Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling that odour of oilcloth and herrings which permeates all respectable seaside lodging-houses. On a chair--a shiny leather chair, displaying its horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand corner--stood a black despatch case. This he was filling with papers, with the Times, and a bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had meetings that day of the 'Globular Gold Concessions' and the 'New Colliery Company, Limited,' to which he was going up, for he never missed a Board; to 'miss a Board' would be one more piece of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous Forsyte spirit could not bear.
His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked as if at any moment they might blaze up with anger. So gleams the eye of a schoolboy, baited by a ring of his companions; but he controls himself, deterred by the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon controlled himself, keeping down, with his masterful restraint now slowly wearing out, the irritation fostered in him by the conditions of his life.
He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by rambling generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of answering a plain question. 'I've seen Bosinney,' he said; 'he is not a criminal. The more I see of people the more I am convinced that they are never good or bad--merely comic, or pathetic. You probably don't agree with me!'
Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express oneself; he had not yet reached that point of old age when even Forsytes, bereft of those illusions and principles which they have cherished carefully for practical purposes but never believed in, bereft of all corporeal enjoyment, stricken to the very heart by having nothing left to hope for--break through the barriers of reserve and say things they would never have believed themselves capable of saying.
Perhaps he did not believe in 'goodness' and 'badness' any more than his son; but as he would have said: He didn't know--couldn't tell; there might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary expression of disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?
Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though (like a true Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too adventurous or too foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of them. And when the wonderful view (mentioned in Baedeker--
'fatiguing but repaying'--was disclosed to him after the effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence of some great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the petty precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was as near to religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever gone.
But it was many years since he had been to the mountains. He had taken June there two seasons running, after his wife died, and had realized bitterly that his walking days were over.
To that old mountain--given confidence in a supreme order of things he had long been a stranger.
He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled him. It troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had always been so careful, should be father and grandfather to such as seemed born to disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo-- who could say anything against the boy, an amiable chap?--but his position was deplorable, and this business of June's nearly as bad. It seemed like a fatality, and a fatality was one of those things no man of his character could either understand or put up with.
In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would come of it. Since the ball at Roger's he had seen too clearly how the land lay--he could put two and two together quicker than most men--and, with the example of his own son before his eyes, knew better than any Forsyte of them all that the pale flame singes men's wings whether they will or no.
In the days before June's engagement, when she and Mrs. Soames were always together, he had seen enough of Irene to feel the spell she cast over men. She was not a flirt, not even a coquette--words dear to the heart of his generation, which loved to define things by a good, broad, inadequate word--but she was dangerous. He could not say why. Tell him of a quality innate in some women--a seductive power beyond their own control! He would but answer: 'Humbug!' She was dangerous, and there was an end of it. He wanted to close his eyes to that affair. If it was, it was; be did not want to hear any more about it--he only wanted to save June's position and her peace of mind. He still hoped she might once more become a comfort to himself.
And so he had written. He got little enough out of the answer.
As to what young Jolyon had made of the interview, there was practically only the queer sentence: 'I gather that he's in the stream.' The stream! What stream? What was this new-fangled way of talking?
He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under the flap of the bag; he knew well enough what was meant.
June came out of the dining-room, and helped him on with his summer coat. From her costume, and the expression of her little resolute face, he saw at once what was coming.
"I'm going with you," she said.
"Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City. I can't have you racketting about!"
"I must see old Mrs. Smeech."
"Oh, your precious 'lame ducks!" grumbled out old Jolyon. He did not believe her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There was no doing anything with that pertinacity of hers.
At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had been ordered for himself--a characteristic action, for he had no petty selfishnesses.
"Now, don't you go tiring yourself, my darling," he said, and took a cab on into the city.
June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs.
Smeech, her 'lame duck,' lived--an aged person, connected with the charring interest; but after half an hour spent in hearing her habitually lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great house was closed and dark.