Page 262 - tender-is-the-night

Amazons would ever grasp the fact that a man is vulner-
able only in his pride, but delicate as Humpty-Dumpty once
that is meddled with—though some of them paid the fact a
cautious lipservice. Doctor Diver’s profession of sorting the
broken shells of another sort of egg had given him a dread
of breakage. But:
‘There’s too much good manners,’ he said on the way
back to Gstaad in the smooth sleigh.
‘Well, I think that’s nice,’ said Baby.
‘No, it isn’t,’ he insisted to the anonymous bundle of fur.
‘Good manners are an admission that everybody is so ten-
der that they have to be handled with gloves. Now, human
respect—you don’t call a man a coward or a liar lightly, but
if you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding
their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what SHOULD
be respected in them.’
‘I think Americans take their manners rather seriously,’
said the elder Englishman.
‘I guess so,’ said Dick. ‘My father had the kind of man-
ners he inherited from the days when you shot first and
apologized afterward. Men armed—why, you Europeans
haven’t carried arms in civil life since the beginning of the
eighteenth century—‘
‘Not actually, perhaps—‘
‘Not ACT-ually. Not really.’
‘Dick, you’ve always had such beautiful manners,’ said
Baby conciliatingly.
The women were regarding him across the zoo of robes
with some alarm. The younger Englishman did not under-

262 Tender is the Night