half-beaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here and there,
dispersed and chetif, as Annette would say; but nothing ever again
firm and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurly-burly of
bad manners and loose morals his daughter--flower of his life--was
flung! And when those Labour chaps got power--if they ever did--
the worst was yet to come!

He passed out under the archway, at last no longer--thank
goodness!--disfigured by the gun-grey of its search-light. 'They'd
better put a search-light on to where they're all going,' he
thought, 'and light up their precious democracy!' And he directed
his steps along the Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of
course, would be sitting in the bay window of the Iseeum. The chap
was so big now that he was there nearly all his time, like some
immovable, sardonic, humorous eye noting the decline of men and
things. And Soames hurried, ever constitutionally uneasy beneath
his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had written a
letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the War, complaining of
the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of race-horses. Yes,
there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven, with his smooth
hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best hair-wash,
and a pink paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And for
perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy
tapping in his waistcoat for that sardonic kinsman. With his
weight, his perfectly parted hair, and bull-like gaze, he was a
guarantee that the old order would take some shifting yet. He saw
George move the pink paper as if inviting him to ascend--the chap
must want to ask something about his property. It was still under
Soames's control; for in the adoption of a sleeping partnership at
that painful period twenty years back when he had divorced Irene,