He had been
driven into this!
"Mrs. Jolyon Forsyte at home?"
"Oh, yes sir!--what name shall I say, if you please, sir?"
Old Jolyon could not help twinkling at the little maid as he gave his
name. She seemed to him such a funny little toad!
And he followed her through the dark hall, into a small double,
drawing-room, where the furniture was covered in chintz, and the little
maid placed him in a chair.
"They're all in the garden, sir; if you'll kindly take a seat, I'll tell
them."
Old Jolyon sat down in the chintz-covered chair, and looked around him.
The whole place seemed to him, as he would have expressed it, pokey;
there was a certain--he could not tell exactly what--air of shabbiness,
or rather of making two ends meet, about everything. As far as he could
see, not a single piece of furniture was worth a five-pound note.
The walls, distempered rather a long time ago, were decorated with
water-colour sketches; across the ceiling meandered a long crack.
These little houses were all old, second-rate concerns; he should hope
the rent was under a hundred a year; it hurt him more than he could have
said, to think of a Forsyte--his own son living in such a place.
The little maid came back. Would he please to go down into the garden?
Old Jolyon marched out through the French windows.
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