“I am lying up here,” he said, “paying full pension. I am entitled to have all that is going.” He recalled the Monday of two weeks ago, and his solitary walk, which had done him so little good; and committed himself to the view that it was that walk which had revolutionized his system and brought to the surface the latent infection. “But what a stately and solemn way the people hereabout have of talking,” he said, “I mean the common people; almost like poetry. ‘Then thank ye kindly and God be with ye,’ ” he repeated, giving the words the woodman’s intonation. “I heard that up in the woods, and I shall remember it all my life. You get to associate a thing like that with other memories and impressions, you know, and you never forget it as long as you live.⁠—Well, so Krokowski held forth again on the subject of love, did he? What did he say about it today?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. You know from the other time how he talks.”

“But what did he offer that was new?”