ound the
garden shut out everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its
top branches still gilded by the sun.

For some time they sat there, talking but little. Then old Jolyon rose
to go, and not a word was said about his coming again.

He walked away very sadly. What a poor miserable place; and he thought
of the great, empty house in Stanhope Gate, fit residence for a Forsyte,
with its huge billiard-room and drawing-room that no one entered from one
week's end to another.

That woman, whose face he had rather liked, was too thin-skinned by half;
she gave Jo a bad time he knew! And those sweet children! Ah! what a
piece of awful folly!

He walked towards the Edgware Road, between rows of little houses, all
suggesting to him (erroneously no doubt, but the prejudices of a Forsyte
are sacred) shady histories of some sort or kind.

Society, forsooth, the chattering hags and jackanapes--had set themselves
up to pass judgment on his flesh and blood! A parcel of old women! He
stumped his umbrella on the ground, as though to drive it into the heart
of that unfortunate body, which had dared to ostracize his son and his
son's son, in whom he could have lived again!

He stumped his umbrella fiercely; yet he himself had followed Society's
behaviour for fifteen years--had only today been false to it!

He thought of June, and her dead mother, and the whole story, with all
his old bitterness. A wretched business!

He was a long time reaching Stanhope Gate, for, with native perversity,
being extremely tired, he walked the whole way.

After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to the
dining-room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when June was
out--it was less lonely so. The evening paper had not yet come; he had
finished the Times, there was therefore nothing to do.

The room faced the backwater of traffic, and was very silent. He
disliked dogs, but a dog even would have been company. His gaze,
travelling round the walls, rested on a picture entitled: 'Group of Dutch
fishing boats at sunset'; the chef d'oeuvre of his collection. It gave
him no pleasure. He closed his eyes. He was lonely! He oughtn't to
complain, he knew, but he couldn't help it: He was a poor thing--had
always been a poor thing--no pluck! Such was his thought.

The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing his master
apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution in his movements. This
bearded man al