"I shouldn't wonder a bit!" he agreed; "and if he goes bankrupt, the
'man of property'--that is, Soames'll be out of pocket. Now, what I was
thinking was this: If he's not going to live there...."
Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James' eye, he quickly went on: "I
don't want to know anything; I suppose Irene's put her foot down--it's
not material to me. But I'm thinking of a house in the country myself,
not too far from London, and if it suited me I don't say that I mightn't
look at it, at a price."
James listened to this statement with a strange mixture of doubt,
suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread of something behind, and
tinged with the remains of his old undoubted reliance upon his elder
brother's good faith and judgment. There was anxiety, too, as to what
old Jolyon could have heard and how he had heard it; and a sort of
hopefulness arising from the thought that if June's connection with
Bosinney were completely at an end, her grandfather would hardly seem
anxious to help the young fellow. Altogether he was puzzled; as he did
not like either to show this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:
"They tell me you're altering your Will in favour of your son."
He had not been told this; he had merely added the fact of having seen
old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren to the fact that he had taken
his Will away from Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte.
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