This was exactly the way that kindly old gentlemen were supposed to talk, and Tommy listened with becoming attention.
‘In my young day,’ his friend continued, ‘George Eliot seemed to everybody a magnificent writer: a little heavy in hand for these days, I’m afraid. Now who is the God of your generation, if it isn’t impertinent to enquire?’
Tommy shifted again from foot to foot. Who was the God of his generation? If the truth must be told, in Tommy’s set there were no Gods, only young men who might be Gods if they lived long enough.
‘Well,’ said Tommy awkwardly, ‘Hardy, of course—er—it’s difficult to say, isn’t it?’
‘Very difficult,’ said the gentleman.
There was a pause then, which Tommy concluded by hinting that he was afraid that he must move forward to a very important engagement.
