weather was like the music of ‘Orfeo,’ which he had recently heard at Covent Garden.  A beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but, in its way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli ’almost worthy of the old days’—­highest praise he could bestow.  The yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his love going down to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go—­the yearning which sang and throbbed through the golden music, stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that evening.  And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact.  When he had finished he rubbed the place he had been scratching against his master’s calf, and settled down again with his chin over the instep of the disturbing boot.  And into old Jolyon’s mind came a sudden recollection—­a face he had seen at that opera three weeks ago—­Irene, the wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of property!  Though he had not met her since the day of the ‘At Home’ in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his granddaughter June’s ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he had remembered her at once, for he had always admired her—­a very pretty creature.  After the death of young Bosinney, whose mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard that she had left Soames at once.  Goodness only knew what she had been doing since.  That sight of her face—­a side view—­in the row in front, had been literally the only reminder these three years that she was still alive.  No one ever spoke of her.  And yet Jo had told him something once—­something which had upset him completely.  The boy had got it from George Forsyte, he believed, who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he was run over—­something which explained the young fellow’s distress—­an act of Soames towards his wife—­a shocking act.  Jo had seen her, too, that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his description had always lingered in old Jolyon’s mind—­’wild and lost’ he had called her.  And next day June had gone there—­bottled up her feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her mistress had slipped out in the night and vanished.  A tragic business altogether!  One thing was certain—­Soames had never been able to lay hands on her again.  And he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and down—­a fitting fate, the man of property!  For when he once took a dislike to anyone—­as he had to his nephew—­old Jolyon never got over it.  He remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the news of Irene’s disappearance.  It had been shocking to think of her a prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment—­like