and wonder at the APLOMB and position of this young man, who talked as a
matter of course of writing to Hermiston and correcting him upon his
private affairs.

And Frank would proceed, sweetly confidential: "I'll give you an idea,
now. He's actually sore about the way that I'm received and he's left
out in the county - actually jealous and sore. I've rallied him and
I've reasoned with him, told him that every one was most kindly inclined
towards him, told him even that I was received merely because I was his
guest. But it's no use. He will neither accept the invitations he
gets, nor stop brooding about the ones where he's left out. What I'm
afraid of is that the wound's ulcerating. He had always one of those
dark, secret, angry natures - a little underhand and plenty of bile -
you know the sort. He must have inherited it from the Weirs, whom I
suspect to have been a worthy family of weavers somewhere; what's the
cant phrase? - sedentary occupation. It's precisely the kind of
character to go wrong in a false position like what his father's made
for him, or he's making for himself, whichever you like to call it. And
for my part, I think it a disgrace," Frank would say generously.

Presently the sorrow and anxiety of this disinterested friend took
shape. He began in private, in conversations of two, to talk vaguely of
bad habits and low habits. "I must say I'm afraid he's going wrong
altogether," he would say. "I'll tell you plainly, and between
ourselves, I scarcely like to stay there any longer; only, man, I'm
positively afraid to leave him alone. You'll see, I shall be blamed for
it later on. I'm staying at a great sacrifice. I'm hindering my
chances at the Bar, and I can't blind my eyes to it. And what I'm
afraid of is that I'm going to get kicked for it all round before all's
done. You see, nobody believes in friendship nowadays."