Chelsea, and still taking 'lovers' to dances; Euphemia, living at home
and complaining of Nicholas; and those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse
Hayman. Of the third generation there were not very many--young Jolyon
had three, Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger
had one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of the
sixteen married--Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James' family; Eustace and
Thomas of Roger's; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of Nicholas';
Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman's--were going down the years
unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been born;
but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only seventeen
descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there would be more
than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student of statistics must
have noticed that the birth rate had varied in accordance with the rate
of interest for your money. Grandfather 'Superior Dosset' Forsyte in the
early nineteenth century had been getting ten per cent. for his, hence
ten children. Those ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and
Juley, whose husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at
once, had averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced
accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting barely
three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had mostly tied the
Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and the six of them who
had been reproduced had seventeen children, or just the proper two and
five-sixths per stem.

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A distrust
of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is guaranteed,
together with the knowledge that their fathers did not die, kept them
cautious. If one had children and not much income, the standard of taste
and comfort must of necessity go down; what was enough for two was not
enough for four, and so on--it would be better to wait and see what
Father did. Besides, it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered.
Sooner in fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on
the ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency fin
de siecle, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run, and one
would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace already had one, but
it had shaken him horribly, and broken one of his eye teeth; so that it
would be better to wait ti