‘Quite right!’ he had thought.  ’We should all a like to go out in full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.’  And looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had asked her what she was going to do now.  “I am going to live again a little, Cousin Jolyon.  It’s wonderful to have money of one’s own.  I’ve never had any.  I shall keep this flat, I think; I’m used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy.”

“Exactly!” Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling lips; and he had gone away thinking:  ’A fascinating woman!  What a waste!  I’m glad the Dad left her that money.’  He had not seen her again, but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it to her bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had done so; and always he had received a note in acknowledgment, generally from the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her personality had become embodied in slightly scented grey paper, an upright fine handwriting, and the words, ’Dear Cousin Jolyon.’  Man of property that he now was, the slender cheque he signed often gave rise to the thought:  ’Well, I suppose she just manages’; sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring otherwise in a world of men not wont to let beauty go unpossessed.  At first Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but ‘ladies in grey’ soon fade from children’s memories; and the tightening of June’s lips in those first weeks after her grandfather’s death whenever her former friend’s name was mentioned, had discouraged allusion.  Only once, indeed, had June spoken definitely:  “I’ve forgiven her.  I’m frightfully glad she’s independent now....”

On receiving Soames’ card, Jolyon said to the maid—­for he could not abide butlers—­“Show him into the study, please, and say I’ll be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked: 

“Do you remember ‘the lady in grey,’ who used to give you music-lessons?”

“Oh yes, why?  Has she come?”

Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not for those young ears.  His face, in fact, became whimsical perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.

Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he thought:  ’Who’s that boy?  Surely they never had a child.’

The elder figure turned.  The meeting of those two Forsytes of the second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other, was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at cordiality.  ’Has he come about his wife?’ Jolyon was thinking; and Soames, ‘How shall I begin?’ while Val, brought to break the ice, stood negligently scrutinising this ‘bearded pard’ from under his dark, thick eyelashes.

“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister’s son.  He’s just going up to Oxford.  I thought I’d like him to know your boy.”