"I've changed almost everything—except these everlasting tweeds! I know, of course, that my affairs will come right in one way, presently. I shall get back to England before my leave's up: but I shan't go back the same man. The things that pleased me most before, won't be the things to please me most in future. I feel that, somehow."
"Things will come right only in one way, for you?" she echoed.
"Only in one way. I've lost the chance of all that's the best worth having—if I ever could have had such a chance."
"You're too young to give up hope. Almost as young as Sidney Cremer."
"What?—he's younger than I am?"
"Sidney is twenty-three."
"And has been a successful novelist and playwright for three years? He's a sort of infant phenomenon."
"Think of Pitt," Lesley reminded him, smiling.
"Once you said you didn't like men under twenty-six—they seemed so raw."
"I ought to be flattered that you should remember my sayings of 'once.' You see, though, Sidney's quite different from—other men, especially to me. But here we are at the stables. We'll talk about Sidney's car, instead of Sidney."