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Old Jolyon pitched them down at last, and they fell with a thump amongst a mass of affidavits in 're Buncombe, deceased, one of the many branches of that parent and profitable tree, 'Fryer v. Forsyte. "I don't know what Soames is about," he said, "to make a fuss over a few hundred pounds. I thought he was a man of property."
And old Jolyon thought: 'Eighty-five! I don't feel it except when I get that pain. His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had bought his nephew Soames' ill-starred house and settled into it here at Robin Hill over three years ago.
At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding liver, and the fat man laughed. His wife, in a Paris model frock and gold nose-nippers, reproved him: "How can you laugh, Harry? Such a horrid sight!" Young Jolyon frowned.
Obstinate as a mule! If she doesn't want to do a thing, she won't, and there's an end of it!" Young Jolyon smiled; his eyes had wandered to his father's chin. 'A pair of you, he thought, but he said nothing. "And then," went on old Jolyon, "there's this Bosinney. I should like to punch the fellow's head, but I can't, I suppose, though I don't see why you shouldn't," he added doubtfully.
Youth only recognises Age by fits and starts. Jon, for one, had never really seen his father's age till he came back from Spain. The face of the fourth Jolyon, worn by waiting, gave him quite a shock it looked so wan and old. His father's mask had been forced awry by the emotion of the meeting, so that the boy suddenly realised how much he must have felt their absence.
"Was he?" said old Jolyon, looking hard at James. "It wouldn't be half so busy if everybody minded their own business." James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees ran uphill, shifted his feet uneasily, and put one of them down on the cat, which had unwisely taken refuge from old Jolyon beside him.
If she were there, he would speak to her; if she were not, he would leave a note. He dressed carefully, and wrote as follows: "Your idyll with that fellow Jolyon Forsyte is known to me at all events. If you pursue it, understand that I will leave no stone unturned to make things unbearable for him.
"That settles it," said Jolyon dryly, then catching the expression on her face, he kissed her, with the thought: 'Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young? Unless he actually forbade her going it was obvious that he must make the best of it, so he went up to town with June.
Having seen his father into a hansom, young Jolyon came back to the drawing-room and stood, where old Jolyon had stood, looking down on the little garden. He tried to realize all that this meant to him, and, Forsyte that he was, vistas of property were opened out in his brain; the years of half rations through which he had passed had not sapped his natural instincts.
Robin Hill the house Bosinney had built for him and Irene the house they had never lived in the fatal house! And Jolyon lived there now! H'm! And suddenly he thought: 'They say he's got a boy at Oxford! Why not take young Val down and introduce them! It's an excuse! Less bald very much less bald! So, as they went upstairs, he said to Val: "You've got a cousin at Oxford; you've never met him.
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