Thinking of chapters one and two when Maurice is what I consider to be a boy still (as against youth or man), I certainly don't dislike him. To me, he comes across as being terribly confused and needing to hid that confusion in convention. Hence he follows his peers in such things as dropping a coat for servants to pick up and by telling the Howells that the woodstack was his mother, not theirs. Children like that really annoy me when i come across them, but at that age (which would linger on for longer back then) it is learned behaviour. I'd be concerned if he were still doing things like that at thirty because, by then, you've learned a good bit of your own rather than just what has been taught in your family. So I don't dislike him, I feel altogether rather sorry for him. He doesn't really have any kind of compass to guide himself by, and at least Mr Ducie recognises that and tries his best to do something to rectify that, but alas throws Maurice into an even more confused state, especially with his two-faced explanation of the glory of the human body...then worrying about other people seeing it.

So, I see the first two chapters at least as showing Maurice to be on his own from an early age, and not having the self awareness to make sense of either himself or his actions. We all know why he is upset because George has gone...because George was the personification then of the unacknowledged 'friend' that he so wanted, but that Maurice is very unaware of desiring at that point.

So it's one huge muddle for him, but I don't dislike him as a boy at prep school, by any means.