“How’s Emily?” he asked; and waiting for no reply, went on: “I’ve come to see you about this affair of young Bosinney’s. I’m told that new house of his is a white elephant.”

“I don’t know anything about a white elephant,” said James, “I know he’s lost his case, and I should say he’ll go bankrupt.”

Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this gave him.

“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. The shot went home.

“Who told you that?” asked old Jolyon.