To Let

pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and looking into the Future. He walked. Since the War he never took a cab if he could help it. Their drivers were, in his vi

nd a year in income and super-tax, one could not very well be worse off! A fortune of a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and very diversely invested, afforded substantial guarantee even against that "wildcat notion"-a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war profits, he was entirely in favor of it, for he had none, and "serve the beggars right!" The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything, gone up, and he had done better wit

1914 only thirty-five, going to her native France, her "chere patrie" as, under the stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse her "braves poilus," forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone, therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A bad tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual little ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the vexed problem whether or not she should go to school. She was better away from her mother in her war mood, from the chance of air-raids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had placed her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him compatible with excellence, and had missed her

gretting, even vaguely, the son who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After all, she bore his name; and he was not looking forward at all to the time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her rich enough to purchase perhaps and extinguish the name of the fellow who married her-why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to men nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, passed his curved han

ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first; oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he had-as never before-commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called "La Vendimia," wherein was the figure of a girl with an arm akimbo, who had reminded him of his daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at Mapledurham, and rather poor it was-you couldn't co

of any sort, indeed, just working people sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials charging up and down on dismal-looking hacks; with, here and there, little girls on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging their livers, or an orderly trying a great galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no gossip-nothing; only the trees the same-the trees indifferent to the generations and declensions of mankind. A democratic England-dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an apex. And that something fastidious in the soul of

mes hurried, ever constitutionally uneasy beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had written a letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the War, complaining of the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of race-horses. Yes, there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven, with his smooth hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best hair-wash, and a pink paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And for perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy tapping in his wais

emed more respectable to Soames. George, too, he knew, had sown the last of his wild oats, and was committed definitely to the joys of the table, eating only of the very best so as to keep his weight down, and owning, as he sai

nce the War," he sai

Soames coldly

a moment, George's fleshy f

," he said, "is a member he

ames. "What did you

f the hooks at any moment. I

es

d lot; he's a hundred, you know. They say he's like a mummy. Wher

head. "Highgate,

es an interest in food. He might last on, you know. Don't we GET anything for the old Forsyte

id Soames. "I mus

vil,' George's eye

d he added: "Haven't you attorneys invented a way yet of dodging this damned income tax? It hits the fixed inherited income like the

Soames, "the tu

moved a gleam of sa

chaps mean to have the lot before they've done. What are you going to do for a living when it comes? I shall work a six-hour da

ed, he resumed his s

d civilisation be built on any other? He did not think so. Well, they wouldn't confiscate his pictures, for they wouldn't know their worth. But what would they be worth, if these maniacs once began to milk capital? A drug on the market. 'I don't care about myself,' he thought; 'I could live on five hundred a year, and never know the differenc

omnibus. It was advanced some three paces from the wall, and was described in his catalogue as "Jupiter." He examined it with curiosity, having recently turned some of his attention to sculpture. 'If that's Jupiter,' he thought, 'I wonder wh

owled Soames

boyish voi

d Juno created he them, he was saying: 'I'll see how much

to sculpture? The future of plastic art, of music, painting, and even architecture, has

interest in beauty. I was through the Wa

ent-of distant Eau de Cologne-and his initials in a corner. Slightly reassured, he raised his eyes to the young man's face. It had rather fawn

rt of irritation, added: "Glad to hear

g man; "but you and I are the

es s

my card. I can show you some quite good ones any S

op in like a bird. My name's Mont-

, with a downward look at the young man's companion, who had a purple tie,

ey, streaky creations of Monet's, which had turned out such trumps; and then the stippled school; and Gauguin. Why, even since the Post-Impressionists there had been one or two painters not to be sneezed at. During the thirty-eight years of his connoisseur's life, indeed, he had marked so many "movements," seen the tides of taste and technique so ebb and flow, that there was really no telling anything except that there was money to be made out of every change of fashion. This too might quite well be a case where one must subdue primordial instinct, or lose the market. He got up and stood before the picture, trying hard to see it with the eyes of other people. Above the tomato blobs was what he took to be a sunset,

