He looked extraordinarily robust and athletic in his canvas kit. Why should he be tearing about aimlessly on a motor bicycle this May morning when he ought to be in France?
"I wish you agreed with me all along the line," said I.
He found a little iron garden seat and sat down by my side.
"I don't want to enter into controversial questions," he said.
Confound him! He might have been fifty instead of four-and-twenty. Controversial questions! His assured young Oxford voice irritated me.
"What do you want to enter into?" I asked.
"A question of honour," he answered calmly. "I have been wanting to speak to you, but I didn't like to. Passing you by, just now, I made a sudden resolution. You have thought badly of me on account of my attitude towards Phyllis Gedge. I want to tell you that you were quite right. My attitude was illogical and absurd."
"You have discovered," said I, "that she is not the inspiration you thought she was, and like an honest man have decided to let her alone."
"On the contrary," said he. "I'd give the eyes out of my head to marry her."
"Why?"