The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

"As to your--your stepmother," he said, using the word with some little

difficulty, "I call her a refined woman--a bit of a Mrs. Gummidge,

I shouldn't wonder--but very fond of Jo. And the children," he

repeated--indeed, this sentence ran like music through all his solemn

self-justification--"are sweet little things!"

If June had known, those words but reincarnated that tender love for

little children, for the young and weak, which in the past had made

him desert his son for her tiny self, and now, as the cycle rolled, was

taking him from her.

But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked impatiently:

"Well, what do you say?"

June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began her tale. She

thought it would all go splendidly; she did not see any difficulty, and

she did not care a bit what people thought.

Old Jolyon wriggled. H'm! then people would think! He had thought that

after all these years perhaps they wouldn't! Well, he couldn't help it!

Nevertheless, he could not approve of his granddaughter's way of putting

it--she ought to mind what people thought!

Yet he said nothing. His feelings were too mixed, too inconsistent for

expression.

No--went on June he did not care; what business was it of theirs? There

was only one thing--and with her cheek pressing against his knee, old

Jolyon knew at once that this something was no trifle: As he was going

to buy a house in the country, would he not--to please her--buy that

splendid house of Soames' at Robin Hill? It was finished, it was

perfectly beautiful, and no one would live in it now. They would all be

so happy there.

Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn't the 'man of property' going

to live in his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames now but under

this title.

"No"--June said--"he was not; she knew that he was not!"

How did she know?

She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew nearly for certain! It

was most unlikely; circumstances had changed! Irene's words still rang

in her head: "I have left Soames. Where should I go?"

But she kept silence about that.

If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that wretched claim that

ought never to have been made on Phil! It would be the very best thing

for everybody, and everything--everything might come straight.

And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed them close.

But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his face wore the judicial

look which came upon it when he dealt with affairs. He asked: What

did she mean? There was something behind all this--had she been seeing

Bosinney?