not see the hands, but he set the repeater going. 'Five o'clock!'
His grandfather's first gold hunter watch, butter-smooth with age--all
the milling worn from it, and dented with the mark of many a fall. The
chime was like a little voice from out of that golden age, when they
first came from St. John's Wood, London, to this house--came driving
with grandfather in his carriage, and almost instantly took to the
trees. Trees to climb, and grandfather watering the geranium-beds below!
What was to be done? Tell Dad he must come home? Confide in June?--only
she was so--so sudden! Do nothing and trust to luck? After all, the Vac.
would soon be over. Go up and see Val and warn him off? But how get
his address? Holly wouldn't give it him! A maze of paths, a cloud of
possibilities! He lit a cigarette. When he had smoked it halfway through
his brow relaxed, almost as if some thin old hand had been passed gently
over it; and in his ear something seemed to whisper: 'Do nothing; be
nice to Holly, be nice to her, my dear!' And Jolly heaved a sigh of
contentment, blowing smoke through his nostrils....

But up in her room, divested of her habit, Holly was still frowning. 'He
is not--he is not!' were the words which kept forming on her lips.

CHAPTER VI--JOLYON IN TWO MINDS

A little private hotel over a well-known restaurant near the Gare
St. Lazare was Jolyon's haunt in Paris. He hated his fellow Forsytes
abroad--vapid as fish out of water in their well-trodden runs, the
Opera, Rue de Rivoli, and Moulin Rouge. Their air of having come because
they wanted to be somewhere else as soon as possible annoyed him. But
no other Forsyte came near this haunt, where he had a wood fire in
his bedroom and the coffee was excellent. Paris was always to him
more attractive in winter. The acrid savour from woodsmoke and
chestnut-roasting braziers, the sharpness of the wintry sunshine
on bright rays, the open cafes defying keen-aired winter, the
self-contained brisk boulevard crowds, all informed him that in winter
Paris possessed a soul which, like a migrant bird, in high summer flew
away.

He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places where
pleasant dishes could be met with, queer types observed. He felt
philosophic in Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a
subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a
darkness shot with shifting gleams of light.

When in the first week of December he decided to