He is a pathological apologizer.

In rehearsals here the director, Oliver Butler, has brought up kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with powdered gold or other colors to accentuate the cracks.

[…] they were soon on the beautiful common leading to Roehampton, where villas, which seem, like Beatrice's idea of King Pedro for a husband, made only for holydays […]

Personal merit and talent had been more considered than mere rank at the hôtel of the marquise, yet the most illustrious of the aristocracy frequented it.