Who could tell what his son's circumstances really were? He
had capitalized the income he had inherited from his mother's father
and joined Lloyd's as an underwriter; he painted pictures,
too--water-colours. Old Jolyon knew this, for he had surreptitiously
bought them from time to time, after chancing to see his son's name
signed at the bottom of a representation of the river Thames in a
dealer's window. He thought them bad, and did not hang them because of
the signature; he kept them locked up in a drawer.
In the great opera-house a terrible yearning came on him to see his son.
He remembered the days when he had been wont to slide him, in a brown
holland suit, to and fro under the arch of his legs; the times when he
ran beside the boy's pony, teaching him to ride; the day he first took
him to school. He had been a loving, lovable little chap! After he went
to Eton he had acquired, perhaps, a little too much of that desirable
manner which old Jolyon knew was only to be obtained at such places
and at great expense; but he had always been companionable. Always a
companion, even after Cambridge--a little far off, perhaps, owing to
the advantages he had received. Old Jolyon's feeling towards our public
schools and 'Varsities never wavered, and he retained touchingly his
attitude of admiration and mistrust towards a system appropriate to
the highest in the land, of which he had not himself been privileged to
partake.
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