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'Has he come about his wife? Jolyon was thinking; and Soames, 'How shall I begin? while Val, brought to break the ice, stood negligently scrutinising this 'bearded pard' from under his dark, thick eyelashes. "This is Val Dartie," said Soames, "my sister's son. He's just going up to Oxford. I thought I'd like him to know your boy." "Ah! I'm sorry Jolly's away. What college?"
"What reasons?" "About my family I've just told her. I wanted her to know before things happen." Jolly suddenly became less distinguished. "You're kids," he said, "and you know you are. "I am not a kid," said Val. "You are you're not twenty." "Well, what are you?" "I am twenty," said Jolly. "Only just; anyway, I'm as good a man as you." Jolly's face crimsoned, then clouded.
Jolly's sitting-room was panelled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs of young men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evidence of his boy's character and tastes.
"Oh, I don't know," said another; "there won't be much cutlashing; 'tain't like it used to was in the old days. Most everything's done with the big guns now; and if they do get alongside to board, why, a man's cutlash is always stuck at the end of his rifle, just as if it was a jolly's bag'net growed out o' knowledge, and then it's all spick and spike."
Pretty? When they were lean and sharp and shabby! When they kept switches on two nails behind the door, when they wore ugly clothes pinned together! But Jolly's eye caught the wistfulness on Morry's little, peaked, white face, and a lie was born within him at the sight. In a flash he understood things. Pity came to the front and braced itself stalwartly. "You bet they're pretty!"
But it would only be Dadsy and a step-one, Jolly's kind, most likely. Jolly's kind was pretty, she might be pretty. But she would not come smiling and creeping out of the dark with a halo over her head. That kind came in dreams. Jolly's whistle was comforting to hear. Morry leaned out of his cushions to wave his hand. Jolly was going to school; when he came whistling back, she would be here.
He longed to send for the children; to have them there beside him, their supple bodies against his knees; to hear Jolly's: "Hallo, Gran!" and see his rush; and feel Holly's soft little hand stealing up against his cheek. But he would not. There was solemnity in what he had come to do, and until it was over he would not play.
This is rather a good beast," he added, scrutinising Jolly's horse, a dark brown, which was showing the whites of its eyes. "You haven't got any hunting here, I suppose?" "No; I don't know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully exciting, of course; but it's cruel, isn't it? June says so." "Cruel?" ejaculated Val. "Oh! that's all rot. Who's June?"
"Where the devil have you come from?" he greeted him thunderously. Leroy quailed. Jolly's associates stared. But Jolly explained to them: "He was of last night's bathing party. And he has the impudence to come before us like this. Take him away and shove him back into the water."
At the appointed time Larry delivered this epistle, and the bag of gold into Mr Jolly's hands, and, saying that no answer was required, hurried away. If Mr Jolly had been suddenly informed that he had been appointed secretary of state to the king of Ashantee, he could not have looked more astonished than when he perused this letter, and weighed the bag of gold in his hand.
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