He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled him. It troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had always been so careful, should be father and grandfather to such as seemed born to disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo⁠—who could say anything against the boy, an amiable chap?⁠—but his position was deplorable, and this business of June’s nearly as bad. It seemed like a fatality, and a fatality was one of those things no man of his character could either understand or put up with.

In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would come of it. Since the ball at Roger’s he had seen too clearly how the land lay⁠—he could put two and two together quicker than most men⁠—and, with the example of his own son before his eyes, knew better than any Forsyte of them all that the pale flame singes men’s wings whether they will or no.