...
James interrupted her reverie:
"But where," he asked, "was Timothy? Hadn't he come with them?"
Through Aunt Ann's compressed lips a tender smile forced its way:
"No, he didn't think it wise, with so much of this diphtheria about; and
he so liable to take things."
James answered:
"Well, HE takes good care of himself. I can't afford to take the care of
myself that he does."
Nor was it easy to say which, of admiration, envy, or contempt, was
dominant in that remark.
Timothy, indeed, was seldom seen. The baby of the family, a publisher
by profession, he had some years before, when business was at full tide,
scented out the stagnation which, indeed, had not yet come, but which
ultimately, as all agreed, was bound to set in, and, selling his share
in a firm engaged mainly in the production of religious books, had
invested the quite conspicuous proceeds in three per cent. consols. By
this act he had at once assumed an isolated position, no other Forsyte
being content with less than four per cent. for his money; and this
isolation had slowly and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than
commonly endowed with caution. He had become almost a myth--a kind of
incarnation of security haunting the background of the Forsyte universe.
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