For though it is
doubtful whether Timothy's heart yearned, it is indubitable that at the
arrival of each fresh Forsyte child he was quite upset.
Useless for young Roger to say, "Old cat!" for Euphemia to hold up her
hands and cry: "Oh! those three!" and break into her silent laugh with
the squeak at the end. Useless, and not too kind.
The situation which at this stage might seem, and especially to Forsyte
eyes, strange--not to say 'impossible'--was, in view of certain facts,
not so strange after all. Some things had been lost sight of. And first,
in the security bred of many harmless marriages, it had been forgotten
that Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night,
born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road
by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the
hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we
call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always,
wild! And further--the facts and figures of their own lives being
against the perception of this truth--it was not generally recognised
by Forsytes that, where, this wild plant springs, men and women are but
moths around the pale, flame-like blossom.
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