“Oh, Robert, it is cruel of you to be sarcastic about it,” I pleaded; “you know it’s not possible, and you know how wretched I shall be over there.”
“Good! You flatter me!” he replied. “It occurred to me just now that you would rather stay here to-night. And that is precisely what I stopped to ask the Captain.”
“And he has given you leave?” I cried.
“He hadn’t the slightest objection.”
“Oh! I adore him!”
“No; that would be going too far. But now, let me just get hold of my batman and tell him to see about our dinner,” he went on, while I turned away so as to hide my tears.
We were several times interrupted by one or other of Saint-Loup’s friends’ coming in. He drove them all out again.
“Get out of here. Buzz off!”
I begged him to let them stay.
“No, really; they would bore you stiff; they are absolutely uncultured; all they can talk about is racing, or stables shop. Besides, I don’t want them here either; they would spoil these precious moments I’ve been looking forward to. But you mustn’t think, when I tell you that these fellows are brainless, that everything military is devoid of intellectuality. Far from it. We have a major here who is a splendid chap. He’s given us a course in which military history is treated like a demonstration, like a problem in algebra. Even from the aesthetic point of view there is a curious beauty, alternately inductive and deductive, about it which you couldn’t fail to appreciate.”