How impossible and wrong would it have been for any
family, with the regard for appearances which should ever characterize
the great upper middle-class, to feel otherwise than uneasy!
The author of the uneasiness stood talking to June by the further door;
his curly hair had a rumpled appearance, as though he found what was
going on around him unusual. He had an air, too, of having a joke all to
himself. George, speaking aside to his brother, Eustace, said:
"Looks as if he might make a bolt of it--the dashing Buccaneer!"
This 'very singular-looking man,' as Mrs. Small afterwards called
him, was of medium height and strong build, with a pale, brown face, a
dust-coloured moustache, very prominent cheek-bones, and hollow checks.
His forehead sloped back towards the crown of his head, and bulged out
in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads seen in the Lion-house at the
Zoo. He had sherry-coloured eyes, disconcertingly inattentive at times.
Old Jolyon's coachman, after driving June and Bosinney to the theatre,
had remarked to the butler:
"I dunno what to make of 'im. Looks to me for all the world like an
'alf-tame leopard." And every now and then a Forsyte would come up,
sidle round, and take a look at him.
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