CHAPTER LI.
A DREAM
“Affectionate, indeed!” said William, “I do believe they have no other idea but to mortify and wound everyone that seems to like them—cats and monkeys.”
William had closed the door; he poked his fire, and sat before it, eyeing it scornfully.
“I can’t think why anyone likes them—why we go on liking them—they are so odious. I suppose they used not to be so. There’s Aunt Dinah—kind, true old Aunt Dinah—she never could have been a heartless, insolent creature, like that—never. We are all growing worse; the world will soon be ripe for judgment.”
And William pulled off his coat as savagely as if he was going to fight “Old Crump” again, behind the chapel at Rugby.
“I hate myself for liking her. No, I don’t like her—for admiring her; but she is pretty. She is—there’s no good in denying it—she’s awfully pretty—lovely! and till that great goose, Trevor, came and turned her head with his boots, and his gloves, and his house, and his trumpery, she was the nicest little creature in the world. Yes, there was no one like her; not one on earth, I’ll maintain.”
And he knocked his hand so hard on the back of the chair beside him, that he thought his knuckles were bleeding.
“I wish they were, by Jove!” he said. “I don’t care what happens, I don’t care if I was knocked to smash, to think of that great gawky goose. What on earth can she see in him? Such rot!”