The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she held a peculiar position amongst them. Opportunists and egotists oneand all — though not, indeed, more so than their neighbours — they quailed before her incorruptible figure, and, whenopportunities were too strong, what could they do but avoid her!

Twisting his long, thin legs, James went on:

“Jolyon, he will have his own way. He’s got no children”— and stopped, recollecting the continued existence of oldJolyon’s son, young Jolyon, June’s father, who had made such a mess of it, and done for himself by deserting his wife andchild and running away with that foreign governess. “Well,” he resumed hastily, “if he likes to do these things, I s’pose hecan afford to. Now, what’s he going to give her? I s’pose he’ll give her a thousand a year; he’s got nobody else to leavehis money to.”

He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper, clean-shaven man, with hardly a hair on his head, a long, brokennose, full lips, and cold grey eyes under rectangular brows.

“Well, Nick,” he muttered, “how are you?”

Nicholas Forsyte, with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a largefortune, quite legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a director), placed within that cold palm the tips of hisstill colder fingers and hastily withdrew them.

“I’m bad,” he said, pouting —“been bad all the week; don’t sleep at night. The doctor can’t tell why. He’s a cleverfellow, or I shouldn’t have him, but I get nothing out of him but bills.”

“Doctors!” said James, coming down sharp on his words: “I’ve had all the doctors in London for one or another of us.There’s no satisfaction to be got out of them; they’ll tell you anything. There’s Swithin, now. What good have they donehim? There he is; he’s bigger than ever; he’s enormous; they can’t get his weight down. Look at him!”