June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly taken

her own mother's place; and ever since old Jolyon died she had been

established in a sort of studio in London. But she had come back to

Robin Hill on her stepmother's death, and gathered the reins there into

her small decided hands. Jolly was then at Harrow; Holly still learning

from Mademoiselle Beauce. There had been nothing to keep Jolyon at home,

and he had removed his grief and his paint-box abroad. There he had

wandered, for the most part in Brittany, and at last had fetched up

in Paris. He had stayed there several months, and come back with the

younger face and the short fair beard. Essentially a man who merely

lodged in any house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign

at Robin Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where and

when he liked. She was inclined, it is true, to regard the house rather

as an asylum for her proteges! but his own outcast days had filled

Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast, and June's 'lame

ducks' about the place did not annoy him. By all means let her have them

down--and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical humour perceived

that they ministered to his daughter's love of domination as well as

moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many

ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and

brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with

a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly,

he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating

cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and

ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And

he was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in

his dress, so that his son need not blush for him. They were perfect

friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both

having the competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they

would stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk

about it. Jolyon had a striking horror--partly original sin, but partly

the result of his early immorality--of the moral attitude. The most he

could ever have said to his son would have been:

"Look here, old man; don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have

wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The

great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they

annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would

be particularly careful during that match, continually saying: "Hooray!

Oh! hard luck, old man!" or "Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!" to each

other, when some disaster at which their hearts bounded happened to the

opposing school. And Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his

usual soft one, to save his son's feelings, for a black top hat he could

not stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him,

amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy amongst

all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old than himself.

He often thought, 'Glad I'm a painter' for he had long dropped

under-writing at Lloyds--'it's so innocuous. You can't look down on a

painter--you can't take him seriously enough.' For Jolly, who had a sort

of natural lordliness, had passed at once into a very small set, who

secretly amused his father. The boy had fair hair which curled a little,

and his grandfather's deepset iron-grey eyes. He was well-built and very

upright, and always pleased Jolyon's aesthetic sense, so that he was a

tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of their own sex

whom they admire physically. On that occasion, however, he actually did

screw up his courage to give his son advice, and this was it:




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