ivers, or an orderly trying a great
galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no grooms, no bowing, no
scraping, no gossip--nothing; only the trees the same--the trees
in--different to the generations and declensions of mankind. A
democratic England--dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an
apex. And that something fastidious in the soul of Soames turned over
within him. Gone forever, the close borough of rank and polish! Wealth
there was--oh, yes! wealth--he himself was a richer man than his father
had ever been; but manners, flavour, quality, all gone, engulfed in one
vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing, petrol-smelling Cheerio. Little
half-beaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here and there,
dispersed and chetif, as Annette would say; but nothing ever again firm
and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurly-burly of bad manners
and loose morals his daughter--flower of his life--was flung! And when
those Labour chaps got power--if they ever did--the worst was yet to
come.

He passed out under the archway, at last no longer--thank goodness!
--disfigured by the gungrey of its search-light. 'They'd better put a
search-light on to where they're all going,' he thought, 'and light up
their precious democracy!' And he directed his steps along the Club
fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of course, would be sitting in the
bay window of the Iseeum. The chap was so big now that he was there
nearly all his time, like some immovable, sardonic, humorous eye noting
the decline of men and things. And Soames hurried, ever constitutionally
uneasy beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had
written a letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the War, complaining
of the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of race-horses. Yes,
there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven, with his smooth hair,
hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best hair-wash, and a pink
paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And for perhaps the first
time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy tapping in his waistcoat
for that sardonic kinsman. With his weight, his perfectly parted hair,
and bull-like gaze, he was a guarantee that the old order would take some
shifting yet. He saw George move the pink paper as if inviting him to
ascend--the chap must want to ask something about his property. It was
still under Soames' control; for in the adoption of a sleeping
partnership at that pain