He talked of women incessantly, but without any reference to their share in the higher things of life. He hinted vaguely of the existence of the cottage maiden, but declined to be drawn when I encouraged him to take me into his confidence. “It’s a ripping thing to be in love; in fact, it’s the only thing that reconciles me to stopping in this beastly hole.” “Romance is life,” I murmured, lilting agreeably to the rhythm he desired. “I don’t understand how people get on without it.” “I suppose there comes a time when everyone wants to settle down,” he said, echoing the usual concessions of profligate youth to the demands of a period so very far ahead that there appears to be little inconvenience in confiding all promises of reformation to its keeping. “When we are tired,” I assented. “Perhaps that is the truest definition of virtue, not to run any race with excesses we are not equal to.” “I say, that means a pretty long rope for young people, doesn’t it?” “Yes, the rope will give out with youth, and then they can conveniently hang themselves.” “I say, for goodness sake don’t talk like that. I shan’t dare to walk home.” “Are you afraid of the dark?” “Yes, I believe everybody is more or less.” “You are frank, at any rate. What a time primeval man must have had of it! I should say that when night fell these woods were alive with ghosts. I suppose the man with muscle was the only possible romanticist in those days. It was romance under its most healthy aspect.” “You mean that men had to fight for their women?” “Exactly; so much muscle, so many women.” “The women must have feasted on the sight they love best—men at each other’s throats.” “On the other hand, the woman must now and then have lost the weakling on whom she had set her heart.” From primeval woman we wandered by easy stages to woman, beflounced, befrilled and perfumed—woman on the path to supremacy. “I don’t know,” said young Gascoyne—the glamour of his cottage romance upon him, “but I don’t think I care about the sophisticated sort. You never know when they are telling the truth. There was a girl at Oxford——” Then followed a long story of a rather stupid romance of his college days, ending with, “And that put the finishing touch, and I got sent down.” “Sent down?” I murmured casually, as if it were news. “Yes, frightfully unfair. The other chap got off scot free on the ground that he was a hard worker and that there was nothing against him. Said he loved the girl and intended to marry her. Silly ass!” Young Gascoyne asked me to lunch the next day. I refused, but he announced his intention of walking over in the morning to fetch me. “It’ll be quite a relief to have someone to talk to. I’ve got one or two fellows coming down next week, but at present it’s deadly.” He bade me good-night again and again but each time sat down and commenced a new conversation.