“Yes?”
“You do love old Derek, don’t you? I mean to say, you know what I mean, love him and all that sort of rot?”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t know! Oh, I say, come now! You must know! Pull up your socks, old thing … I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a chappie or you don’t.”
Jill smiled painfully.
“How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward as that. Haven’t you ever heard that the dividing line between love and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of times.”
“Oh, poets!” said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man’s estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked Doss Chiderdoss’ stuff in the Sporting Times, but beyond that he was not much of a lad for poets.
“Can’t you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?”
Freddie shook his head.
“No,” he said. “It sounds dashed silly to me!”