Word: willises
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Willis expansively feels that he is doing Clyde and the Harcourts a big favor, but before novel's end he guillotines the town's economy and rubs out the last traces of his first friendships and loyalties.
Willis Wayde's fiber proves much tougher than the thinning Harcourt strain, and Bess would like to love him-but how can she really love this solemn youngster who reminds her of Uriah Heep? She drops him for a gentleman who plays good tennis and wears the right kind...
All this happens casually, pleasantly, without a crack in the customary Marquand mood. Willis Wayde's minor monstrosities, which outweigh his major villainies, sneak up on the unsuspecting reader, as they sneak up on Willis' unsuspecting wife-a professor's charming daughter named Sylvia. Willis turns out...
Emily Postscripts. Inevitably, the day comes when Willis Wayde's growing firm takes over the Harcourt Mill in a merger.
Willis has an infinite capacity for sentimental self-deception. He can persuade himself that his mean dealings are really high-minded, that his sales-convention humor is funny, that his cliche-laden speeches are profound. He has the most dreadfully patronizing mannerisms that ever drove a wife (or a reader...