to the solid worth of a Forsyte that she should always thus be a 'little
thing'--the little thing was bored. Why shouldn't she amuse herself?
Soames was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney--only that buffoon
George would have called him the Buccaneer--she maintained that he was
very chic.

This dictum--that Bosinney was chic--caused quit a sensation. It failed
to convince. That he was 'good-looking in a way' they were prepared to
admit, but that anyone could call a man with his pronounced cheekbones,
curious eyes, and soft felt hats chic was only another instance of
Winifred's extravagant way of running after something new.

It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when the
very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with blossom, and
flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been before; when roses
blew in every garden; and for the swarming stars the nights had hardly
space; when every day and all day long the sun, in full armour, swung
his brazen shield above the Park, and people did strange things,
lunching and dining in the open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs
and carriages that streamed across the bridges of the shining river,
bearing the upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of
Bushey, Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any
pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year to
the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the Spanish
chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily, along, in
a cloud of their own creation, they would stare fashionably at the
antlered heads which the great slow deer raised out of a forest of
bracken that promised to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen
before. And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut flowers
and of fern was drifted too near, one would say to the other: "My dear!