They looked at each other for some moments, then Darwen smiled. "By Jove, Carstairs, you are badly hit."
"Well, perhaps I am. But, you know, none of those girls to-night gave me an impression of genuineness; artificial and superficial, stereotyped, unoriginal, like the pawns on a chess-board, only capable of moving (intellectually) in one direction; they all held precisely the same views on precisely the same subjects, and they had absolutely no reasons for holding them, and yet they are so superlative."
"Dear boy, they're young."
"So was the kid. Seventeen, I think she said. Yet she gave me the impression of having thought about things."
"You're Saxon, Germanic, heavy. Have you read any German philosophy?"
"No! Why?"
"It suggests lager beer and sausage, many generations of 'em. Flat, ponderous, indigestible. I prefer champagne, and—er—some of those French dishes, you know."
"No, I don't know."
"Well! damn you for a Saxon, I don't either, but I've heard of 'em. You ought to have said you knew! Don't you see how you prick the effervescing bubbles of conversation?"
"Not at all! It seems to me I'm keeping it going."