Darnley laid his free hand on his friend’s arm, and they moved down the street together; but for a while Wolf heard nothing of what he was saying, so occupied was he with a sudden question, gaping like a crack in a hot stubble-field in the very floor of his mind, that had just then obtruded itself. Was he really “in love,” in the proper sense of that word, with his sweet bedfellow? “But very likely I could never be ‘in love’ in that sense with anyone,” he said to himself as they walked along.

And then he became aware that Darnley had been speaking to him for some while.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t take you,” he was saying now. “I would , like a shot, if she hadn’t been so funny the other day when I talked about you. But I expect there’s nothing in that! Perhaps you hurt her feelings in some way. She’s a queer little oddity. I found that out long ago. One has to be awfully careful.”