ose-clipped, his
eyesight unimpaired. A slight stoop closened and corrected the
expansion given to his face by the heightening of his forehead in the
recession of his grey hair. Little change had Time wrought in the
"warmest" of the young Forsytes, as the last of the old
Forsytes--Timothy--now in his hundred and first year, would have
phrased it.

The shade from the plane-trees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he had
given up top hats--it was no use attracting attention to wealth in days
like these. Plane-trees! His thoughts travelled sharply to Madrid--the
Easter before the War, when, having to make up his mind about that Goya
picture, he had taken a voyage of discovery to study the painter on his
spot. The fellow had impressed him--great range, real genius! Highly as
the chap ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished
with him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first;
oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he had--as never
before--commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called "La Vendimia,"
wherein was the figure of a girl with an arm akimbo, who had reminded
him of his daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at Mapledurham, and
rather poor it was--you couldn't copy Goya. He would still look at it,
however, if his daughter were not there, for the sake of something
irresistibly reminiscent in the light, erect balance of the figure, the
width between the arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark
eyes. Curious that Fleur should have dark eyes, when his own were
grey--no pure Forsyte had brown eyes--and her mother's blue! But of
course her grandmother Lamotte's eyes were dark as treacle!

He began to walk on again towards Hyde Park Corner. No greater change
in all England than in the Row! Born almost within hail of it, he could
remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child between the
crinolines to stare at tight-trousered dandies in whiskers, riding with
a cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of curly-brimmed and white top
hats; the leisurely air of it all, and the little bow-legged man in a
long red waistcoat who used to come among the fashion with dogs on
several strings, and try to sell one to his mother: King Charles
spaniels, Italian greyhounds, affectionate to her crinoline--you never
saw them now. You saw no quality of any sort, indeed, just working
people sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young
bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or d