pet his
frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the expense of
liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led among the
agricultural journals with the life-size mangold wurzels, before this new
attraction came into his life--no! He exceeded his allowance of cigars.
Two a day had always been his rule. Now he smoked three and sometimes
four--a man will when he is filled with the creative spirit. But very
often he thought: 'I must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up
rattling up to town.' But he did not; there was no one in any sort of
authority to notice him, and this was a priceless boon.

The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam'zelle
Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too 'wellbrrred' to
make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an eye for the relative
appearance of him who was her plaything and her god. It was left for
Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to rest in the hot part of the day,
to take a tonic, and so forth. But she did not tell him that she was the
a cause of his thinness--for one cannot see the havoc oneself is
working. A man of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which
produces passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes
which crave the sight of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter from his
son in Paris to say that they would all be back on Friday. This had
always been more sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic improvidence
given to the old, that they may endure to the end, he had never quite
admitted it. Now he did, and something would have to be done. He had
ceased to be able to imagine life without this new interest, but that
which is not imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually
finding to their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar. After
to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be abandoned. He
could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his
man of business. But even that would be dependent on his health, for now
they would begin to fuss about him. The lessons! The lessons must go
on! She must swallow down her scruples, and June must put her feelings
in her pocket. She had done so once, on the day after the news of
Bosinney's death; what she had done then, she could surely do again now.
Four years since that