It supplied, however, the reason of June's coming so late and
disappearing again without dancing, without even shaking hands with her
lover. She was ill, it was said, and no wonder.

But here they looked at each other guiltily. They had no desire to
spread scandal, no desire to be ill-natured. Who would have? And to
outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping them silent.

Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside with old Jolyon.

He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place there was just
then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost caste, in spite of Nicholas, and no
Forsyte going to the sea without intending to have an air for his money
such as would render him bilious in a week. That fatally aristocratic
tendency of the first Forsyte to drink Madeira had left his descendants
undoubtedly accessible.

So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there was
nothing else to do.

But how far--how far had 'those two' gone? How far were they going to
go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely come of it,
for neither of them had any money. At the most a flirtation, ending, as
all such attachments should, at the proper time.

Soames' sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the breezes of
Mayfair--she lived in Green Street--more fashionable principles in
regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current, for instance, in
Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there being anything in it. The
'little thing'--Irene was taller than herself, and it was real testimony