galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no
grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no gossip--nothing; only the trees the
same--the trees in--different to the generations and declensions
of mankind. A democratic England--dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and
seemingly without an apex. And that something fastidious in the soul of
Soames turned over within him. Gone forever, the close borough of rank
and polish! Wealth there was--oh, yes! wealth--he himself was a richer
man than his father had ever been; but manners, flavour, quality, all
gone, engulfed in one vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing, petrol-smelling
Cheerio. Little half-beaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here
and there, dispersed and chetif, as Annette would say; but nothing ever
again firm and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurly-burly
of bad manners and loose morals his daughter--flower of his life--was
flung! And when those Labour chaps got power--if they ever did--the
worst was yet to come.

He passed out under the archway, at last no longer--thank
goodness!--disfigured by the gungrey of its search-light. 'They'd better
put a search-light on to where they're all going,' he thought, 'and
light up their precious democracy!' And he directed his steps along the
Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of course, would be sitting
in the bay window of the Iseeum. The chap was so big now that he was
there nearly all his time, like some immovable, sardonic, humorous
eye noting the decline of men and things. And Soames hurried, ever
constitutionally uneasy beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he
had heard, had written a letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the
War, complaining of the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of
race-horses. Yes, there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven,
with his smooth hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best
hair-wash, and a pink paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And
for perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy
tapping in his waistcoat for that sardonic kinsman. With his weight, his
perfectly parted hair, and bull-like gaze, he was a guarantee that the
old order would take some shifting yet. He saw George move the pink
paper as if inviting him to ascend--the chap must want to ask something
about his property. It was still under Soames' control; for in the
adoption of a sleeping partnership at that painful period twenty
years back when he had divorced Ire