She looked at it; then, as he still held it out, took it from him. The exquisite fingers touched his own redder and coarser ones. 'Have you friends in Dunfield?' he asked. 'Friends?' 'Any real friend, I mean--any girl who gives you real companionship?' 'Scarcely that.' 'How shall you spend your time when you are not deep in electrics? What do you mean to read these holidays?' 'Chiefly German, I think. I have only just begun to read it.' 'And I can't read it at all. Now and then I make a shot at the meaning of a note in a German edition of some classical author, every time fretting at my ignorance. But there is so endlessly much to do, and a day is so short.' 'Isn't it hateful,' he broke forth, 'this enforced idleness of mine? To think that weeks and weeks go by and I remain just where I was, when the loss of an hour used to seem to me an irreparable misfortune. I have such an appetite for knowledge, surely the unhappiest gift a man can be endowed with; it leads to nothing but frustration. Perhaps the appetite weakens as one grows in years; perhaps the sphere of one's keener interests contracts; I hope it may be so. At times I cannot work--I mean, I could not--for a sense of the vastness of the field before me. I should like you to see my rooms at Balliol. Shelves have long since refused to take another volume; floor, tables, chairs, every spot is heaped. And there they lie; hosts I have scarcely looked into, many I shall never have time to take up to the end of my days.' 'You have the satisfaction of being able to give your whole time to study.'