Old Jolyon rose: “Thank you,” he said, looking straight at James, “but I’ve no time for tea, and⁠—scandal, and the rest of it! It’s time I was at home. Goodbye, Julia; goodbye, Hester; goodbye, Winifred.”

Without more ceremonious adieux, he marched out.

Once again in his cab, his anger evaporated, for so it ever was with his wrath⁠—when he had rapped out, it was gone. Sadness came over his spirit. He had stopped their mouths, maybe, but at what a cost! At the cost of certain knowledge that the rumour he had been resolved not to believe was true. June was abandoned, and for the wife of that fellow’s son! He felt it was true, and hardened himself to treat it as if it were not; but the pain he hid beneath this resolution began slowly, surely, to vent itself in a blind resentment against James and his son.