she might have told him; but then, again, she never did tell him
anything. She was more silent, more touchy, every day. He wished to God
the house were finished, and they were in it, away from London. Town did
not suit her; her nerves were not strong enough. That nonsense of the
separate room had cropped up again!

The meeting was breaking up now. Underneath the photograph of the lost
shaft Hemmings was buttonholed by the Rev. Mr. Boms. Little Mr. Booker,
his bristling eyebrows wreathed in angry smiles, was having a parting
turn-up with old Scrubsole. The two hated each other like poison. There
was some matter of a tar-contract between them, little Mr. Booker having
secured it from the Board for a nephew of his, over old Scrubsole's
head. Soames had heard that from Hemmings, who liked a gossip, more
especially about his directors, except, indeed, old Jolyon, of whom he
was afraid.

Soames awaited his opportunity. The last shareholder was vanishing
through the door, when he approached his uncle, who was putting on his
hat.

"Can I speak to you for a minute, Uncle Jolyon?"

It is uncertain what Soames expected to get out of this interview.

Apart from that somewhat mysterious awe in which Forsytes in general
held old Jolyon, due to his philosophic twist, or perhaps--as Hemmings
would doubtless have said--to his chin, there was, and always had been,
a subtle antagonism between the younger man and the old. It had lurked
under their dry manner of greeting, under their non-committal allusions
to each other, and arose perhaps from old Jolyon's perception of the
quiet tenacity ('obstinacy,' he rather naturally called it) of the young
man, of a secret doubt whether he could get his own way with him.

Both these Forsytes, wide asunder as the poles in many respects,
possessed in their different ways--to a greater degree than the rest of
the family--that essential quality of tenacious and prudent insight into
'affairs,' which is the highwater mark of their great class. Either of
them, with a little luck and opportunity, was equal to a lofty career;
either of them would have made a good financier, a great contractor,
a statesman, though old Jolyon, in certain of his moods when under
the influence of a cigar or of Nature--would have been capable of, not
perhaps despising, but certainly of questioning, his own high position,
while Soames, who never smoked cigars, would not.

Then, too, in old Jolyon's mind there was always the