The way she said, "Here is my Elizabeth!"-that annoyed him. Why
not "Here’s Elizabeth" simply? It was insincere. And Elizabeth didn’t
like it
either. (Still the last tremors of the great booming voice shook the
air round him; the half-hour; still early; only half-past eleven
still.) For he understood young people; he liked them. There was
always something cold in Clarissa, he thought. She had always, even
as a girl, a sort of timidity, which in middle age becomes
conventionality, and then it’s all up, it’s all up, he thought,
looking rather drearily into the glassy depths, and wondering whether
by calling at that hour he had annoyed her; overcome with shame
suddenly at having been a fool; wept;
been emotional; told her everything, as usual, as usual.