ely, as all agreed, was bound to set in, and, selling his share
in a firm engaged mainly in the production of religious books, had
invested the quite conspicuous proceeds in three per cent. consols. By
this act he had at once assumed an isolated position, no other Forsyte
being content with less than four per cent. for his money; and this
isolation had slowly and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than
commonly endowed with caution. He had become almost a myth--a kind of
incarnation of security haunting the background of the Forsyte universe.
He had never committed the imprudence of marrying, or encumbering
himself in any way with children.

James resumed, tapping the piece of china:

"This isn't real old Worcester. I s'pose Jolyon's told you something
about the young man. From all I can learn, he's got no business,
no income, and no connection worth speaking of; but then, I know
nothing--nobody tells me anything."

Aunt Ann shook her head. Over her square-chinned, aquiline old face a
trembling passed; the spidery fingers of her hands pressed against each
other and interlaced, as though she were subtly recharging her will.

The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she held a peculiar
position amongst them. Opportunists and egotists one and all--though
not, indeed, more so than their neighbours--they quailed before her
incorruptible figure, and, when opportunities were too strong, what
could they do but avoid her!

Twisting his long, thin legs, James went on:

"Jolyon, he will have his own way. He's got no children"--and stopped,
recollecting the continued existence of old Jolyon's son, young Jolyon,
June's father, who had made such a mess of it, and done for himself
by deserting his wife and child and running away with that foreign
governess. "Well," he resumed hastily, "if he likes to do these things,
I s'pose he can afford to. Now, what's he going to give her? I s'pose
he'll give her a thousand a year; he's got nobody else to leave his
money to."

He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper, clean-shaven man,
with hardly a hair on his head, a long, broken nose, full lips, and cold
grey eyes under rectangular brows.

"Well, Nick," he muttered, "how are you?"

Nicholas Forsyte, with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a
preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a large fortune, quite
legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a director), placed
within that cold palm the tips o