Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at Paddington. She had

received his telegram while at breakfast. Her abode--a studio and two

bedrooms in a St. John's Wood garden--had been selected by her for the

complete independence which it guaranteed. Unwatched by Mrs. Grundy,

unhindered by permanent domestics, she could receive lame ducks at any

hour of day or night, and not seldom had a duck without studio of its

own made use of June's. She enjoyed her freedom, and possessed herself

with a sort of virginal passion; the warmth which she would have

lavished on Bosinney, and of which--given her Forsyte tenacity--he must

surely have tired, she now expended in championship of the underdogs and

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budding 'geniuses' of the artistic world. She lived, in fact, to turn

ducks into the swans she believed they were. The very fervour of her

protection warped her judgments. But she was loyal and liberal; her

small eager hand was ever against the oppressions of academic and

commercial opinion, and though her income was considerable, her bank

balance was often a minus quantity.

She had come to Paddington Station heated in her soul by a visit to Eric

Cobbley. A miserable Gallery had refused to let that straight-haired

genius have his one-man show after all. Its impudent manager, after

visiting his studio, had expressed the opinion that it would only be a

'one-horse show from the selling point of view.' This crowning example

of commercial cowardice towards her favourite lame duck--and he so hard

up, with a wife and two children, that he had caused her account to be

overdrawn--was still making the blood glow in her small, resolute face,

and her red-gold hair to shine more than ever. She gave her father a

hug, and got into a cab with him, having as many fish to fry with him as

he with her. It became at once a question which would fry them first.

Jolyon had reached the words: "My dear, I want you to come with me,"

when, glancing at her face, he perceived by her blue eyes moving from

side to side--like the tail of a preoccupied cat--that she was not

attending. "Dad, is it true that I absolutely can't get at any of my

money?"

"Only the income, fortunately, my love."

"How perfectly beastly! Can't it be done somehow? There must be a way. I

know I could buy a small Gallery for ten thousand pounds."

"A small Gallery," murmured Jolyon, "seems a modest desire. But your

grandfather foresaw it."

"I think," cried June vigorously, "that all this care about money is

awful, when there's so much genius in the world simply crushed out for

want of a little. I shall never marry and have children; why shouldn't

I be able to do some good instead of having it all tied up in case of

things which will never come off?"




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