u suppose I
can do buying land, building houses?--I couldn't get four per cent. for
my money!"
"What does that matter? You'd get fresh air."
"Fresh air!" exclaimed James; "what should I do with fresh air,"
"I should have thought anybody liked to have fresh air," said June
scornfully.
James wiped his napkin all over his mouth.
"You don't know the value of money," he said, avoiding her eye.
"No! and I hope I never shall!" and, biting her lip with inexpressible
mortification, poor June was silent.
Why were her own relations so rich, and Phil never knew where the money
was coming from for to-morrow's tobacco. Why couldn't they do something
for him? But they were so selfish. Why couldn't they build
country-houses? She had all that naive dogmatism which is so pathetic,
and sometimes achieves such great results. Bosinney, to whom she turned
in her discomfiture, was talking to Irene, and a chill fell on June's
spirit. Her eyes grew steady with anger, like old Jolyon's when his
will was crossed.
James, too, was much disturbed. He felt as though someone had threatened
his right to invest his money at five per cent. Jolyon had spoiled her.
None of his girls would have said such a thing. James had always been
exceedingly liberal to his children, and the consciousness of this made
him feel it all the more deeply. He trifled moodily with his
strawberries, then, deluging them with cream, he ate them quickly; they,
at all events, should not escape him.
No wonder he was upset. Engaged for fifty-four years (he had been
admitted a solicitor on the earliest day sanctioned by the law) in
arranging mortgages, preserving investments at a dead level of high and
safe interest, conducting negotiations on the principle of securing the
utmost possible out of other people compatible with safety to his clients
and himself, in calculations as to the exact pecuniary possibilities of
all the relations of life, he had come at last to think purely in terms
of money. Money was now his light, his medium for seeing, that without
which he was really unable to see, really not cognisant of phenomena; and
to have this thing, "I hope I shall never know the value of money!" said
to his face, saddened and exasperated him. He knew it to be nonsense, or
it would have frightened him. What was the world coming to! Suddenly
recollecting the story of young Jolyon, however, he felt a little
comforted, for what could you expect with a fat
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