“Then why did you ever come? We didn't ask you.”
The remark was so singularly at variance with all she had led him to expect from her, that Strumolowski stretched out his hand and took a cigarette.
“England never wants an idealist,” he said.
But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset; old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it were, from bed. “You come and sponge on us,” she said, “and then abuse us. If you think that's playing the game, I don't.”
She now discovered that which others had discovered before her—the thickness of hide beneath which the sensibility of genius is sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face became the incarnation of a sneer.
“Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owing—a tenth part of what is owing. You will repent to say that, Miss Forsyte.”
“Oh, no,” said June, “I shan't.”
“Ah! We know very well, we artists—you take us to get what you can out of us. I want nothing from you”—and he blew out a cloud of June's smoke.
Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame within her. “Very well, then, you can take your things away.”
And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare. In front of these people, too; it's positively disgusting!'