“
“Hopeless vulgarian!” exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of earshot.
“Oh, Cecil!”
“I can’t help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man.”
“He isn’t clever, but really he is nice.”
“No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and every one - even your mother - is taken in.”
“All that you say is quite true,” said Lucy, although she felt discouraged. “I wonder whether - whether it matters so very much.”
“It matters supremely… Gentlefolks! Ugh! With his bald head and his retreating chin! But let’s forget him.”
This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered to her would escape? For instance, [her brother] Freddy. Freddy was neither clever, nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any minute, “it would be wrong not to loathe Freddy?” And what would she reply? Further than Freddy she dared not go, but he gave her anxiety enough.
”