'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before

her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and

grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live another five years.

She would be well over thirty by then. 'How much?' She had none of his

blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and

more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family,

came this warning thought--None of his blood, no right to anything! It

was a luxury then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old

man's whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was

vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he

was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old

leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars.

And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress,

fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why! She cared

nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers.

But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her

beauty and grace. One had no right to inflict an old man's company, no

right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her--for no

reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. 'How much?' After all,

there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never miss

that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could

leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure. He went

back to the bureau. 'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them think

what they like. I'm going to!' And he sat down.

'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand--how much? If only with his

money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled by that

thought, he wrote quickly:

'DEAR HERRING,--Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my niece

Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen

thousand pounds free of legacy duty." 'Yours faithfully, 'JOLYON

FORSYTE.'

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window

and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars shone now.




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