ather
as an asylum for her proteges! but his own outcast days had filled
Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast, and June's 'lame
ducks' about the place did not annoy him. By all means let her have them
down--and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical humour perceived
that they ministered to his daughter's love of domination as well as
moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many
ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and
brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with
a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly,
he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating
cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and
ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And
he was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in
his dress, so that his son need not blush for him. They were perfect
friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both
having the competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they
would stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk
about it. Jolyon had a striking horror--partly original sin, but partly
the result of his early immorality--of the moral attitude. The most he
could ever have said to his son would have been:

"Look here, old man; don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have
wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The
great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they
annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would
be particularly careful during that match, continually saying: "Hooray!
Oh! hard luck, old man!" or "Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!" to each
other, when some disaster at which their hearts bounded happened to the
opposing school. And Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his
usual soft one, to save his son's feelings, for a black top hat he could
not stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him,
amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy amongst
all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old than himself.
He often thought, 'Glad I'm a painter' for he had long dropped
under-writing at Lloyds--'it's so innocuous. You can't look down on a
painter--you can't take him seriously enough.' For Jolly, who had a sort
of natural lordliness