattie Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small, completing the circle to Swithin again. Family dinners of the foresight's observed certain traditions. There are for instance no hors d'oeuvre. The reason for this is unknown. Theory among the younger members traces it to the disgraceful price of oysters. It is more probably due to a desire to come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding at once that hors d'oeuvre are but poor things. The James is alone, unable to withstand a custom almost universal in Park Lane, are now and then unfaithful. A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other succeeds to the subsidence into their seats, lasting till well into the first entree, but interspersed with remarks such as, Tom's bad again. I can't tell what's the matter with him. I suppose Anne doesn't come down in the mornings. What's the name of your doctor, Fanny? Stubbs? He's a quack. Winifred? She's got too many children. Four, isn't it? She's as thin as a laugh. What do you give for this cherries within? Too dry for me. With the second glass of champagne a kind of hum makes itself hurt, which, when divested of casual accessories and resolved into its primal element, is found to be James telling a story. And this goes on for a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon what must universally be recognized as the crowning-point of a foresight feast, the saddle of mutton. No foresight has given a dinner without providing a saddle of mutton. There is something in its succulent solidity which makes it suitable to people of a certain position. It is nourishing and tasty. The sort of thing a man remembers eating. It has a past and a future, like a deposit paid into a bank, and it is something that can be argued about. Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular locality. Old Jolien swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh, Swithin by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining that people might sneer but there was nothing like New Zealand. As for Roger, the original of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a locality of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man who had devised a new profession for his sons, he had discovered a shop where they sold German. On being remonstrated with, he had proved his point by producing a butcher's bill, which showed that he paid more than any of the others. It was on this occasion that Old Jolien, turning to June, had said in one of his bursts of philosophy, you may depend upon it, there are cranky lot the foresight, and you'll find it out as you grow older. Timothy alone held apart, for though he ate saddle of mutton heartily, he was, he said, afraid of it. To any one interested psychologically in foresight's, this great saddle of mutton trait is of prime importance. Not only does it illustrate their tenacity, both collectively and as individuals, but it marks them as belonging in fibre and instincts to the great class which believes in nourishment and flavour, and yields to no sentimental craving for beauty. Younger members of the family indeed would have done without a joint altogether, preferring guinea fowl or lobster salad, something which appealed to the imagination and had less nourishment, but these were females, or if not, had been corrupted by their wives or by mothers, who, having been forced to eat saddle of mutton throughout their married lives, had passed a secret hostility towards it into the fibre of their sons. The great saddle of mutton controversy at an end, Murray Ham commenced, together with the least touch of West Indian. Swithin was so long over this course that he caused a block in the progress of the dinner. To devote himself to it with better heart, he paused in his conversation. From his seat by Mrs. Septimus Small, Soames was watching. He had a reason of his own connected with a pet building scheme for observing bossiny. The architect might do for his purpose. He looked clever as he sat leaning back in his chair, making little ramparts with breadcrumbs. Soames noted his dress clothes to be well cut, but too small, as though made many years ago. He saw him turn to Irene and say something, and her face sparkle as he often saw it sparkle at other people, never at himself. He tried to catch what they were saying, but Aunt Julie was speaking. Hadn't that always seemed very extraordinary to Soames? Only last Sunday, dear Mr. Skoll had been so witty in his sermon, so sarcastic for what he had said shall it profit a man if he gain his own soul but lose all his property. That he had said was the model of the middle class. Now, what had he meant by that? Of course, it might be what middle class people believed. She didn't know. What did Soames think? He answered abstractedly, How should I know? Skoll's is a humbug, though, isn't he? For bossiny was looking around the table as if pointing out the peculiarities of the guests, and Soames wondered what he was saying. By her smile Irene was evidently agreeing with his remarks. She seemed always to agree with other people. Her eyes were turned on himself. Soames dropped his glance at once. The smile had died off her lips. A humbug. But what did Soames mean? If Mr. Skoll's was a humbug, a clergyman, then anybody might be. It was frightful. Well, and so they are, said Soames. During Aunt Julie's momentary simplified silence, he caught some words of Irene's that sounded like abandon hope all ye who enter here. But Swithin had finished his hand. Where do you go for your mushrooms? He was saying to Irene, in a voice like a courtiers, you ought to go to smiley-bops. He'll give them you fresh. These little men, they won't take the trouble. Irene turned to answer him. And Soames saw Bossiny watching her and smiling to himself. A curious smile the fellow had. A half simple arrangement, like a