Young Jolyon poured out the tea.
“My wife’s not the thing today,” he said, but he knew well enough that his father had penetrated the cause of that sudden withdrawal, and almost hated the old man for sitting there so calmly.
“You’ve got a nice little house here,” said old Jolyon with a shrewd look; “I suppose you’ve taken a lease of it!”
Young Jolyon nodded.
“I don’t like the neighbourhood,” said old Jolyon; “a ramshackle lot.”
Young Jolyon replied: “Yes, we’re a ramshackle lot.”
The silence was now only broken by the sound of the dog Balthasar’s scratching.
Old Jolyon said simply: “I suppose I oughtn’t to have come here, Jo; but I get so lonely!”
At these words young Jolyon got up and put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
In the next house someone was playing over and over again: “La Donna è mobile” on an untuned piano; and the little garden had fallen into shade, the sun now only reached the wall at the end, whereon basked a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily down on the dog Balthasar. There was a drowsy hum of very distant traffic; the creepered trellis round the garden shut out everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its top branches still gilded by the sun.