"My own common-sense. How can two people talk unless someone starts by dogmatising? Supposing I started off, 'Sausages may possibly, if they are good ones and of sound pork richly fried, seem nice to some people, the world being as it is,' ... we wouldn't get far, would we?"
"And who said I wanted conversation?"
"I ventured to deduce it from the fact that you looked round when you thought I wasn't looking."
"I never did."
"Didn't you? Then I made a bad shot. I'm sorry!"
Martin wasn't very happy about this rather heavy beginning. The conversation was floundering hopelessly. Freda, seeing this, took him firmly in hand.
"Well," she said, closing the sinister work of decadence, "as you've come, you'd better stay and enjoy the sunshine and take an interest in me."
"Will you take one in me?"
"Oh yes! Fair play. Don't let's talk stilted rubbish any more: it's such an effort. Now then, I'll begin. What about Oxford and Mods?"
So he told her the weary tale. She was sympathetic in a rather challenging, offensive way, which he enjoyed.