“That’s my whole objection,” said Ansell. “What right have they to think us asses in a pleasant way? Why don’t they hate us? What right has Hornblower to smack me on the back when I’ve been rude to him?”
“Well, what right have you to be rude to him?”
“Because I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. I tell you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and that’s worse than impossible it’s wrong. When you denounce sets, you’re really trying to destroy friendship.”
“I maintain,” said Rickie—it was a verb he clung to, in the hope that it would lend stability to what followed—“I maintain that one can like many more people than one supposes.”
“And I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend.”
“I hate no one,” he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and the dell re-echoed that it hated no one.
“We are obliged to believe you,” said Widdrington, smiling a little “but we are sorry about it.”
“Not even your father?” asked Ansell.
Rickie was silent.
“Not even your father?”