“You shouldn’t draw such rapid conclusions, my friend.” “D’you think she’s fond of him?” “My dear Gerald, what a question! Is it not her duty to love, honour, and obey him?” “If I were a woman I could never honour a man who was bald.” “His locks are somewhat scanty; but he has a strong sense of duty.” “I know that,” shouted Gerald. “It oozes out of him whenever he gets hot, just like gum.” “He’s a County Councillor, and he makes speeches about the Union Jack, and he’s virtuous.” “I know that too. He simply reeks of the ten commandments: they stick out all over him, like almonds in a tipsy cake.” “My dear Gerald, Edward is a model; he is the typical Englishman as he flourishes in the country, upright and honest, healthy, dogmatic, moral--rather stupid. I esteem him enormously, and I ought to like him much better than you, who are a disgraceful scamp.” “I wonder why you don’t.” “Because I’m a wicked old woman; and I’ve learnt by long experience that people generally keep their vices to themselves, but insist on throwing their virtues in your face. And if you don’t happen to have any of your own, you get the worst of the encounter.” “I think that’s what is so comfortable in you, Aunt Polly, that you’re not obstreperously good. You’re charity itself.” “My dear Gerald,” said Miss Ley, putting up an admonishing forefinger, “women are by nature spiteful and intolerant; when you find one who exercises charity, it proves that she wants it very badly herself.” Miss Ley was glad that Edward could not stay more than two days, for she was always afraid of surprising him. Nothing is more tedious than to talk with persons who treat your most obvious remarks as startling paradoxes; and Edward suffered likewise from that passion for argument, which is the bad talker’s substitute for conversation. People who cannot talk are always proud of their dialectic: they want to modify your tritest observations, and even if you suggest that the day is fine insist on arguing it out. Bertha, in her husband’s presence, had suffered singular discomfort; it had been such a constraint that she found it an effort to talk with him, and she had to rack her brain for subjects of conversation. Her heart was perceptibly lightened when she returned from Victoria after seeing him off, and it gave her a thrill of pleasure to hear Gerald jump up when she came in. He ran towards her with glowing eyes. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve hardly had a chance of speaking to you these last two days.” “We have the whole afternoon before us.” “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”