“How are you getting on with Louise?” Noel asked, thinking it was time to change the subject. “I’d love to see you two together!”
“You never will,” Connie said with feeling. “Eric needn’t try to bring us together, either. I’ve seen her, and that’s enough. How I hate those thin-lipped, straw-colored women! How Eric could have married her when he might have married any one, I cannot imagine.”
“People have these sudden fancies,” said Noel.
“What about Gordon? Is it true he’s really engaged to Helen Dane? Not that I care much, as he’s never had the politeness to come and see me.”
“He’s engaged right enough. I suppose he’s happy. Gordon closes up like an oyster if you touch on anything personal. We’ve never discussed anything in our lives. Mother’s frightfully pleased about it.”
“What’s the girl like?”
“Oh, she’s all right, but she’s cut to pattern.”
“Pretty?”
“So so. Too bony, I think. But she suits Gordon. Related to everybody, rich, correct, hasn’t got an original thought in her head. Thinks she’s literary because young Shawn Bridlington the poet goes and reads his verses in her mother’s drawing-room. Affects the Bloomsbury people. Opens bazaars and things. Jove! I’d rather marry a factory girl with a harelip.”
Much of this was Greek to his aunt, who had the misfortune never to have heard of the Bloomsbury people.