Timothy's--paying it with the
feeling that after the suit came on he would be paying no more--felt
knowledge in the air as he came in. Nobody, of course, dared speak of it
before him, but each of the four other Forsytes present held their
breath, aware that nothing could prevent Aunt Juley from making them all
uncomfortable. She looked so piteously at Soames, she checked herself on
the point of speech so often, that Aunt Hester excused herself and said
she must go and bathe Timothy's eye--he had a sty coming. Soames,
impassive, slightly supercilious, did not stay long. He went out with a
curse stifled behind his pale, just smiling lips.

Fortunately for the peace of his mind, cruelly tortured by the coming
scandal, he was kept busy day and night with plans for his
retirement--for he had come to that grim conclusion. To go on seeing all
those people who had known him as a 'long-headed chap,' an astute
adviser--after that--no! The fastidiousness and pride which was so
strangely, so inextricably blended in him with possessive obtuseness,
revolted against the thought. He would retire, live privately, go on
buying pictures, make a great name as a collector--after all, his heart
was more in that than it had ever been in Law. In pursuance of this now
fixed resolve, he had to get ready to amalgamate his business with
another firm without letting people know, for that would excite curiosity
and make humiliation cast its shadow before. He had pitched on the firm
of Cuthcott, Holliday and Kingson, two of whom were dead. The full name
after the amalgamation would therefore be Cuthcott, Holliday, Kingson,
Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. But after debate as to which of the dead
still had any influence with the living, it was decided to reduce the
title to Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte, of whom Kingson would be the
active and Soames the sleeping partner. For leaving his name, prestige,
and clients behind him, Soames would receive considerable value.

One night, as befitted a man who had arrived at so important a stage of
his career, he made a calculation of what he was worth, and after writing
off liberally for depreciation by the war, found his value to be some
hundred and thirty thousand pounds. At his father's death, which could
not, alas, be delayed much longer, he must come into at least another
fifty thousand, and his yearly expenditure at present just reached two.
Standing among his pictures, he saw before him a futu