His Club was closed for cleaning; his Boards in recess; there was
nothing, therefore, to take him into the City. June had wanted him to go
away; she would not go herself, because Bosinney was in London.
But where was he to go by himself? He could not go abroad alone; the sea
upset his liver; he hated hotels. Roger went to a hydropathic--he was
not going to begin that at his time of life, those new-fangled places
we're all humbug!
With such formulas he clothed to himself the desolation of his spirit;
the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day looking forth
with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a face wont to be strong
and serene.
And so that afternoon he took this journey through St. John's Wood, in
the golden-light that sprinkled the rounded green bushes of the acacia's
before the little houses, in the summer sunshine that seemed holding a
revel over the little gardens; and he looked about him with interest;
for this was a district which no Forsyte entered without open
disapproval and secret curiosity.
His cab stopped in front of a small house of that peculiar buff colour
which implies a long immunity from paint. It had an outer gate, and a
rustic approach.
He stepped out, his bearing extremely composed; his massive head, with
its drooping moustache and wings of white hair, very upright, under an
excessively large top hat; his glance firm, a little angry.
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