Although she knew that the young man had talked nonsense--making an absurd proposal to her, and making it too on a purely unintellectual basis; as if she, a girl born in an atmosphere of intellectuality and breathing of this atmosphere into her life, could listen for a moment to a proposal made to the emotional and not to the intellectual side of her nature!--although he had talked this nonsense, still she could not deny that she felt pleased at the thought of it all. The air somehow seemed fresher about her, and she breathed more freely. Had none of those writers with a message suggested that an atmosphere saturated with intellectuality is like Rimmel’s shop on a spring day: one longs to get out once more into the pure scentless air of Nature’s own breathing? She felt all the first sweet satisfaction which comes from a good romp on the sands with a child who, though it has not conversed on intellectual topics, has brought one into the open air--into the air that blows across the sands from the sea. And she was glad that she had not snubbed him when he sneered at that triumph of the intellect known as Platonic friendship. She was happy to think that she was an exponent of that actuality of intellectuality, and that in his hands it had become a great force tending towards the civilisation of man. To be sure civilisation has always been opposed to Nature in its operations, and the best civilisation is that which forms the most satisfactory compromise with Nature. She knew all this, and a good deal more in the same line of elementary biology, and it was just because she had proofs of the success of her plans of Platonic friendship she was disposed to regard it as one of the greatest of civilising forces. All the same she felt glad that she had refrained from severity towards him when he had sneered at this force. She knew that if she had done so, she would now feel ill at ease. If a baby boy jeers at the precession of the Equinoxes--a phrase which it cannot even pronounce--an adult would surely feel ill at ease at rebuking it for its ignorance. But Amber Severn felt that she had no reason for self-reproach in the matter of her interview with young Lord Lull-worth. But then she was led to do a foolish thing, for she began comparing Lord Lullworth with the other young men who had been visiting her in the fulness of their disinterested friendship for her. He was the best looking of them all, she knew. He stood up straighter and he looked at her straighter in the face than the best of them had done. If it came to a fight....