“Then marry her and have done with it, and turn this wretched museum into a home.”
“I can’t find her.”
“What is her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just seen her once, I suppose,” I retorted. “A perfect profile sailing past in a carriage under a lace parasol. And you think that’s love. Little you know.”
I expanded my chest. Since I had come to terms with Mildred, some thirty hours before—and I had had a very uphill fight of it before she gave in—I felt that I was an expert in these matters.
“Chipps,” said Sinclair. (Chipps is not my name, but it has stuck to me ever since I was at school.) “Chipps, the truth is, we are in the same boat.”
My old wound gave a sudden twinge.
“No,” I said. “No. We aren’t. I’m not taking any water exercise with you, so you needn’t think it. Mildred and I are walking on the towing-path arm in arm, and I don’t approve of boating for her because I don’t like it myself. So she remains on dry land with me. In the same boat, indeed!”