“How old is he?” Edwin demanded, for the sake of saying something.
“About nine,” said Janet.
“He doesn’t look it.”
“No, but he talks it—sometimes.”
George did not in fact look his age. He was slight and small, and he seemed to have no bones—nothing but articulations that functioned with equal ease in all possible directions. His skin was pale and unhealthy. His eyes had an expression of fatigue, or he might have been ophthalmic. He spoke loudly, his gestures were brusque, and his life was apparently made up of a series of intense, absolute absorptions. The general effect of his personality upon Edwin was not quite agreeable, and Edwin’s conclusion was that George, in addition to being spoiled, was a profound and rather irritating egoist by nature.
“By the way,” he murmured, “what’s Mr Cannon?”
“Oh!” said Janet, hesitating, with emotion, “she’s a widow.”
He felt sick. Janet might have been a doctor who had informed him that he was suffering from an unexpected disease, and that an operation severe and perilous lay in front of him. The impartial observer in him asked somewhat disdainfully why he should allow himself to be deranged in this physical manner, and he could only reply feebly and very meekly that he did not know. He felt sick.
Suddenly he said to himself making a discovery—
“Of course she won’t come to Bursley. She’d be ashamed to meet me.”