room faced down over
the river. There was little air, but the sight of that breadth of water
flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. 'The great thing,' he thought
'is not to make myself a nuisance. I'll think of my little sweet, and go
to sleep.' But it was long before the heat and throbbing of the London
night died out into the short slumber of the summer morning. And old
Jolyon had but forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden, and with
the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers, gathered a great
bunch of carnations. They were, he told her, for 'the lady in grey'--a
name still bandied between them; and he put them in a bowl in his study
where he meant to tackle Irene the moment she came, on the subject of
June and future lessons. Their fragrance and colour would help. After
lunch he lay down, for he felt very tired, and the carriage would not
bring her from the station till four o'clock. But as the hour approached
he grew restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle Beauce,
sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending to their
silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these methodical
creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of elephants; who nibbled
such quantities of holes in nice green leaves; and smelled, as he
thought, horrid. He sat down on a chintz-covered windowseat whence he
could see the drive, and get what air there was; and the dog Balthasar
who appreciated chintz on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over the
cottage piano a violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and
on it the first lavender, whose scent filled the room. In spite of the
coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life
vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses. Each sunbeam which came
through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled very strong;
the lavender perfume was overpowering; those silkworms heaving up their
grey-green backs seemed horribly alive; and Holly's dark head bent over
them had a wonderfully silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly strong thing
was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its
multitude of forms and its beating vitality. He had never, till those
last few weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of him
eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other half left