child who smiles when he is pleased. As for George's nickname, the Buccaneer, he did not think too much of that. And seeing Bossiny turn to June, Soames smiled too, but sardonically. He did not like June, who was not looking too pleased. This was not surprising, for she had just held the following conversation with James. I stayed on the river on my way home, Uncle James, and saw a beautiful sight for a house. James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process of mastication. Eh? he said. Now where was that? Close to Pangbourne. James placed a piece of ham in his mouth, and June waited. I suppose you wouldn't know whether the land about there was all free-hold, he asked at last. You wouldn't know anything about the price of land about there? Yes, said June, I made inquiries. The unresolute face under its copper crown was suspiciously eager and aglow. James regarded her with the air of an inquisitor. What? You're not thinking of buying land, he ejaculated, dropping his fork. June was greatly encouraged by his interest. It had long been her pet plan that her uncles should benefit themselves and Bossiny by building country houses. Of course not, she said. I thought it would be such a splendid place for you or someone to build a country house. James looked at her sideways and placed a second piece of ham in his mouth. Land ought to be very dear about there, he said. What June had taken for personal interest was only the impersonal excitement of every foresight who hears of something eligible in danger of passing into other hands, but she refused to see the disappearance of her chance and continued to press her point. You ought to go into the country, Uncle James. I wish I had a lot of money. I wouldn't live another day in London. James was stirred to the depths of his long, thin figure. He had no idea his niece held such downright views. Why don't you go into the country, repeated June? It would do you a lot of good. Why began James in a fluster, buying land? What good do you suppose I can do buying land, building houses? I couldn't get four percent for my money. What does that matter? You'd get fresh air. Air exclaimed James. What should I do with fresh air? I should have thought anybody like to have fresh air, said June scornfully. James wiped his napkin all over his mouth. You don't know the value of money. No, and I hope I never shall. And biting her lip with inexpressible mortification, poor June was silent. Why were her own relations so rich and Phil never knew where the money was coming from for tomorrow's tobacco? Why couldn't they do something for him? But they were so selfish. Why couldn't they build country-houses? She had all that naive dogmatism which is so pathetic and sometimes achieves such great results. Bosony, to whom she turned in her discomforture, was talking to Irene and a chill fell on June's spirit. Her eyes grew steady with anger like old Jolians when his will was crossed. James, too, was much disturbed. He felt as though someone had threatened his money at five percent. Julian had spoiled her. None of his girls would have said such a thing. James had always been exceedingly liberal to his children and the consciousness of this made him feel it all the more deeply. He trifled Moodley with his strawberries. Then, deluging them with cream, he ate them quickly. They, at all events, should not escape him. No wonder he was upset. Engaged for fifty-four years he had been admitted a solicitor on the earliest day sanctioned by the law in arranging mortgages, preserving investments at a dead level of high and safe interest, conducting negotiations on the principle of securing the utmost possible out of other people compatible with safety to his clients and himself. In calculations as to the exact pecuniary possibilities of all the relations of life he had come at last to think purely in terms of money. Money was now his light, his medium for seeing, that without which he was really unable to see, really not cognizant of phenomena and to have this thing I hope I shall never know the value of money said to his face, saddened and exasperated him. He knew it to be nonsense or it would have frightened him. What was the world coming to? Suddenly recollecting the story of young Jolian, however, he felt a little comforted for what could you expect with a father like that? This turned his thoughts into a channel still less pleasant. What was all this talk about soams and Irene? As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had been established where family secrets were bartered and family stock priced. It was known on foresight change that Irene regretted her marriage. Her regret was disapproved of. She ought to have known her own mind. No dependable woman made these mistakes. James reflected sourly that they had a nice house, rather small, in an excellent position, no children and no money troubles. Soams was reserved about his affairs, but he must be getting a very warm man. He had a capital income from the business. For Soams, like his father, was a member of that well-known firm of solicitors, foresight bustered in foresight and had always been very careful. He had done unusually well with some mortgages he had taken up too, a little timely foreclosure, most lucky hits. There was no reason why Irene should not be happy, yet they said she had been asking for a separate room. He knew where that ended. It wasn't as if some drank. James looked at his daughter-in-law. That unseen glance of his was cold and dubious. Appeal and fear were in it and a sense of personal grievance. Why should he be worried like this? It was so very likely all nonsense. Women were funny things. They exaggerated so you didn't know what to believe. And then nobody told him anything. He had to find everything out for himself. Again he looked furtively at Irene and across from her to Somes. The