"Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted way the
Greeks gave themselves to art."
Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
symmetry--clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of
his, and high cheek-bones--Symmetry?
"You're of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon."
Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her eyes
were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why? There was
nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
"Phil thought so. He used to say: 'But I can never tell him that I
admire him.'"
Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him! And
he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as
if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.
"He was a very talented young fellow," he murmured. "It's hot; I feel
the heat nowadays. Let's sit down."
They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered
them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there
and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to
increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:
"I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He'd be at his best
with you. His ideas of art were a little new--to me "--he had stiffed
the word 'fangled.'
"Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty." Old Jolyon
thought: 'The devil he did!' but answered with a twinkle: "Well, I have,
or I shouldn't be sitting here with you." She was fascinating when she
smiled with her eyes, like that!
"He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil had
real insight."
He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a
longing to talk of her dead lover--not a bit; and yet it was precious
to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which--quite true!--had
never grown old. Was that because--unlike her and her dead lover, he had
never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of
symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty.
And he thought, 'If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I'm an old chap.
Make hay while the sun shines.'
A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at the
edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly on their
pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. "We're an ugly lot!" said old
Jolyon suddenly. "It amazes me to see how--love triumphs over that."