“No?” queried young Jolyon; “I should have thought you’d be glad to get a long job like that off your hands; but I suppose you feel it much as I do when I part with a picture⁠—a sort of child?”

He looked kindly at Bosinney.

“Yes,” said the latter more cordially, “it goes out from you and there’s an end of it. I didn’t know you painted.”

“Only watercolours; I can’t say I believe in my work.”

“Don’t believe in it? There⁠—how can you do it? Work’s no use unless you believe in it!”

“Good,” said young Jolyon; “it’s exactly what I’ve always said. By the by, have you noticed that whenever one says ‘Good,’ one always adds ‘it’s exactly what I’ve always said.’ But if you ask me how I do it, I answer, because I’m a Forsyte.”

“A Forsyte! I never thought of you as one!”

496