re, such as he had tried
to screw into those lines about the voice in the night crying; a
feeling such as he had known as a small boy listening avidly to Chopin,
yet wanting to cry. And he wondered why it was that he couldn't say to
her quite simply what she had said to him:

"You were very sweet to me." Odd--one never could be nice and natural
like that! He substituted the words: "I expect we shall be sick."

They were, and reached London somewhat attenuated, having been away six
weeks and two days, without a single allusion to the subject which had
hardly ever ceased to occupy their minds.

II

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

Deprived of his wife and son by the Spanish adventure, Jolyon found the
solitude at Robin Hill intolerable. A philosopher when he has all that
he wants is different from a philosopher when he has not. Accustomed,
however, to the idea, if not to the reality of resignation, he would
perhaps have faced it out but for his daughter June. He was a "lame
duck" now, and on her conscience. Having achieved--momentarily--the
rescue of an etcher in low circumstances, which she happened to have in
hand, she appeared at Robin Hill a fortnight after Irene and Jon had
gone. The little lady was living now in a tiny house with a big studio
at Chiswick. A Forsyte of the best period, so far as the lack of
responsibility was concerned, she had overcome the difficulty of a
reduced income in a manner satisfactory to herself and her father. The
rent of the Gallery off Cork Street which he had bought for her, and
her increased income tax happening to balance, it had been quite
simple--she no longer paid him the rent. The Gallery might be expected
now at any time, after eighteen years of barren usufruct, to pay its
way, so that she was sure her father would not feel it. Through this
device she still had twelve hundred a year, and by reducing what she
ate, and, in place of two Belgians in a poor way, employing one
Austrian in a poorer, practically the same surplus for the relief of
genius. After three days at Robin Hill she carried her father back with
her to Town. In those three days she had stumbled on the secret he had
kept for two years, and had instantly decided to cure him. She knew, in
fact, the very man. He had done wonders with Paul Post--that painter a
little in advance of Futurism; and she was impatient with her father
because his eyebrows would go up, and because he had heard of neither.
Of course, if he h