He saw that it was late and hurried back. He had discovered a great deal during the morning.
At lunch he spoke of the changes that he had seen. Clare smiled. "Why, of course," she said. "Twenty years is a long time, and Pendragon has made great strides. For my part, I am very glad. It brings money to the shopkeepers, and the place will be quite fashionable in a few years' time. We're all on the side of progress up here," she added, laughing.
"But the Cove?" said Harry. "Barbour tells me that they are thinking of pulling it down to make way for lodging-houses or something."
"Well, why not?" said Clare. "It is really very much in the way where it is, and is, I am told, extremely insanitary. We must be practical nowadays or we are nothing; you have to pay heavily for being romantic."
Harry felt again that sensation of personal affront as though some close friend, bound to him by many ties, had been attacked violently in his presence. It was unreasonable, he knew, but it was very strong.
"And you, Robin," he said, "what do you think of it?"
"I agree with Aunt Clare," answered Robin lightly, as though it were a matter that interested him very little. "If the place is in the way, it ought to go. He's a sensible man, Barbour."
"The fact is, Harry," said Garrett, "you haven't changed quite as fast as the place has. You'll see the point of view in a few weeks' time."
He felt unreasonably, ridiculously angry. They were all treating him as a child, as some one who would grow up one day perhaps, but was, at present at any rate, immature in thought and word; even with Robin there was a half-implied superiority.
"But the Cove!" he cried vehemently. "Is it nothing to any of you? After all that it has been to us all our lives, to our people, to the whole place, are you going to root it out and destroy it simply because the town isn't quite big enough to put up all the trippers that burden it in the summer? Don't you see what you will lose if you do? I suppose you think that I am sentimental, romantic, but upon my word I can't see that you have improved Pendragon very much in all these twenty years. It was charming once—a place with individuality, independence; now it is like anywhere else—a miniature Brighton."