ead to speak to her boy; her profile was still so youthful that it made her grey hair seem powdery, as if fancy-dressed; and her lips were smiling as Soames, first possessor of them, had never seen them smile. Grudgingly he admitted her still beautiful, and in figure almost as young as ever. And how that boy smiled back at her! Emotion squeezed Soames' heart. The sight infringed his sense of justice. He grudged her that boy's smile-it went beyond what Fleur gave him, and it was undeserved. Their son might have been his son; Fleur might have been her daughter, if she had kept straight! He

believe it

him. His eyes must have had in them something of George Forsyte's sardonic look; for her glo

said the boy, cat

osts! And yet as one grew old-was there anything but what was ghost-like left? Yes, there was Fleur! He fixed his eyes on the entrance. She was due; but she would keep him waiting, of course! And suddenly he became aware of a sort of human breeze-a short, slight form clad in a sea-green djibbah with a metal belt and a fillet binding unruly red-gold hair all streaked with grey. She was talking to the Gallery attendants, and something familiar riveted his gaze

ame

d his head a

id. "Haven't seen yo

er made YOU

aid Soames.

of course; it ha

d Soames; "it must b

urse i

d'you

my Gal

fed from sh

rth makes you run

Art as if it

ok at that! Who's going to live in a t

icture for a moment. "I

deu

June rose. 'Crazy-lookin

rother here with a woman I used to know. If yo

had been too young; his own generation, of course, too old, though Giles Hayman had driven a car for the Red Cross-and Jesse Hayman been a special constable-those "Dromios" had always been of a sporting type! As for himself, he had given a motor ambulance, read the papers till he was sick of them, passed through much anxiety, invested in War Bonds, bought no clothes, lost seven pounds in weight; he didn't know what more he could have done at his age. Indeed, it struck him that he and his family had taken this war very differently to that affair with the Boers, which had been supposed to tax all the resources of the Empire. In that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had been wounded, that fellow Jolyon's first son had died of enteric, "the Dromios" had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse; but all that had seemed in the nature of

rfully: "Bit thic

d him his handkerchief was

w what we're

answered the young man chee

ecisely as if he had b

ther! Ther

natching off his

her up and down, "you're a

yet in repose were almost dreamy under very white, black-lashed lids, held over them in a sort of suspense. She had a charming profile, and nothing of her father in her face save a decided chin.

and under his

was t

dkerchief. We talked

oing to buy T

mly; "nor that Juno y

arm. "Oh! Let's go!

ner. But Soames had hung out a board marked "Trespassers will be

e street, "whom did y

, and that Mon

"that chap! What does

ks pretty deep-mother

s gru

d his wife wer

"I thought they were

to train race-horses on the Sussex Downs. They've go

was distasteful to him. "

t, but nic

. "He's a rackety ch

lly devoted. I promised to go

e had been bad enough, without his nephew's marriage to the daughter of the co-respondent; a half-sister too of June, and of that boy whom Fleur had just been looking at from

like it!"

promised I shall ride. Cousin Val can't walk much, you know; b

War didn't knock that on the head. He'

anything abo

into those stairs which he had attended in Paris six years ago, because Montague Dartie could not attend it himself-perfectly normal stairs in a house where they played bacca

s attention. "Look! The people w

tered Soames, who

at woman's

s grip on her arm, he turned into a confectioner's. It was-for him-a su

ing. I had a cocktail a

we're here," muttered Soam

d; "and two of tho

ang up. Those three-those three were coming in! He

is all right. My stunt.

stily at the nougat, and it stuck to his plate. Working at it with his finger, he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her eyes were on the boy. The Forsyte in him said: "Think, feel, and you're done for!" And he wiggled his finger desperately. Plate! Did Jolyon wear a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had been when he had seen her wearing

jolly good of you to encourage them. Only-hang it all!" Soames stole a glance. Irene's startled eyes were bent watchfully

ve you ha

, Father,

ned round again he saw Fleur standing near the door, holding

Fleur Forsyte-it's mine all

e trick from what he'd told

s my name too. Perh

aren't any others. I live a

in H

d lift a finger. He saw Irene's face alive with startled feeling, gave

long!"

id no

Isn't it queer-our name's

said. "Forsyte?

lyon, sir. Jo

s. Distant. How are you? V

oved

" Fleur was sayi

he heard th