ixed absorption in some
secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid, shifting scrutiny of
surrounding facts; his cheeks, thinned by two parallel folds, and a long,
clean-shaven upper lip, were framed within Dundreary whiskers. In his
hands he turned and turned a piece of china. Not far off, listening to a
lady in brown, his only son Soames, pale and well-shaved, dark-haired,
rather bald, had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that
aforesaid appearance of 'sniff,' as though despising an egg which he knew
he could not digest. Behind him his cousin, the tall George, son of the
fifth Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish look on his fleshy face, pondering
one of his sardonic jests. Something inherent to the occasion had
affected them all.

Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies--Aunts Ann,
Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short for Julia), who not in
first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry Septimus Small, a
man of poor constitution. She had survived him for many years. With her
elder and younger sister she lived now in the house of Timothy, her sixth
and youngest brother, on the Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held
fans in their hands, and each with some touch of colour, some emphatic
feather or brooch, testified to the solemnity of the opportunity.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood
the head of the family, old Jolyon himself. Eighty years of age, with
his fine, white hair, his dome-like forehead, his little, dark grey eyes,
and an immense white moustache, which drooped and spread below the level
of his strong jaw, he had a patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks
and hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held
himself extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of
their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority to the
doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way for
innumerable years, he had earned a prescriptive right to it. It would
never have occurred to old Jolyon that it was necessary to wear a look of
doubt or of defiance.

Between him and the four other brothers who were present, James, Swithin,
Nicholas, and Roger, there was much difference, much similarity. In
turn, each of these four brothers was very different from the other, yet
they, too, were alike.

Through the varying features and expression of those five faces could be
ma