“Are there many local words?”
“There have been.”
“I suppose they die out.”
The conversation turned curiously. In the tone of one who replies, he said, “I expect that some time or other I shall marry.”
“I expect you will,” said Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply seemed not abrupt. “Would we see the Rings in the daytime from here?”
“(We do see them.) But Mrs. Failing once said no decent woman would have me.”
“Did you agree to that?”
“Drive a little, will you?”
The horse went slowly forward into the wilderness, that turned from brown to black. Then a luminous glimmer surrounded them, and the air grew cooler: the road was descending between parapets of chalk.
“But, Rickie, mightn’t I find a girl—naturally not refined—and be happy with her in my own way? I would tell her straight I was nothing much—faithful, of course, but that she should never have all my thoughts. Out of no disrespect to her, but because all one’s thoughts can’t belong to any single person.”