The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and told him; and, as

if it were any consolation, she had added:

"He's so splendid; he's often lived on cocoa for a week!"

"And he wants you to live on cocoa too?"

"Oh no; he is getting into the swim now."

Old Jolyon had taken his cigar from under his white moustaches, stained

by coffee at the edge, and looked at her, that little slip of a thing

who had got such a grip of his heart. He knew more about 'swims' than

his granddaughter. But she, having clasped her hands on his knees,

rubbed her chin against him, making a sound like a purring cat. And,

knocking the ash off his cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation:

"You're all alike: you won't be satisfied till you've got what you want.

If you must come to grief, you must; I wash my hands of it."

So, he had washed his hands of it, making the condition that they should

not marry until Bosinney had at least four hundred a year.

"I shan't be able to give you very much," he had said, a formula to

which June was not unaccustomed. "Perhaps this What's-his-name will

provide the cocoa."

He had hardly seen anything of her since it began. A bad business! He

had no notion of giving her a lot of money to enable a fellow he knew

nothing about to live on in idleness. He had seen that sort of thing

before; no good ever came of it. Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking

her resolution; she was as obstinate as a mule, always had been from

a child. He didn't see where it was to end. They must cut their coat

according to their cloth. He would not give way till he saw young

Bosinney with an income of his own. That June would have trouble with

the fellow was as plain as a pikestaff; he had no more idea of money

than a cow. As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young man's

aunts, he fully expected they were old cats.

And, motionless, old Jolyon stared at the wall; but for his open eyes,

he might have been asleep.... The idea of supposing that young cub

Soames could give him advice! He had always been a cub, with his nose in

the air! He would be setting up as a man of property next, with a place

in the country! A man of property! H'mph! Like his father, he was always

nosing out bargains, a cold-blooded young beggar!