“How do you mean?”
“Perhaps you can help me nevertheless. Our ideas on females may not be the same.”
Tarr always embarrassed him. Lowndes huddled himself tensely together, worked at his pipe, and met Tarr’s jokes painfully. He hesitated to sally forth and drive the joke away.
“What are your ideas on females?” he asked in a moment.
“Oh, I think they ought to be convex if you are concave—stupid if you are intelligent, hot if you are cold, frigid if you are volcanic. Always white all over, clothes, underclothes, skin and all.—My ideas do not extend much beyond that.”
Lowndes organized Tarr’s statement, with a view to an adequate and light reply. He gnawed at his pipe.
“Well, German women are usually convex. There are also concave ones. There are cold ones and hot ones.” He looked up. “It all seems to depend what you are like!”
“I am cold; inclined to be fat; forte tête; and swarthy, as you see.”
“In that case, if you took plenty of exercise,” Lowndes undulated himself as though for the passage of the large bubbles of chuckle, “I should think that German women would suit you very well!”