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“Why do you take your own people as the type?” said he.

“My people,” replied young Jolyon, “are not very extreme, and they have their own private peculiarities, like every other family, but they possess in a remarkable degree those two qualities which are the real tests of a Forsyte—the power of never being able to give yourself up to anything soul and body, and the ‘sense of property’.”

Bosinney smiled: “How about the big one, for instance?”

“Do you mean Swithin?” asked young Jolyon. “Ah! in Swithin there’s something primeval still. The town and middle-class life haven’t digested him yet. All the old centuries of farm work and brute force have settled in him, and there they’ve stuck, for all he’s so distinguished.”

Bosinney seemed to ponder. “Well, you’ve hit your cousin Soames off to the life,” he said suddenly. “He’ll never blow his brains out.”

Young Jolyon shot at him a penetrating glance.

“No,” he said; “he won’t. That’s why he’s to be reckoned with. Look out for their grip! It’s easy to laugh, but don’t mistake me. It doesn’t do to despise a Forsyte; it doesn’t do to disregard them!”