The day was bright, the trees of the Park in the full beauty of
mid-June foliage; the brothers did not seem to notice phenomena,
which contributed, nevertheless, to the jauntiness of promenade and
conversation.
"Yes," said Roger, "she's a good-lookin' woman, that wife of Soames's.
I'm told they don't get on."
This brother had a high forehead, and the freshest colour of any of the
Forsytes; his light grey eyes measured the street frontage of the houses
by the way, and now and then he would level his, umbrella and take a
'lunar,' as he expressed it, of the varying heights.
"She'd no money," replied Nicholas.
He himself had married a good deal of money, of which, it being then the
golden age before the Married Women's Property Act, he had mercifully
been enabled to make a successful use.
"What was her father?"
"Heron was his name, a Professor, so they tell me."
Roger shook his head.
"There's no money in that," he said.
"They say her mother's father was cement."
Roger's face brightened.
"But he went bankrupt," went on Nicholas.
"Ah!" exclaimed Roger, "Soames will have trouble with her; you mark my
words, he'll have trouble--she's got a foreign look."
Nicholas licked his lips.
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