In five minutes he shut it with a slam and looked up at her and laughed.
"What awful rot," he remarked genially, as though certain of sympathy.
Jane-Anne gazed at him in consternation. "Rot?" she faltered.
"Fearful squish; you don't mean to say you really like it?"
"I don't know what you mean," she said, so offended that she quite forgot the respectful "sir."
"It's so stilted and bombastic and unnatural. The style"—here Montagu unconsciously gave a perfect imitation of his house master's manner—"is so cheap and meretricious."
"I don't understand about style in books," said Jane-Anne, still much umbraged. "D'you mean the binding?"
"Good gracious, no. I mean the way it's written. Listen to this"—and Montagu opened the book haphazard and read the following extract aloud:—"'He had been minister of a favourite church in one of the southern towns, and master of an establishment for youths of high rank, in both which capacities he had given universal satisfaction. The reprehensible conduct of some of his pupils, carried on at first so secretly as to elude his knowledge, at length became so notorious as to demand examination. He had at first refused all credence, but when proved by the confused replies of all, and half-confession of some, he briefly and emphatically laid before them the enormity of their conduct, and declared, that as confidence was entirely broken between them, he would resign the honour of their education, refusing to admit them any longer as members of his establishment.' There!" Montagu exclaimed, "could you have anything worse?"
"I think it's all said very properly and grandly," Jane-Anne protested. "I don't see what's the matter with it at all."
Montagu rolled over on the grass and sat up. "It's the grandness that's so detestable."