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so—grubby—somehow.—One can’t say why one falls in love, can one?’ said Hester, ‘but perhaps difference is one of the chief reasons. I suppose Clive was almost the only gentleman I’d ever really known—except Godfrey;—and he isn’t quite so much of one, is he?—It wasn’t only that, of course; that would seem so very trivial, wouldn’t it?—though I don’t think now that it’s as trivial as I once did.—The things you jibe at when you’re outside seem so different when you’re inside.—My father, poor old fellow, isn’t quite a gentleman, to begin with;—rather a saint, but not quite a gentleman. Clive is rather a saint, and a gentleman as well. I was like a dull blade when he met me. He’s sharpened and sharpened me;—by his difference; by his belief in me; by having to live up to what he takes for granted.—It has hurt frightfully, sometimes, to see what he took for granted and how far from it one was; but by the time one had had a few turns on the wheel one was a good deal sharper.—Of course that’s a clumsy metaphor.—He makes one open like a flower; a tight, hard, distrustful flower.—That’s more like it. Godfrey never did that. He trampled one under foot.’

‘Oh, Hester;—not under foot? Was he cruel?