"You never speak of your relations to me and you never tell me whether you were in love when you were young; I have told you so much about myself!"

JOWETT: "Have you ever heard that I was in love with any one?"

I did not like to tell him that, since our visit to Florence Nightingale, I had heard that he had wanted to marry her, so I said:

"Yes, I have been told you were in love once."

JOWETT: "Only once?"

MARGOT: "Yes."

Complete silence fell upon us after this: I broke it at last by saying:

"What was your lady-love like, dear Master?"

JOWETT: "Violent . . . very violent."

After this disconcerting description, we drove back to Balliol.