se built for Irene and
himself--the house whose architect had wrought his domestic ruin. His
daughter--mistress of that house! That would be poetic justice! Soames
uttered a little mirthless laugh. He had designed that house to
re-establish his failing union, meant it for the seat of his
descendants, if he could have induced Irene to give him one! Her son
and Fleur! Their children would be, in some sort, offspring of the
union between himself and her!

The theatricality in that thought was repulsive to his sober sense. And
yet--it would be the easiest and wealthiest way out of the impasse, now
that Jolyon was gone. The juncture of two Forsyte fortunes had a kind
of conservative charm. And she--Irene--would be linked to him once
more. Nonsense! Absurd! He put the notion from his head.

On reaching home he heard the click of billiard-balls; and through the
window saw young Mont sprawling over the table. Fleur, with her cue
akimbo, was watching with a smile. How pretty she looked! No wonder
that young fellow was out of his mind about her. A title--land! There
was little enough in land, these days; perhaps less in a title. The old
Forsytes had always had a kind of contempt for titles, rather remote
and artificial things--not worth the money they cost, and having to do
with the Court. They had all had that feeling in differing
measure--Soames remembered. Swithin, indeed, in his most expansive days
had once attended a Levee. He had come away saying he shouldn't go
again--"All that small fry!" It was suspected that he had looked too
big in knee-breeches. Soames remembered how his own mother had wished
to be presented because of the fashionable nature of the performance,
and how his father had put his foot down with unwonted decision. What
did she want with such peacocking--wasting time and money; there was
nothing in it!

The instinct which had made and kept the British Commons the chief
power in the State, a feeling that their own world was good enough and
a little better than any other because it was THEIR world, had kept the
old Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont
to call it when he had the gout. Soames' generation, more
self-conscious and ironical, had been saved by a sense of Swithin in
knee-breeches. While the third and the fourth generation, as it seemed
to him, laughed at everything.

However, there was no harm in the young fellow's being heir to a title
and estate--a thing one couldn