The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

That good-bye had lasted until now.

He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to young Jolyon, but

this had been refused, and perhaps that refusal had hurt him more

than anything, for with it had gone the last outlet of his penned-in

affection; and there had come such tangible and solid proof of rupture

as only a transaction in property, a bestowal or refusal of such, could

supply.

His dinner tasted flat. His pint of champagne was dry and bitter stuff,

not like the Veuve Clicquots of old days.

Over his cup of coffee, he bethought him that he would go to the opera.

In the Times, therefore--he had a distrust of other papers--he read the

announcement for the evening. It was 'Fidelio.'

Mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that fellow

Wagner.

Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its brim flattened by use,

and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days, and, pulling

out an old pair of very thin lavender kid gloves smelling strongly of

Russia leather, from habitual proximity to the cigar-case in the pocket

of his overcoat, he stepped into a hansom.

The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolyon was struck by

their unwonted animation.

'The hotels must be doing a tremendous business,' he thought. A

few years ago there had been none of these big hotels. He made a

satisfactory reflection on some property he had in the neighbourhood. It

must be going up in value by leaps and bounds! What traffic!

But from that he began indulging in one of those strange impersonal

speculations, so uncharacteristic of a Forsyte, wherein lay, in part,

the secret of his supremacy amongst them. What atoms men were, and what

a lot of them! And what would become of them all?

He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man his exact fare,

walked up to the ticket office to take his stall, and stood there with

his purse in his hand--he always carried his money in a purse, never

having approved of that habit of carrying it loosely in the pockets, as

so many young men did nowadays. The official leaned out, like an old dog

from a kennel.

"Why," he said in a surprised voice, "it's Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So it is!

Haven't seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times aren't what they were.

Why! you and your brother, and that auctioneer--Mr. Traquair, and Mr.

Nicholas Treffry--you used to have six or seven stalls here regular

every season. And how are you, sir? We don't get younger!"

The colour in old Jolyon's eyes deepened; he paid his guinea. They had

not forgotten him. He marched in, to the sounds of the overture, like an

old war-horse to battle.