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
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?"