ey drove away
from old Jolyon's 'At Home!'

Amongst the last of the departing guests the fourth and fifth brothers,
Nicholas and Roger, walked away together, directing their steps
alongside Hyde Park towards the Praed Street Station of the Underground.
Like all other Forsytes of a certain age they kept carriages of their
own, and never took cabs if by any means they could avoid it.

The day was bright, the trees of the Park in the full beauty of
mid-June foliage; the brothers did not seem to notice phenomena,
which contributed, nevertheless, to the jauntiness of promenade and
conversation.

"Yes," said Roger, "she's a good-lookin' woman, that wife of Soames's.
I'm told they don't get on."

This brother had a high forehead, and the freshest colour of any of the
Forsytes; his light grey eyes measured the street frontage of the houses
by the way, and now and then he would level his, umbrella and take a
'lunar,' as he expressed it, of the varying heights.

"She'd no money," replied Nicholas.

He himself had married a good deal of money, of which, it being then the
golden age before the Married Women's Property Act, he had mercifully
been enabled to make a successful use.

"What was her father?"

"Heron was his name, a Professor, so they tell me."

Roger shook his head.

"There's no money in that," he said.

"They say her mother's father was cement."

Roger's face brightened.

"But he went bankrupt," went on Nicholas.

"Ah!" exclaimed Roger, "Soames will have trouble with her; you mark my
words, he'll have trouble--she's got a foreign look."

Nicholas licked his lips.

"She's a pretty woman," and he waved aside a crossing-sweeper.

"How did he get hold of her?" asked Roger presently. "She must cost him
a pretty penny in dress!"

"Ann tells me," replied Nicholas, "he was half-cracked about her. She
refused him five times. James, he's nervous about it, I can see."

"Ah!" said Roger again; "I'm sorry for James; he had trouble with
Dartie." His pleasant colour was heightened by exercise, he swung his
umbrella to the level of his eye more frequently than ever. Nicholas's
face also wore a pleasant look.

"Too pale for me," he said, "but her figures capital!"

Roger made no reply.

"I call her distinguished-looking," he said at last--it was the highest
praise in the Forsyte vocabulary. "That young Bosinney will never do
any good for himself. They say at Burkitt's he's one of these artistic
chaps--got a