een her for a moment, and his
description had always lingered in old Jolyon's mind--'wild and lost' he
had called her. And next day June had gone there--bottled up her
feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her
mistress had slipped out in the night and vanished. A tragic business
altogether! One thing was certain--Soames had never been able to lay
hands on her again. And he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and
down--a fitting fate, the man of property! For when he once took a
dislike to anyone--as he had to his nephew--old Jolyon never got over it.
He remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the news
of Irene's disappearance. It had been shocking to think of her a
prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered back, when Jo saw
her, wandered back for a moment--like a wounded animal to its hole after
seeing that news, 'Tragic death of an Architect,' in the street. Her
face had struck him very much the other night--more beautiful than he had
remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it. A young
woman still--twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another
lover by now. But at this subversive thought--for married women should
never love: once, even, had been too much--his instep rose, and with it
the dog Balthasar's head. The sagacious animal stood up and looked into
old Jolyon's face. 'Walk?' he seemed to say; and old Jolyon answered:
"Come on, old chap!"

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of
buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature, where
very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of
the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn
and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture.
Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes
found a mole there. Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it
because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be, some
day, and he would think: 'I must get Varr to come down and look at it;
he's better than Beech.' For plants, like houses and human complaints,
required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by snails, and
if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one and tell them
the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers got leggers, Mother?
'No, sonny.' 'Then darned if I haven't been and swallow