"There's no idealism in them at all!" reflected Harry bitterly. "I don't think they know what love means! Here's a chap ready to sacrifice his shirt for them, a chap many girls would jump at! And then what happens? A dolt with sleek hair turns up, and a Cheshire grin, and they're round his neck and licking his feet! It isn't only that they've got no taste—you know. They've got no self-respect!"
"Be more explicit, Harry!" Alec interposed. "Don't shirk the issue—and Edie!"
"They're all the same—absolutely ungrateful and heartless! I'm going to be a monk, a Trappist, I think! Trappism's a profession invented specially for me!"
"What? Because a little minx..."
"Don't...."
"Don't be a fool, Harry; you said they were all the same! I agree. Why are you specially put out about Edie then? You didn't object to the beefy arm of Lily wandering round George's waist, did you?"
"Not a scrap of difference—Lily's beefy arm, Edie's beefy soul...!"
"Look here!" Philip broke in miserably. "It's no good slanging her. I suppose if she likes him better she's entitled to be his girl instead of somebody else's."
"A little raw, Philip?" Alec asked.
"Of course I'm not! I don't care what she does! I didn't notice her all evening!"