Re: Yuck.
You can be sweet to people you don't respect, just like you can be kind to children, or dogs. Victorian gentleman were supposed to be kind and courteous to women, but that was partly because the poor things were supposedly fragile and prone to hysteria. Holmes frequently made disparaging remarks about how illogical and frivolous women were.
"the motives of women... so inscrutable... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes... their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin."
"I would not tell them too much. Women are never to be entirely trusted, -- not the best of them."
I still love Holmes, and the Holmes stories, but the dude was of his time, and even for a man of his time, he weren't no saint.