Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at Paddington. She had received his telegram while at breakfast. Her abode⁠—a studio and two bedrooms in a St. John’s Wood garden⁠—had been selected by her for the complete independence which it guaranteed. Unwatched by Mrs. Grundy, unhindered by permanent domestics, she could receive lame ducks at any hour of day or night, and not seldom had a duck without studio of its own made use of June’s. She enjoyed her freedom, and possessed herself with a sort of virginal passion; the warmth which she would have lavished on Bosinney, and of which⁠—given her Forsyte tenacity⁠—he must surely have tired, she now expended in championship of the underdogs and budding “geniuses” of the artistic world. She lived, in fact, to turn ducks into the swans she believed they were. The very fervour of her protection warped her judgments. But she was loyal and liberal; her small eager hand was ever against the oppressions of academic and commercial opinion, and though her income was considerable, her bank balance was often a minus quantity.