s--he had perceived already that Buller was not the man--'a bull
of a chap, who just went butting, and if they didn't look out Ladysmith
would fall.' This was early in December, so that when Black Week came,
he was enabled to say to everybody: 'I told you so.' During that week of
gloom such as no Forsyte could remember, very young Nicholas attended
so many drills in his corps, 'The Devil's Own,' that young Nicholas
consulted the family physician about his son's health and was alarmed
to find that he was perfectly sound. The boy had only just eaten his
dinners and been called to the bar, at some expense, and it was in a
way a nightmare to his father and mother that he should be playing with
military efficiency at a time when military efficiency in the civilian
population might conceivably be wanted. His grandfather, of course,
pooh-poohed the notion, too thoroughly educated in the feeling that no
British war could be other than little and professional, and profoundly
distrustful of Imperial commitments, by which, moreover, he stood to
lose, for he owned De Beers, now going down fast, more than a sufficient
sacrifice on the part of his grandson.

At Oxford, however, rather different sentiments prevailed. The inherent
effervescence of conglomerate youth had, during the two months of the
term before Black Week, been gradually crystallising out into vivid
oppositions. Normal adolescence, ever in England of a conservative
tendency though not taking things too seriously, was vehement for a
fight to a finish and a good licking for the Boers. Of this larger
faction Val Dartie was naturally a member. Radical youth, on the other
hand, a small but perhaps more vocal body, was for stopping the war and
giving the Boers autonomy. Until Black Week, however, the groups were
amorphous, without sharp edges, and argument remained but academic.
Jolly was one of those who knew not where he stood. A streak of his
grandfather old Jolyon's love of justice prevented, him from seeing
one side only. Moreover, in his set of 'the best' there was a
'jumping-Jesus' of extremely advanced opinions and some personal
magnetism. Jolly wavered. His father, too, seemed doubtful in his views.
And though, as was proper at the age of twenty, he kept a sharp eye on
his father, watchful for defects which might still be remedied, still
that father had an 'air' which gave a sort of glamour to his creed of
ironic tolerance. Artists of course; were notoriously Hamlet-