no clearing-house for news. What had they all done in the War? Young
Roger's boy had been wounded, St. John Hayman's second son killed; young
Nicholas' eldest had got an O. B. E., or whatever they gave them.
They had all joined up somehow, he believed. That boy of Jolyon's and
Irene's, he supposed, had been too young; his own generation, of course,
too old, though Giles Hayman had driven a car for the Red Cross--and
Jesse Hayman been a special constable--those "Dromios" had always been
of a sporting type! As for himself, he had given a motor ambulance, read
the papers till he was sick of them, passed through much anxiety, bought
no clothes, lost seven pounds in weight; he didn't know what more he
could have done at his age. Indeed, thinking it over, it struck him that
he and his family had taken this war very differently to that affair
with the Boers, which had been supposed to tax all the resources of
the Empire. In that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had
been wounded, that fellow Jolyon's first son had died of enteric, "the
Dromios" had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse; but all that
had seemed in the nature of a portent, while in this war everybody had
done "their bit," so far as he could make out, as a matter of course. It
seemed to show the growth of something or other--or perhaps the decline
of something else. Had the Forsytes become less individual, or
more Imperial, or less provincial? Or was it simply that one hated
Germans?... Why didn't Fleur come, so that he could get away? He saw
those three return together from the other room and pass back along the
far side of the screen. The boy was standing before the Juno now. And,
suddenly, on the other side of her, Soames saw--his daughter, with
eyebrows raised, as well they might be. He could see her eyes glint
sideways at the boy, and the boy look back at her. Then Irene slipped
her hand through his arm, and drew him on. Soames saw him glancing
round, and Fleur looking after them as the three went out.