“How is he?”

“Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he’s a wonderful man.  As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last:  It would please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he relishes a baked apple still.  But he’s quite deaf.  And a mercy, I always think.  For what we should have done with him in the air-raids, I don’t know.”

“Ah!” said Soames.  “What did you do with him?”

“We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the cellar, so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang.  It would never have done to let him know there was a war on.  As I said to Cook, ’If Mr. Timothy rings, they may do what they like—­I’m going up.  My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him ringing and nobody going to him.’  But he slept through them all beautiful.  And the one in the daytime he was having his bath.  It was a mercy, because he might have noticed the people in the street all looking up—­he often looks out of the window.”

“Quite!” murmured Soames.  Smither was getting garrulous!  “I just want to look round and see if there’s anything to be done.”

“Yes, sir.  I don’t think there’s anything except a smell of mice in the dining-room that we don’t know how to get rid of.  It’s funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming down, just before the War.  But they’re nasty little things; you never know where they’ll take you next.”

“Does he leave his bed?”—­

“Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the window in the morning, not to risk a change of air.  And he’s quite comfortable in himself; has his Will out every day regular.  It’s a great consolation to him—­that.”

“Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has anything to say to me.”

Smither coloured up above her corsets.

“It will be an occasion!” she said.  “Shall I take you round the house, sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?”

“No, you go to him,” said Soames.  “I can go round the house by myself.”

One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt that he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms so saturated 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