"Well," he said, hardly opening his lips, "I've taken that site of
yours, after all."
And again he was silent, confusedly debating how it was that this
fellow, whom by habit he despised, should have overborne his own
decision.
CHAPTER V--A FORSYTE MENAGE
Like the enlightened thousands of his class and generation in this great
city of London, who no longer believe in red velvet chairs, and know
that groups of modern Italian marble are 'vieux jeu,' Soames Forsyte
inhabited a house which did what it could. It owned a copper door
knocker of individual design, windows which had been altered to open
outwards, hanging flower boxes filled with fuchsias, and at the back
(a great feature) a little court tiled with jade-green tiles, and
surrounded by pink hydrangeas in peacock-blue tubs. Here, under a
parchment-coloured Japanese sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants
or visitors could be screened from the eyes of the curious while they
drank tea and examined at their leisure the latest of Soames's little
silver boxes.
The inner decoration favoured the First Empire and William Morris.
For its size, the house was commodious; there were countless nooks
resembling birds' nests, and little things made of silver were deposited
like eggs.
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