“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d like to wash your hands! I’ll take you to June’s room.”

He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last visited this house with her husband, or her lover, orboth perhaps — he did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he wished to leave it so. But what changes! And in thehall he said:

“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know. He’s got a lot of taste. It isn’t mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”

She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall and music room, as it now was — all thrown into one, underthe great skylight. Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she trying to conjure somebody from the shades of thatspace where the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo hadFrench tastes, and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the fume of cigarettes the chap was alwayssmoking, broken here and there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not his dream! Mentally he had hung thisspace with those gold-framed masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had bought in days when quantity was precious.And now where were they? Sold for a song! That something which made him, alone among Forsytes, move with the times hadwarned him against the struggle to retain them. But in his study he still had ‘Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.’

He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his side.

“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and other arrangements. I’ve had them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And thisis Jo’s and his wife’s. They all communicate. But you remember, I expect.”