He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his 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 on the bank, watching that helpless progress. Only when Irene was
with him did he lose this double consciousness.