“Not it! I don’t overeat myself, and I don’t over-fuck myself. One has a choice about eating too much. But you would absolutely starve me.”

“Not at all! You can marry.”

“How do you know I can? It may not suit the process of my mind. Marriage might⁠ ⁠… and would⁠ ⁠… stultify my mental processes. I’m not properly pivoted that way⁠ ⁠… and so must I be chained in a kennel like a monk? All rot and funk, my boy. I must live and do my calculations. I need women sometimes. I refuse to make a mountain of it, and I refuse anybody’s moral condemnation or prohibition. I’d be ashamed to see a woman walking round with my name-label on her, address and railway station, like a wardrobe trunk.”

These two men had not forgiven each other about the Julia flirtation.