"Why?" asked the girl, looking at him in what his guilty conscience told him was a searching way.
Conscious that he had said an awkward thing, which he had, having regard to his position, Owain strove to turn it off with a laugh. "I am not vain enough to wish for admiration. I leave that to the Nuts and the Nibs."
"Horrid, conceited young men," said Gwen, as she fell into step beside him. "I do detest that class of person."
"Then I hope you don't think that I belong to the class in question."
"No. You're a man!"
"A very faulty man."
"I hope so. A perfect man would be horrid."
"And a perfect woman?" asked Owain, peeping under her large hat.
"There isn't such a thing."
"There is," he insisted. "I know one, at all events."