Roger made no reply.

"I call her distinguished-looking," he said at last--it was the highest
praise in the Forsyte vocabulary. "That young Bosinney will never do
any good for himself. They say at Burkitt's he's one of these artistic
chaps--got an idea of improving English architecture; there's no money
in that! I should like to hear what Timothy would say to it."

They entered the station.

"What class are you going? I go second."

"No second for me," said Nicholas;--"you never know what you may catch."

He took a first-class ticket to Notting Hill Gate; Roger a second to
South Kensington. The train coming in a minute later, the two brothers
parted and entered their respective compartments. Each felt aggrieved
that the other had not modified his habits to secure his society a
little longer; but as Roger voiced it in his thoughts:

'Always a stubborn beggar, Nick!'

And as Nicholas expressed it to himself:

'Cantankerous chap Roger--always was!'

There was little sentimentality about the Forsytes. In that great
London, which they had conquered and become merged in, what time had
they to be sentimental?