When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting, for daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving unconsciously a revival of that momentary vision of his father sitting in the old leather chair with his knees crossed and his straight eyes gazing up from under the dome of his massive brow.  Often in this little room, cosiest in the house, Jolyon would catch a moment of communion with his father.  Not, indeed, that he had definitely any faith in the persistence of the human spirit—­the feeling was not so logical—­it was, rather, an atmospheric impact, like a scent, or one of those strong animistic impressions from forms, or effects of light, to which those with the artist’s eye are especially prone.  Here only—­in this little unchanged room where his father had spent the most of his waking hours—­could be retrieved the feeling that he was not quite gone, that the steady counsel of that old spirit and the warmth of his masterful lovability endured.

What would his father be advising now, in this sudden recrudescence of an old tragedy—­what would he say to this menace against her to whom he had taken such a fancy in the last weeks of his life?  ’I must do my best for her,’ thought Jolyon; ’he left her to me in his will.  But what is the best?’

And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd common sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient chair and crossed his knees.  But he felt a mere shadow sitting there; nor did any inspiration come, while the fingers of the wind tapped on the darkening panes of the french-window.

‘Go and see her?’ he thought, ’or ask her to come down here?  What’s her life been?  What is it now, I wonder?  Beastly to rake up things at this time of day.’  Again the figure of his cousin standing with a hand on a front door of a fine olive-green leaped out, vivid, like one of those figures from old-fashioned clocks when the hour strikes; and his words sounded in Jolyon’s ears clearer than any chime:  “I manage my own affairs.  I’ve told you once, I tell you again:  We are not at home.”  The repugnance he had then felt for Soames—­for his flat-cheeked, shaven face full of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not digest—­came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase.  ‘I dislike him,’ he thought, ’I dislike him to the very roots of me.  And that’s lucky; it’ll make it easier for me to back his wife.’  Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally averse from what he termed ‘ructions’; unless angered, he conformed deeply to that classic description of the she-dog, ‘Er’d ruther run than fight.’  A little smile became settled in his beard.  Ironical that Soames should come down here—­to this house, built for himself!  How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls and stairway, appraising everything!  And intuitively Jolyon thought:  ’I believe the fellow even now would like to be living here.  He could never leave off longing for what he once owned!  Well, I must act, somehow or other; but it’s a bore—­a great bore.’