The remainder of chapter two, after Jasper’s visit, is occupied with Charles’ dinner with Anthony Blanche in a hotel in Thame, a fair drive outside Oxford. A fuller character sketch of Anthony is given. Over dinner Anthony tells Charles about Boy Mulcaster, his first mention in the novel. In the BBC adaptation Boy is introduced earlier, as a guest at Sebastian’s lunch. The adaptation conflates the lunch with Anthony’s recounting of lending Boy money for a prostitute in le Touquet over the Easter vac in this passage. When Anthony finishes his account of being ducked in the fountain in a college courtyard he comments on Boy and his type: “Oh, la fatigue du Nord”. So the contrast between boorish, pale, drunk Northern European protestants, and Anthony as an exotic, Southern, Mediterranean Catholic is thrown into sharp relief.

But the main point of the dinner is for Anthony to tell Charles about Sebastian and his family, and to issue the warning “beware charm !”  Earlier we saw Sebastian warn Charles that his family are “madly charming”. Sebastian worries they’ll charm his love away.  Now Anthony issues a warning about all the Flyte family, and their charm, commenting of Sebastian: “tell me candidly, have you ever heard Sebastian say anything you have remembered for five minutes ?”