wardrobe, in
a gown made under her own organization, of one of those half-tints,
reminiscent of the distempered walls of corridors in large hotels. She
raised her hands to her hair, which she wore a la Princesse de Galles,
and touched it here and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and
her eyes were full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking
in the face one of life's sordid facts, and making the best of it. In
youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled now
by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness came into her eyes
as she dabbed a powder-puff across her forehead. Putting the puff down,
she stood quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over her high,
important nose, her, chin, (never large, and now growing smaller
with the increase of her neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth.
Quickly, not to lose the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both
hands, and went downstairs.

She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had
reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his
fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil
to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been 'Too busy.'

Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this
excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in young
Jolyon's sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits
description as such.

She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was
beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be
found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her
name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with
the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars--and she never lent her name
unless sure beforehand that everything had been thoroughly organized.

She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a commercial
basis; the proper function of the Church, of charity, indeed, of
everything, was to strengthen the fabric of 'Society.' Individual
action, therefore, she considered immoral. Organization was the only
thing, for by organization alone could you feel sure that you were
getting a return for your money. Organization--and again, organization!
And there is no doubt that she was what old Jolyon called her--"a 'dab'
at that"--he went further, he called her "a humbug."

The enterprises to which she