with the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, had left him,
Soames entered the dining-room and sniffed. In his opinion it wasn't
mice, but incipient wood-rot, and he examined the panelling. Whether it
was worth a coat of paint, at Timothy's age, he was not sure. The room
had always been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile
curled Soames' lips and nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted
the oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling
divided by imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy,
a bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years ago--three Snyder "still
lifes," two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather
charming, which bore the initials "J. R."--Timothy had always believed
they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but Soames, who admired them,
had discovered that they were only John Robinson; and a doubtful Morland
of a white pony being shod. Deep-red plush curtains, ten high-backed
dark mahogany chairs with deep-red plush seats, a Turkey carpet, and
a mahogany dining-table as large as the room was small, such was an
apartment which Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body since
he was four years old. He looked especially at the two drawings, and
thought: 'I shall buy those at the sale.'

From the dining-room he passed into Timothy's study. He did not remember
ever having been in that room. It was lined from floor to ceiling with
volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity. One wall seemed devoted
to educational books, which Timothy's firm had published two generations
back-sometimes as many as twenty copies of one book. Soames read their
titles and shuddered. The middle wall had precisely the same books as
used to be in the library at his own father's in Park Lane, from which
he deduced the fancy that James and his youngest brother had gone out
together one day and bought a brace of small libraries. The third wall
he approached with more excitement. Here, surely, Timothy's own taste