“Been hearing him, I suppose? Nobody bothers about him , Mr. Solent. Miss Elizabeth is the boss here, and she don’t like people who talk too much about family-matters. Why should she? Round’s her uncle, not yours or mine.”

The brutality of this remark destroyed in a moment all the fragrant clarity of Wolf’s after-tea sensations. He received the sort of shock from it that always made him seem to himself a priggish fool, devoid of the degree of humorous toughness which this world requires. At the same time it stirred up all his ill-balanced impulses with regard to persecuted people⁠—impulses that led him to a morbid exaggeration of this particular aspect of life.

He began to indulge in the wildest imaginings about the “worried” Mr. Round; and he obstinately returned to the subject.