he been able to guess. Yes, she
would be a swan--rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic
swan. She was eighteen now, and Mademoiselle Beauce was gone--the
excellent lady had removed, after eleven years haunted by her continuous
reminiscences of the 'well-brrred little Tayleurs,' to another family
whose bosom would now be agitated by her reminiscences of the
'well-brrred little Forsytes.' She had taught Holly to speak French like
herself.

Portraiture was not Jolyon's forte, but he had already drawn his younger
daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on the afternoon of
October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to him which caused his
eyebrows to go up:

Mr. SOAMES FORSYTE

THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB, MAPLEDURHAM. ST.
JAMES'S.

But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....

To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a little
daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved father lying
peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was never likely to be,
forgotten by so impressionable and warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense
as of mystery, too, clung to that sad day, and about the end of one whose
life had been so well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It seemed
incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were,
announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due
farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the lady
in grey,' of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded)
involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's
will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that
will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life
interest in fifteen thousand pounds. He had called on her to explain
that the existing investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the
charge, would produce for her the interesting net sum of L430 odd a year,
clear of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his cousin
Soames' wife--if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was not quite
sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the Botanical Gardens
waiting for Bosinney--a passive, fascinating figure, reminding him of
Titian's 'Heavenly Love,' and again, when, charged by his father, he had
gone to Montpellier Square on the afternoon when Bosinney's death was
known. He still recalled vividly her sudden app