In Chancery, by John Galsworthy

Chapter 2Exit a Man of the World

That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of fortunes as Montague Dartie should still beliving in a house he had inhabited twenty years at least would have been more noticeable if the rent, rates, taxes, andrepairs of that house had not been defrayed by his father-in-law. By that simple if wholesale device James Forsyte hadsecured a certain stability in the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren. After all, there is something invaluableabout a safe roof over the head of a sportsman so dashing as Dartie. Until the events of the last few days he had beenalmost-supernaturally steady all this year. The fact was he had acquired a half share in a filly of George Forsyte’s, whohad gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger, now stilled by the grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out ofShirt-on-fire, by Suspender, was a bay filly, three years old, who for a variety of reasons had never shown her true form.With half ownership of this hopeful animal, all the idealism latent somewhere in Dartie, as in every other man, had put upits head, and kept him quietly ardent for months past. When a man has some thing good to live for it is astonishing howsober he becomes; and what Dartie had was really good — a three to one chance for an autumn handicap, publicly assessed at