She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had

reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his

fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil

to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been 'Too busy.'

Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this

excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in young

Jolyon's sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits

description as such.

She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was

beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be

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found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her

name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with

the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars--and she never lent her name

unless sure beforehand that everything had been thoroughly organized.

She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a commercial

basis; the proper function of the Church, of charity, indeed, of

everything, was to strengthen the fabric of 'Society.' Individual

action, therefore, she considered immoral. Organization was the only

thing, for by organization alone could you feel sure that you were

getting a return for your money. Organization--and again, organization!

And there is no doubt that she was what old Jolyon called her--"a 'dab'

at that"--he went further, he called her "a humbug."

The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized so admirably

that by the time the takings were handed over, they were indeed skim

milk divested of all cream of human kindness. But as she often justly

remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact, a little

academic.

This great and good woman, so highly thought of in ecclesiastical

circles, was one of the principal priestesses in the temple of

Forsyteism, keeping alive day and night a sacred flame to the God of

Property, whose altar is inscribed with those inspiring words: 'Nothing

for nothing, and really remarkably little for sixpence.'

When she entered a room it was felt that something substantial had come

in, which was probably the reason of her popularity as a patroness.

People liked something substantial when they had paid money for it; and

they would look at her--surrounded by her staff in charity ballrooms,

with her high nose and her broad, square figure, attired in an uniform

covered with sequins--as though she were a general.

The only thing against her was that she had not a double name. She was a

power in upper middle-class society, with its hundred sets and circles,

all intersecting on the common battlefield of charity functions, and

on that battlefield brushing skirts so pleasantly with the skirts

of Society with the capital 'S.' She was a power in society with the

smaller 's,' that larger, more significant, and more powerful body,

where the commercially Christian institutions, maxims, and 'principle,'

which Mrs. Baynes embodied, were real life-blood, circulating freely,

real business currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that flowed

in the veins of smaller Society with the larger 'S.' People who knew her

felt her to be sound--a sound woman, who never gave herself away, nor

anything else, if she could possibly help it.




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