“No, really; they would bore you stiff; they are absolutely uncultured; all they can talk about is racing, or stables shop. Besides, I don’t want them here either; they would spoil these precious moments I’ve been looking forward to. But you mustn’t think, when I tell you that these fellows are brainless, that everything military is devoid of intellectuality. Far from it. We have a major here who is a splendid chap. He’s given us a course in which military history is treated like a demonstration, like a problem in algebra. Even from the aesthetic point of view there is a curious beauty, alternately inductive and deductive, about it which you couldn’t fail to appreciate.”

“That’s not the officer who’s given me leave to stay here tonight?”