‘Rather stupid—not quite worth the trouble of attending? And yet you were half afraid of going! Don’t deny it.’
‘I said it was stupid; and so it was,’ said Alec, reddening. ‘Nobody said anything worth listening to, so far as I heard.’
‘That means nobody took much notice of you, eh?’
‘What an ill-conditioned, sneering fellow you are, Cameron,’ replied Alec tranquilly. ‘You’ll never get on in the world unless you learn to be civil.’
‘It isn’t worth my while to be civil to you,’ said Cameron. ‘Wait till I’m in practice and have to flatter and humour rich old women. What did your uncle say to you?’
‘Hardly anything—just a word or two, as I was coming away.’
‘You ought to cultivate him, Alec.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t speak like that, Duncan,’ said Alec roughly. ‘Do you think I’m the sort of fellow to flatter and fawn upon an old man I don’t like, simply because he is rich?’
‘There’s no need for flattering and fawning,’ replied Cameron; ‘but you’ve no right to throw away such a chance at the very outset of your life.’
‘Do you think, then, that it’s manly or honourable to visit a man as it were out of pure friendship, when your only object is to make him useful to you?’