a settled if very modest income was at once apparent to him
remembering the threadbare refinement in that tiny flat eight years ago
when he announced her good fortune. Everything was now fresh, dainty,
and smelled of flowers. The general effect was silvery with touches of
black, hydrangea colour, and gold. 'A woman of great taste,' he thought.
Time had dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte. But with Irene
Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his impression. She
appeared to him not a day older, standing there in mole-coloured velvet
corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold hair, with outstretched hand
and a little smile.

"Won't you sit down?"

He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of
embarrassment.

"You look absolutely unchanged," he said.

"And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon."

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still a
comfort to him.

"I'm ancient, but I don't feel it. That's one thing about painting, it
keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and had to have plague to
kill him off. Do you know, the first time I ever saw you I thought of a
picture by him?"

"When did you see me for the first time?"

"In the Botanical Gardens."

"How did you know me, if you'd never seen me before?"

"By someone who came up to you." He was looking at her hardily, but her
face did not change; and she said quietly:

"Yes; many lives ago."

"What is your recipe for youth, Irene?"

"People who don't live are wonderfully preserved."

H'm! a bitter little saying! People who don't live! But an opening, and
he took it. "You remember my Cousin Soames?"

He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went on:

"He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce. Do
you?"

"I?" The word seemed startled out of her. "After twelve years? It's
rather late. Won't it be difficult?"

Jolyon looked hard into her face. "Unless...." he said.

"Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since."

What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words? Relief,
surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!

"And yet," he said, "I suppose you would give a good deal to be free,
too?"

"I don't know. What does it matter, now?"

"But if you were to love again?"

"I should love." In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the whole
philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.