That remark of Roger Monk teased Wolf’s mind. The man had worded it in a coarser, drier, cruder manner than such a thing would have been worded by a man of the West Country. The use of the word “gender,” for instance, “That’s a touch of Sheffield or Birmingham,” thought Wolf. And perhaps just because of its coarse wording, the thing hit Wolf with a most unpleasant emphasis. What would he feel if there were any serious cause for his being jealous? What he did feel at that moment was an actual sense of physical nausea caused by Roger’s words. It wasn’t only Gerda. That use of the word “gender” seemed to have stripped the world of a certain decency that belonged to its inherent skin quite as much as to its external conventions.