sion of his grey hair. Little
change had Time wrought in the "warmest" of the young Forsytes, as the
last of the old Forsytes--Timothy-now in his hundred and first year,
would have phrased it.
The shade from the plane-trees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he had given
up top hats--it was no use attracting attention to wealth in days like
these. Plane-trees! His thoughts travelled sharply to Madrid--the
Easter before the War, when, having to make up his mind about that Goya
picture, he had taken a voyage of discovery to study the painter on his
spot. The fellow had impressed him--great range, real genius! Highly as
the chap ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with
him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first; oh,
yes! And he had bought. On that visit he 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 copy Goya. He would still look at it, however,
if his daughter were not there, for the sake of something irresistibly
reminiscent in the light, erect balance of the figure, the width between
the arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes. Curious that
Fleur should have dark eyes, when his own were grey--no pure Forsyte had
brown eyes--and her mother's blue! But of course her grandmother
Lamotte's eyes were dark as treacle!
He began to walk on again toward Hyde Park Corner. No greater change in
all England than in the Row! Born almost within hail of it, he could
remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child between the
crinolines to stare at tight-trousered dandies in whiskers, riding with a
cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of curly-brimmed and white top hats;
the leisurely air of it all, and the little bow-legged man in a long red
waistcoat who used to come among the fashion with dogs on several
strings, and try to sell one to his mother: King Charles spaniels,
Italian greyhounds, affectionate to her crinoline--you never saw them
now. You saw no quality of any sort, indeed, just working people sitting
in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young bouncing females in
pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials charging up and down on
dismal-looking hacks; with, here and there, little girls on ponies, or
old gentlemen jogging their l
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