The dark man said:
"I'll make a note of that. . . . Go on."
Tietjens went on; for as long as he stayed there he felt himself a man, doing work that befitted a man, with the bitter contempt for fools that a man should have and express. It was a letting up: a real last leave.
[IV]
Mark Tietjens, his umbrella swinging sheepishly, his bowler hat pushed firmly down on to his ears to give him a sense of stability, walked beside the weeping girl in the quadrangle.
"I say," he said, "don't give it to old Christopher too beastly hard about his militarist opinions. . . . Remember, he's going out to-morrow and he's one of the best."
She looked at him quickly, tears remaining upon her cheeks, and then away.
"One of the best," Mark said. "A fellow who never told a lie or did a dishonourable thing in his life. Let him down easy, there's a good girl. You ought to, you know."
The girl, her face turned away, said:
"I'd lay down my life for him!"