genius; and with some solemnity it would move up and down
the studio before him in the Fox-trot, and that more mental form of
dancing--the One-step--which so pulled against the music, that Jolyon's
eyebrows would be almost lost in his hair from wonder at the strain it
must impose on the dancer's will-power. Aware that, hung on the line in
the Water Colour Society, he was a back number to those with any
pretension to be called artists, he would sit in the darkest corner he
could find, and wonder about rhythm, on which so long ago he had been
raised. And when June brought some girl or young man up to him, he would
rise humbly to their level so far as that was possible, and think: 'Dear
me! This is very dull for them!' Having his father's perennial sympathy
with Youth, he used to get very tired from entering into their points of
view. But it was all stimulating, and he never failed in admiration of
his daughter's indomitable spirit. Even genius itself attended these
gatherings now and then, with its nose on one side; and June always
introduced it to her father. This, she felt, was exceptionally good for
him, for genius was a natural symptom he had never had--fond as she was
of him.

Certain as a man can be that she was his own daughter, he often wondered
whence she got herself--her red-gold hair, now greyed into a special
colour; her direct, spirited face, so different from his own rather
folded and subtilised countenance, her little lithe figure, when he and
most of the Forsytes were tall. And he would dwell on the origin of
species, and debate whether she might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he
thought, from her pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It
was not too much to say that he preferred her to the Age with which she
was surrounded, youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She took,
however, too much interest in his teeth, for he still had some of those
natural symptoms. Her dentist at once found "Staphylococcus aureus
present in pure culture" (which might cause boils, of course), and wanted
to take out all the teeth he had and supply him with two complete sets of
unnatural symptoms. Jolyon's native tenacity was roused, and in the
studio that evening he developed his objections. He had never had any
boils, and his own teeth would last his time. Of course--June
admitted--they would last his time if he didn't have them out! But if he
had more teeth he would have a better heart and his ti