his heart was in a poor way, and, like all his family, he disliked the
idea of dying. He had never realised how much till one day, two years
ago, he had gone to his doctor about certain symptoms, and been told:

"At any moment, on any overstrain."

He had taken it with a smile--the natural Forsyte reaction against an
unpleasant truth. But with an increase of symptoms in the train on the
way home, he had realised to the full the sentence hanging over him. To
leave Irene, his boy, his home, his work--though he did little enough
work now! To leave them for unknown darkness, for the unimaginable
state, for such nothingness that he would not even be conscious of wind
stirring leaves above his grave, nor of the scent of earth and grass.
Of such nothingness that, however hard he might try to conceive it, he
never could, and must still hover on the hope that he might see again
those he loved! To realise this was to endure very poignant spiritual
anguish. Before he reached home that day he had determined to keep it
from Irene. He would have to be more careful than man had ever been, for
the least thing would give it away and make her as wretched as himself,
almost. His doctor had passed him sound in other respects, and seventy
was nothing of an age--he would last a long time yet, if he could.

Such a conclusion, followed out for nearly two years, develops to the
full the subtler side of character. Naturally not abrupt, except when
nervously excited, Jolyon had become control incarnate. The sad patience
of old people who cannot exert themselves was masked by a smile which
his lips preserved even in private. He devised continually all manner of
cover to conceal his enforced lack of exertion.

Mocking himself for so doing, he counterfeited conversion to the Simple