To himself, he added:
“And yet, my fine fellow, I’m very much mistaken if your own life at school was anything but a misery and a degradation.”
“Don’t you agree with me?”
“I’m not a public-school man.”
Lucian was conscious of having evaded the question, but he did not think that Ford would remark it. Nor did he.
“It will make a gentleman of the boy, as the odious expression is. My dear man, I’m not one of those people who can see nothing admirable in the institutions of their own country. To my mind, a fine Englishman is the finest man in the world.”
As he spoke, he threw back his slender shoulders in a gesture that was evidently an unconscious one. It struck Lucian rather strangely, as though it were the almost automatic expression of a desire for reassurance.
It was as if Ford was trying to impress Ford with his own claim to be a “fine Englishman.”
“I’m sorry if I sound—er—disgustingly snobbish, but the fact remains that Rose is entirely unfitted, by birth and education, to bring up my father’s grandson. You’ve seen for yourself what she’s like.”
“Very devoted to the boy.”