In this general perfection two kinds of fastidiousness were at war.
There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily on a desert
island; a master whose daintiness was, as it were, an investment,
cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in accordance with the laws
of competition. This competitive daintiness had caused Soames in his
Marlborough days to be the first boy into white waistcoats in summer,
and corduroy waistcoats in winter, had prevented him from ever appearing
in public with his tie climbing up his collar, and induced him to dust
his patent leather boots before a great multitude assembled on Speech
Day to hear him recite Moliere.
Skin-like immaculateness had grown over Soames, as over many Londoners;
impossible to conceive of him with a hair out of place, a tie deviating
one-eighth of an inch from the perpendicular, a collar unglossed! He
would not have gone without a bath for worlds--it was the fashion to
take baths; and how bitter was his scorn of people who omitted them!
But Irene could be imagined, like some nymph, bathing in wayside
streams, for the joy of the freshness and of seeing her own fair body.
In this conflict throughout the house the woman had gone to the wall.
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