recollected with satisfaction that he had
bought that house over James's head.

Serve him right for sticking at the price; the only thing the fellow
thought of was money. Had he given too much, though? It wanted a lot of
doing to--He dared say he would want all his money before he had
done with this affair of June's. He ought never to have allowed the
engagement. She had met this Bosinney at the house of Baynes, Baynes and
Bildeboy, the architects. He believed that Baynes, whom he knew--a bit
of an old woman--was the young man's uncle by marriage. After that she'd
been always running after him; and when she took a thing into her head
there was no stopping her. She was continually taking up with 'lame
ducks' of one sort or another. This fellow had no money, but she must
needs become engaged to him--a harumscarum, unpractical chap, who would
get himself into no end of difficulties.

She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and told him; and, as
if it were any consolation, she had added:

"He's so splendid; he's often lived on cocoa for a week!"

"And he wants you to live on cocoa too?"

"Oh no; he is getting into the swim now."

Old Jolyon had taken his cigar from under his white moustaches, stained
by coffee at the edge, and looked at her, that little slip of a thing
who had got such a grip of his heart. He knew more about 'swims' than
his granddaughter. But she, having clasped her hands on his knees,
rubbed her chin against him, making a sound like a purring cat. And,
knocking the ash off his cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation:

"You're all alike: you won't be satisfied till you've got what you want.
If you must come to grief, you must; I wash my hands of it."

So, he had washed his hands of it, making the condition that they should
not marry until Bosinney had at least four hundred a year.

"I shan't be able to give you very much," he had said, a formula to
which June was not unaccustomed. "Perhaps this What's-his-name will
provide the cocoa."

He had hardly seen anything of her since it began. A bad business! He
had no notion of giving her a lot of money to enable a fellow he knew
nothing about to live on in idleness. He had seen that sort of thing
before; no good ever came of it. Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking
her resolution; she was as obstinate as a mule, always had been from
a child. He didn't see where it was to end. They must cut their coat
according to their cloth. He wou