"No, you're too wild. Tidinesss is a petty virtue."
"Well I confess it hasn't anything to do with my general character. I hope I'm not petty anyhow. It's sternly practical tidiness. I used to be lazy and find my stockings muddled up with the spoons, but it soon sickened me and now I have come to prefer the fag of clearing up to the discomfort of a muddle. Besides, if I'm going to have you here it oughtn't to be a beddy 'bed-sit,' but a sitty 'bed-sit.'"
"Your precious reputation," he laughed.
On another night she asked him what the Berrisfords thought about his absence from home.
"I don't know and I don't think I care!" he answered.
"Why? They must be interested in you, and you're very fond of them."
"I dare say, but I can't think of them now." He drew her to him. "Freda, I'm too happy to care about them. I just can't imagine that the world has any other place but London, or any other people but you and me. Nothing else is real; nothing counts, not India or Oxford or anything."
She yielded herself to him, but suddenly drew back.
"You mustn't go and muddle things," she said conscientiously. "Supposing you fail next September, what would I feel like?"
"I won't fail next September," he answered defiantly.