latter, listening to Aunt Julie, was looking up under his brows in the direction of Bosony. He's fond of her, I know, thought James. Look at the way he's always giving her things. And the extraordinary unreasonableness of her disaffection struck him with increased force. It was a pity, too. She was a taking little thing and he, James, would really be quite fond of her if she'd only let him. She had taken up lately with June. That was doing her no good. That was certainly doing her no good. She was getting to have opinions of her own. He didn't know what she wanted with anything of the sort. She'd a good home and everything she could wish for. He felt that her friends ought to be chosen for her. To go on like this was dangerous. June, indeed, with her habit of championing the unfortunate, had dragged from Irene a confession and, in return, had preached the necessity of facing the evil by separation, if need be. But in the face of these exhortations Irene had kept a brooding silence as though she found terrible the thought of this struggle carried through in cold blood. He would never give her up, she had said to June. Who cares, June cried? Let him do what he likes. You have only to stick to it. And she had not scrupled to say something of this sort at Timothy's. James, when he heard of it, had felt a natural indignation and horror. It seemed to her head to, he could hardly frame the thought, to leave Psalms. But he felt this thought so unbearable that he had once put it away. The shady visions it conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in his ears, the horror of the conspicuous happening so close to him, to one of his own children. Luckily she had no money, a beggarly fifty pound a year. And he thought of the deceased Heron who had had nothing to give her with contempt. As his long legs twisted under the table, he quite omitted to rise when the ladies left the room. He would have to speak to Psalms, would have to put him on his guard. They could not go on like this now that such a contingency had occurred to him. And he noticed with sour disfavor that June had left her wine-glasses full of wine. That little thing's at the bottom of it all, he mused. Irene would never have thought of it herself. James was a man of imagination. The voice of Swithon roused him from his reverie. I gave four hundred pounds for it, he was saying. Of course it's a regular work of art. Four hundred? That's a lot of money, chimed in Nicholas. The object alluded to was an elaborate group of statuary in Italian marble, which, placed upon a lofty stand also of marble, diffused an atmosphere of culture throughout the room. The subsidiary figures of which there were six, female, nude, ugly ornate workmanship, were all pointing toward the central figure, also nude and female, who was pointing at herself. And all this gave the observer a very pleasant sense of her extreme value. Aunt Julie, nearly opposite, had had the greatest difficulty in not looking at it all the evening. Old Jolien spoke. It was he who had started the discussion. Four hundred fiddle-sticks! Don't tell me you gave four hundred for that! Between the points of his collars since Chin made the second painful oscillatory movement of the evening. Four hundred pounds of English money, not a farthing less. I don't regret it. It's not common English. It's genuine modern Italian. Soames raised the corner of his lip in a smile, and looked across at Bosini. The architect was grinning behind the fumes of his cigarette. Now, indeed, he looked more like a buccaneer. There's a lot of work about it, remarked James Hastily, who was really moved by the size of the group. It had sell well at Jobsons. The poor foreign devil it made it, went on Swithin, asked me five hundred. I gave him four. It's worth eight. Looked half-starved, poor devil. Ah! chimed in Nicholas suddenly. Poor seedy-looking chaps, these artists. It's a wonder to me how they live. Now, there's young flageoletti that Fanny and the girls were always having in, to play the fiddle. If he makes a hundred a year, it's as much as he ever does. James shook his head. He said, I don't know how they live. Old Jolie on head risen, and cigar in mouth went to inspect the group at close quarters. Wouldn't have given two for it, he pronounced it last. Soames saw his father and Nicholas Glantz at each other anxiously, and on the other side of Swithin, Bosini still shrouded in smoke. I wonder what he thinks of it, thought Soames, who knew well enough that this group was hopelessly jugio, hopelessly of the last generation. There was no longer any sale at Jobsons for such works of art. Swithin's answer came at last. You never knew anything about a statue. You've got your pictures and that's all. Old Jolie unwalked back to his seat, puffing his cigar. It was not likely that he was going to be drawn into an argument with an obstinate beggar like Swithin, pig-headed as a mule who had never known a statue from a straw hat. Stucko was all he said. It had long been physically impossible for Swithin to start. His fist came down on the table. Stucko! I should like to see anything you've got in your house. Half is good. And behind his speech seemed to sound again that rumbling violence of primitive generations. It was James who saved the situation. Now, what do you say, Mr. Bosini? You're an architect. You want to know all about statues and things. Every eye was turned upon Bosini. All waited with a strange, suspicious look for his answer. And Soames, speaking for the first time, asked, Yes, Bosini, what do you say? Bosini replied coolly, The work is a remarkable one. His words were addressed to Swithin. His eyes smiled slyly at Old Julian. Only Soames remained unsatisfied. Remarkable for what? For its naivety. The answer was followed by an impressive silence. Swithin alone was not sure whether a compliment was intended.